Do nurses hate nursing?

[pandora1212]

I’m a second degree, second semester nursing student and I’m feeling really discouraged. Nearly everything I see online about nurses and nursing is negative. From the “all mean girls become nurses” trope to endless comments on silly tiktoks from nurses telling students to “quit while they can” and talking about how much they hate their jobs. 

One of the clinical groups in my program even had a nurse walk up to their group at lunch time and tell them it’s not worth it and they shouldn’t become nurses. What the @#$% is up? 

I know burnout is real, especially right now.  But should I be as terrified as I am to enter the field in 10 short months? I’m really concerned that I won’t have supportive professional relationships to help me succeed as a new grad nurse. 

[Julia A]

Ugh thought I was the only one who felt this way, I’m a second semester NS too and I just feel like I’m swimming against a big negative wave of uninspiring comments and opinions on the nursing fields. Almost every forum or tiktok about nursing talks about how bad it is, but covers it up with “but it’s rewarding”. I’m not sure if maybe it’s some sort of emotional reflection of their own feelings and stress of being a nurse (which I can understand), but there has to be a nurse in the world that is 100% happy with their career choice right? 

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Keep in mind that human nature is to complain over praise. What you see online is frequently nurses venting. Those who are happy in their job typically aren’t going to take to the internet to proclaim it. 

When it’s time for you to enter the field as a licensed nurse, remember that attitude is everything. If you go in expecting negativity, you will be more likely to see negativity even in neutral situations. Keep a positive mindset, remember that the transition from student to nurse is hard and takes time to feel competent, and know where you can safely vent so that you don’t have negative things affecting you longer than they should. 

[Julia A]

3 hours ago, Rose_Queen said: If you go in expecting negativity, you will be more likely to see negativity even in neutral situations. Keep a positive mindset, remember that the transition from student to nurse is hard and takes time to feel competent, and know where you can safely vent so that you don’t have negative things affecting you longer than they should. 

That’s so true, thank you for reminding me of that❤️ 

[pandora1212]

7 hours ago, Rose_Queen said:

Keep in mind that human nature is to complain over praise. What you see online is frequently nurses venting. Those who are happy in their job typically aren’t going to take to the internet to proclaim it. 

When it’s time for you to enter the field as a licensed nurse, remember that attitude is everything. If you go in expecting negativity, you will be more likely to see negativity even in neutral situations. Keep a positive mindset, remember that the transition from student to nurse is hard and takes time to feel competent, and know where you can safely vent so that you don’t have negative things affecting you longer than they should. 

I get that, but the extent of negativity I have seen is pretty shocking. I mean, walking up to a group of students and telling them to quit is pretty extreme no matter how rough of a day it's been. 

Nursing will be a career change for me, I worked previously as a social worker. It was a lot of complaining there too - not enough funding, heavy caseloads, emotionally heavy work - but at the end of the day there was always a "we are here to support each other and our work is important" sort of sentiment. I guess I'm wondering if that sort of comradery and support exists within nursing? 

 

[JKL33]

I think it's best if you make up your own mind about nursing as you experience it.

This is way more nuanced than some idea of, "If people are positive and happy they don't come online to tell everyone and if they're Negative Nellies then they do go online and spread their misery."

I will summarize my personal perspective as an example.

I worked in a very large hospital as a new grad. I loved it. I was happy to have gotten the job and proud to be there. I was very challenged by the work but felt supported in honing my nursing skills and judgment. I worked hard at various aspects of the craft of nursing. I feel I was guided by expert RN coworkers who had a lot of experience and laid down a good foundation with their help. Management was supportive. I didn't feel that I had to be perfect as a human being to be considered an excellent nurse who was worth someone's respect.

At some point things seemed to be changing; my personal observation was that nurses began to be treated more and more poorly by employers. One day I found myself in a staff meeting and a CNO was literally ranting at this group of nurses who didn't even know what she was talking about or what might have happened to provoke such an attack. She was waving her finger around the room, threatening the group and using language and tones of voice that wouldn't even be used with mischievous school children, let alone adult professionals.

This sort of thing became more and more common.

It's probably tempting for others to wonder whether this was just my perception or whether I was getting burned out or maybe my personal life wasn't that great and I was letting home stress affect my work. Nope; not so much. I always loved patients and enjoyed patient care, and on the personal side I have a very loving and supportive personal network. I have a pretty good life.

I've simply grown less and less tolerant of the way nurses are being treated over the past decade or so. I reject being scapegoated, told (as part of a group) that things are my fault, that I should do better, that I failed in some way, that someone's perception is my fault. That I'm not fast enough or enough of a team player. That I've failed because I should have been in two places at once even though I don't make the decisions about how many people are available to do the work.

I've simply grown intolerant of the expectations of responsibility and accountability given the fact that nurses' power and autonomy have been declining as health systems have grown larger and more powerful.

That's it in a nutshell.

I'm not angry. I just reject it. And I've already put Plan B into action.

 

[Julia A]

36 minutes ago, JKL33 said:

I think it's best if you make up your own mind about nursing as you experience it.

This is way more nuanced than some idea of, "If people are positive and happy they don't come online to tell everyone and if they're Negative Nellies then they do go online and spread their misery."

I will summarize my personal perspective as an example.

I worked in a very large hospital as a new grad. I loved it. I was happy to have gotten the job and proud to be there. I was very challenged by the work but felt supported in honing my nursing skills and judgment. I worked hard at various aspects of the craft of nursing. I feel I was guided by expert RN coworkers who had a lot of experience and laid down a good foundation with their help. Management was supportive. I didn't feel that I had to be perfect as a human being to be considered an excellent nurse who was worth someone's respect.

At some point things seemed to be changing; my personal observation was that nurses began to be treated more and more poorly by employers. One day I found myself in a staff meeting and a CNO was literally ranting at this group of nurses who didn't even know what she was talking about or what might have happened to provoke such an attack. She was waving her finger around the room, threatening the group and using language and tones of voice that wouldn't even be used with mischievous school children, let alone adult professionals.

This sort of thing became more and more common.

It's probably tempting for others to wonder whether this was just my perception or whether I was getting burned out or maybe my personal life wasn't that great and I was letting home stress affect my work. Nope; not so much. I always loved patients and enjoyed patient care, and on the personal side I have a very loving and supportive personal network. I have a pretty good life.

I've simply grown less and less tolerant of the way nurses are being treated over the past decade or so. I reject being scapegoated, told (as part of a group) that things are my fault, that I should do better, that I failed in some way, that someone's perception is my fault. That I'm not fast enough or enough of a team player. That I've failed because I should have been in two places at once even though I don't make the decisions about how many people are available to do the work.

I've simply grown intolerant of the expectations of responsibility and accountability given the fact that nurses' power and autonomy have been declining as health systems have grown larger and more powerful.

That's it in a nutshell.

I'm not angry. I just reject it. And I've already put Plan B into action.

 

So would you say it’s something that you just became numb to? and that you put your experience and your thoughts into accountability first before the display of nursing that your colleagues where showing you?

[JKL33]

37 minutes ago, Julia A said:

So would you say it’s something that you just became numb to? and that you put your experience and your thoughts into accountability first before the display of nursing that your colleagues where showing you?

Not trying to be silly, and I do want to answer your questions and engage in the discussion. But can you rephrase? I'm not sure what you mean.

Thank you. ?

 

 

[Julia A]

21 minutes ago, JKL33 said:

Not trying to be silly, and I do want to answer your questions and engage in the discussion. But can you rephrase? I'm not sure what you mean.

Thank you. ?

 

 

No it’s okay re reading now it does seem like my question wasn’t clear sorry? basically I’m asking if you became numb to the criticism that you were seeing at work and hearing in general? Many people tell me that you just get used to it after a while and focus on yourself and your own practice.

[JKL33]

1 hour ago, pandora1212 said:

Nursing will be a career change for me, I worked previously as a social worker. It was a lot of complaining there too - not enough funding, heavy caseloads, emotionally heavy work - but at the end of the day there was always a "we are here to support each other and our work is important" sort of sentiment. I guess I'm wondering if that sort of comradery and support exists within nursing? 

I think the spirit of that camaraderie does exist within nursing. The problem is that the more pressure middle management nurses face from their (business and nursing) superiors, the less they are able to behave according to that guiding principle.

What you are seeing from nurses on the ground comes from the top down. It isn't that multiple thousands or even millions of staff nurses are "burned out" or have bad attitudes or are negative, dysfunctional people. It's a system that sucks. And even good people can and do get beaten down by it.

Example: You work under a generally kind and supportive nursing manager who does "get" what nursing is about and does know that nursing is important work. But higher-ups decide that they've studied various aspects of your department (I'll use the ED because that's where my experience is) and have decided that patients need to move through the ED as fast as humanly possible in order to prevent overcrowding. So processes need to move faster. But then, because of their budget preferences there can be no more expenditures (such as increased staffing) to help facilitate faster care and to process more patients more quickly.

So then what happens? Well, whether they mean to or not, that nurse manager has to implement expectations without additional resources. They try a few things, they have minimal or moderate success. But their superiors say it isn't enough, it isn't good enough. The numbers aren't good enough. So they have to put more pressure on the staff. They themselves start to get a little disgruntled and wonder why the staff can't just make this happen (because obviously that would be easier for them if someone could just make upper management's ideas magically happen).

But it doesn't work that way. So they are frustrated. They start to speak in more frustrated tones. They start to write people up for not following a new process to a "T" because they think if everyone would just drop everything and do that one new process perfectly (without neglecting any of the dozens of new processes that came before it), everything would be perfect and upper management would get off their back.

At least in acute care, there is an endless cycle of ^this^.

It gets old. Human beings do not react well to constantly being told they aren't good enough and they aren't doing enough.

[JKL33]

24 minutes ago, Julia A said:

No it’s okay re reading now it does seem like my question wasn’t clear sorry? basically I’m asking if you became numb to the criticism that you were seeing at work and hearing in general? Many people tell me that you just get used to it after a while and focus on yourself and your own practice.

Ah. Yes. Thank you.

No, I most definitely didn't become numb to it. In some ways I'd like to be that kind of person who can just ignore/roll with it, but for better or worse I'm not. The part where this becomes personal, where it has to do with *me* personally -- is that I absolutely can't become numb to being treated that way. I find it completely unacceptable when entities with the means, resources, power and authority to treat people well don't do so.

I was offended for quite awhile, admittedly. Then ultimately I said (to myself, about the way we were being treated), "Wait a minute. I am an adult professional. I work hard at caring for others and have never had a professional problem related to my care or my attitude. Explain to me why you are speaking to me this way, again?"

And then to myself (about myself) I said, "Um....why are you tolerating this."

Ultimately it makes me sad because I know that nursing doesn't have to be this way; my own earlier experiences in nursing prove that. But it's been 5-10 years since I have seen nursing employers treating staff-level nurses like experts in patient care or any kind of valuable resource whatsoever.

[Susie2310]

On 2/10/2021 at 2:31 PM, JKL33 said:

But it's been 5-10 years since I have seen nursing employers treating staff-level nurses like experts in patient care or any kind of valuable resource whatsoever.

I think there are a number of reasons for the above.  Being an employed nurse doesn't mean one is an expert in patient care, or even particularly valuable as a resource, unfortunately.  I don't believe that one should expect to be treated as an expert nurse if one really isn't.   However, one should be treated with respect.  What I have seen in the last 10 years is that there are many more newer/less experienced nurses practicing in acute care, some of whom I do not observe to be even particularly competent let alone experts in patient care, and fewer highly competent, experienced nurses.  I remember years back when there were far more experienced nurses working in acute care, and the nurses I remember were excellent nurses who treated patients and their family members respectfully and considerately.  Also, in the last 20 or so years there have been changes in nursing education I.e. clinical preparation of nursing students.