Earlier this year I started a career change by leaving my office job and starting work as a nursing assistant at a hospital part time while going back to school for nursing. Right now I'm doing pre-reqs for an Accelerated BSN program.
I've been working as an nursing assistant/aide for 4 months, and overall I like it and find it rewarding to help people, but I've been trying to put my finger on what makes it so frustrating to me... I think is is the feeling that I'm always behind schedule, and am not keeping up or doing everything I need to do.
Does that feeling ever go away? Do RNs experience the same feeling that I do as an aide? Would better time management techniques help this? Does anyone else deal with this same type of thing?
I do usually get my work and charting done on time and have not received any negative comments on my work from my manager - I think it's more of the feeling of always being behind that gets to me.
I am a "Type A," firstborn, perfectionist type of personality (ISTJ for anyone who is familiar with Myers Briggs) so I know that's part of it for sure. I'm just not sure if it gets better (or worse!) as an RN or if it's something I'd have to live with in nursing.
All of this is making me consider a different kind of health career that might be better suited to my personality - perhaps clinical lab technician.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate it!
Until then and after then, I'm not going to worry about it because nowhere in my resume does it indicate ER (nor any of its subunits) as past experience, which they seem to totally disregard.
Thanks for sharing - I need to get more of this attitude of "not worrying about it" and just doing the best I can do with my experience and training!
You are overworked and underpaid.. just like the nurses. That "feeling" will never go away.
Corporate health care is working us to death .. to make money for the man.
Best of luck finding any position that pays the minimum living wage of $15/hour.
Thanks for your comment - I certainly feel underpaid working as a nursing assistant for all of the hard work I do! I am not able to live on what I make now (under $12/hr) also because I'm only working part-time (because of school.) I'm hopeful that once I have the letters after my name (RN), I at least won't be partly living off of savings anymore!
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I think it does go away, especially if you're working in an area of nursing you love; and/ or a good work environment. Experience does matter but I do not think it takes "years" for that experience to come. Some people are natural born problem solvers and find ways to work "smarter" instead of "harder" from the get-go. Plus, maybe being an aide is just not your thing, so please don't compare it with nursing. When I worked in a nursing home, I constantly applauded the aides I worked with because I did not desire their job and took longer doing the things they did with ease ( and vice versa, many voiced that they did not find nursing appealing).
You seem to be a doer and very focused; which leads me to believe that you'll do fine as long as you're working in a nursing area or environment that suits you. Best of prayers to you!
Specializes in M/S, Pulmonary, Travel, Homecare, Psych..
I can only share my experience.
I used to have that feeling. I do not anymore. The path that took me from the nurse who felt that way to not is complicated and already been written about. I'll just summarize by saying it was a windy, twisted road.
When I entered nursing, I went into culture shock. It was as if someone turned the difficulty level up on this game I was in. It went from beginner to expert overnight. I could not for the life of me imagine how to "win" this game anymore. I used to know how, but what I used to know no longer scored high enough to "survive".
I felt as you've described, among other things. Poor coping followed because, well, I panicked. For some reason my brain told me "As long as you outscore everyone else, you've doing well." That voice was giving me bad advice and sent me down the wrong path. It took me too long, a few years, to realize it was bad advice.
So, I'm sure you're wondering what made the voice stop having so much power over me.
The answer might surprise you. It has nothing to do with time management, bedside skills or on the clock efficiency. In fact, those things took a step backwards when I woke up.
Balance.
That was the answer for me. Instead of trying to live up to impossible expectations and always be the perfect princess nurse, I gained a new perspective on what doing a good job as a nurse is. I took that perspective, paired it with achieving balance in life and since then.......for some reason, I can live with it if I'm not the employee of the month every month now.
If you're over focused on your job, those feelings you're having will never leave. You've been doing this four months now? I proceeded to work with those feelings for four years and.........they intensify. They never leave, they just find new ways to raise the bar on you until either you learn to hush them or they break you.
Keep balance in your life. Having a happy home life, enjoying your time off and doing things that take your mind off work do not make you an underachiever. In fact, if you want to do this long term, those things are a necessary part of the recipe to being a great care giver.
I have never, once, not felt "behind." I am always anticipating. Once the "expected" anticipations are resolved, my mind wanders.
Even on the rare days that I am 100% caught up on charting, and my patients are exhausted from all the ambulation I've enforced, and I've reviewed their entire charts and can't find a test or lab that we might need, I still feel behind. What if there is a test/lab they need that I haven't though of? What if something comes up? (a lab, or a test, or a road trip...).
Partly the nature of the beast, and partly my personality!
I think it does go away, especially if you're working in an area of nursing you love; and/ or a good work environment. Experience does matter but I do not think it takes "years" for that experience to come. Some people are natural born problem solvers and find ways to work "smarter" instead of "harder" from the get-go.
Thanks for sharing this - I have been trying to find ways to improve as an aide (making a checklist of things I need to do, trying to do things in a more ordered way, etc.). I'll have to keep trying to find ways to "work smarter"!
Plus, maybe being an aide is just not your thing, so please don't compare it with nursing.
I was definitely assuming that working as a nurse is similar in many ways to what I'm doing as an aide, so it's good to know that it really shouldn't be compared! I am looking forward to having the nursing responsibilities and have fewer patients with more detailed responsibilities for each one. (Right now as an aide, I usually have between 8-11 patients where nurses on our floor on the same shift have a maximum of 5 patients.)
You seem to be a doer and very focused; which leads me to believe that you'll do fine as long as you're working in a nursing area or environment that suits you. Best of prayers to you!
I used to have that feeling. I do not anymore. The path that took me from the nurse who felt that way to not is complicated and already been written about. I'll just summarize by saying it was a windy, twisted road.
When I entered nursing, I went into culture shock. It was as if someone turned the difficulty level up on this game I was in. It went from beginner to expert overnight. I could not for the life of me imagine how to "win" this game anymore. I used to know how, but what I used to know no longer scored high enough to "survive".
Thank you so much for sharing your experience! This definitely resonates with me... I've always been a high achiever and try to throw myself 100% into things to be "the best." Starting in a new career at an "older" age than the other aides (I'm 10+ years older than most of them), I think I definitely feel (self-imposed) pressure to do everything perfectly and be the best.
Balance.
That was the answer for me. Instead of trying to live up to impossible expectations and always be the perfect princess nurse, I gained a new perspective on what doing a good job as a nurse is. I took that perspective, paired it with achieving balance in life and since then.......for some reason, I can live with it if I'm not the employee of the month every month now.
If you're over focused on your job, those feelings you're having will never leave.
Perspective and balance seem so crucial! I will definitely try to have a better perspective on my performance and bring my expectations from impossible to reasonable.
My work-personal balance has been off lately too, so that's probably part of why I'm struggling. My husband left me in January and I've sold my house, moved 30 mins away into an apartment, my two best friends both had babies (so we're not seeing each other as much), don't have any of my 3 dogs anymore, etc. Finding more to do in my personal/home life seems like it will help improve the balance and hopefully improve the whole situation.
Thanks again for your lengthy and thoughtful response!
I have never, once, not felt "behind." I am always anticipating. Once the "expected" anticipations are resolved, my mind wanders. ...
Partly the nature of the beast, and partly my personality!
Thanks for sharing! I think this is a good and different way to look at it - even if I'm not "behind" in reality, I may still *feel* "behind" because I'm always anticipating what's next. And that anticipation seems to be a good thing because it keeps us from getting behind in reality :-) Thanks!
Get over that feeling. You will never be able to "do everything you need to do". There will ALWAYS be a patient that has a need. You are putting out little fires as you go along.
As an RN, I learned after many years, to do what I could do, always remembering to "chart" everything.
ps3114
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Thanks for sharing - I need to get more of this attitude of "not worrying about it" and just doing the best I can do with my experience and training!