Do you regret going into nursing?

Published

And why?

Specializes in Cardiac Care.

I'm the odd one!

I LOVE my job. I work 12 hour shifts, straight nights, three nights a week on a telemetry floor. I love the nurses, the techs, and the patients. Not too crazy about pharmacy, but that's not uncommon. I like the docs and I love the NM. I could do without the administrative bull, and the REAMS of documentation...mindless, repetitive, annoying muckety muck! This schedule gives me the opportunity to learn and to REALLY practice what I learned in school, that is, to BE a nurse.

I LOVE my job!

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Specializes in Acute Care.

Sometimes.

Being a nurse is truly a dream come true.

But the worse-than-high-school clichiness, bad management, highly-paid out of touch executives, cost (staff) cutting, overtime, repetative documentation, entitled frequent fliers, etc... really have been getting me down lately.

When the noncompliant, admitted third time in 2 months for DKA diabetic patient threatened to sue me because I threw away their pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, I just about walked out then and there.

As much as the image makes me sudder, I want to be the bedside angel who occaionally gets to make a sick patient better, not the handmaiden/whipping girl for horrible patients.

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I've only been in nursing for 2 years, but I do already have my regrets. I thought I would feel empowered, but truly all I feel is small. The back-stabbing by other nurses makes me feel like I'm in Jr. High again. I work nights & my manager calls me at all hours (9AM-3PM is all hours for night shifters) for ridiculous things. "Did you sign-up for ACLS class, did you fill out this or that survey, did you do your NIH recert.) We never have a PCT who will do the job or we just don't have one at all. I haven't had a raise since I started & the new grads. being hired now make as much as me. I think if I could do it again I would have gone into health care, but as an U/S tech or a resp. tech.

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Specializes in Corrections, Cardiac, Hospice.

I love being a nurse and wouldn't do anything else at all if given the chance.

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If you have other interests-teaching, accounting, etc-I would suggest you look closely at those areas. Teaching is generally M-F with a few weeks off in the summer-a break to recoup from the stresses of the job. You have weekends and holidays off. Very family friendly. Accounting and business-based jobs aren't quite as family-friendly but allow for holidays. I love my patients, I enjoy the fast pace of the floor I'm on, but I feel that in the near future there will be so much oversight and paperwork justifying fees that nursing as we have known it will be gone. Our administration asks our nurses to work as many as 20 hours in one day. We get no breaks, maybe 10 minutes for lunch if we're fortunate (although they take 30 minutes out of our time for lunch). We get sent home if the patient to staff ratio goes down, then get called in to work at all hours if they unexpectedly need help. I do get satisfaction for the work I do, but I don't want my daughter or any young person I know to go into hospital or clinic nursing. Perhaps hospice or home health nurses would have a better experience to share with you.

My mother was a teacher after my father retired from the Navy.

I saw her work twelve and fifteen hour days (tests to grade, projects to complete, conferences, PTA meetings), go in on weekends, have to go to work when the kids were cancelled (never understood how they could delay school for weather but require the teachers to come in at regular time - I mean, really?), and be told things by parents and students you'd never believe (like the seven year old who looked my mother dead in the face and said, "I don't like you because you're white" - how sad is that??). Most summers she had to work summer school - which meant only three weeks off during the summer total. If she was sick, the substitute teacher was paid OUT OF HER PAY (might be different now but that's how it was then where she worked) unless it was for an extended period during which the sub would be hired as essentially a temp by the school board.

If she needed to leave early for doctor's appointments or because I was sick, she either put the class in the hands of her assistant - or paid for a sub if her assistant was also out.

If her kids didn't test up to state standard, it didn't matter if she had a classroom full of kids who were so far below grade level they never should have been promoted in the first place - SHE was the one who had to answer to it.

She had no lunch break - ever - because she was of course responsible for the entire class in the lunchroom, and since the teachers also rotated "lunchroom duty" occasionally she was minding the whole lunchroom.

If she had to go to the bathroom, someone had to be in there to mind her class.

She either had her pay spread out over twelve months - for significantly less take-home a month - or pulled a full check for nine months and then went three without pay.

She became certified to teach reading and got out of the classroom after several years just to get some relief. She taught Reading Recovery and rotated kids through her reading lab and her stress level dropped considerably as a result.

She did a little dance when she retired.

Give me nursing any day.

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Somedays I honestly do! Somedays...I remind myself of the fact that I do help people, it is an extremely flexible job and it allows me to have security in a rough economy. On the other hand, I am starting to hate "hospital" nursing more and more, to the point where it has led me to go back to school for an advanced degree. Nurses dont get half the respect they used to. It is a sad state of affairs. I also see alot of unprofessional behaviour from the part of nurses, mostly I think from the stress they endure every day. They end up venting in front of patients or saying things to patients that are completely inappropriate. Some days....I just feel like a robot...doing my job and not really enjoying it. So far , Im not impressed with my manager at all...I went up to her the other day to express some concerns ....and she gave me a big speech ....but didnt really listen to a word I was saying. I think some managers like their office view and forget to care about the "floor work" that nurses endure day in and day out. Ive only had one manager step up in my 7 years as a nurse. She would put on scrubs and work with the rest of us. Now....that is a manager! But they are hard to find.

I think im getting close to being done with hospital nursing. Hopefully , I'll be happier outside the hospitals walls.

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Good Lord, that's bad. I'm not sure the problem is the profession; I think the problem is your job. Get a new one! I don't think it's like that in all nursing jobs. If you let them get away with that, then you won't know if nursing is right for you or not.

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Sorry, the above was to manatee11.

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I think the question should be phrase, "WOULD YOU STILL PURSUE NURSING IF THE PAY WASN'T THAT MUCH?"

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Specializes in Cardiology (ITU), Acute Renal/Dialysis.

bad reasoning MJ :uhoh3:

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Specializes in Cardiology (ITU), Acute Renal/Dialysis.

"But the worse-than-high-school clichiness, bad management, highly-paid out of touch executives, cost (staff) cutting, overtime, repetative documentation, entitled frequent fliers, etc... really have been getting me down lately".

me too CHEWIE 123. I actually hate my job at the moment!To be honest the job would be a lot easier if the clicks weren't allowed to flourish thanks to managers with no "b***s". :jester:they are the jokers! I've talked before about "psychoyic Princesses" who i have to work with - they are the managers of the future unfortunatly! :devil:

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Specializes in Cardiology (ITU), Acute Renal/Dialysis.
I think the question should be phrase, "WOULD YOU STILL PURSUE NURSING IF THE PAY WASN'T THAT MUCH?"

Money is not my motivation - quality of life is. If iwere working in the caring profession ithought i was working in then yes i would do it for less pay. Ifmy pay was reduced tomorrow in the atmosphere i have to work innow, thenthats a diffeent story. I am actually looking for another job outside of nursing for reasons other than money, but to save my sanity! :crying2:

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