Future Nurse with a Purpose

HiddencatBSN, BSN · Jul 26, 2021

Capitalism. Profit-driven healthcare will constantly put money before well-being.

SmilingBluEyes · Jul 26, 2021

Over-regulation and an increasingly hostile patient population in addition to the above post have taken the wind out of my sails.

What area of nursing do you work in, OP?

JBMmom, MSN, NP · Jul 26, 2021

I have never felt nursing was a calling, it's my job. I am qualified to do the job and I approach it as I would any job, do it to the best of my ability at all times. I think that in many ways, transitioning from med-surg into critical care, I have less frustrations. When I was on the med-surg unit, doing all of the required charting with an eight patient assignment was much harder than it is now with a 2-3 patient assignment. Also, the difficult and demanding patients from a floor like med-surg are tempered somewhat by a ventilator in their airway to keep them from complaining. I think it's easier for me to see the positive impact of my job because on occasion I can literally play a part in saving a life. Yes, I've been assaulted by patients, and I've been yelled at by families. But not with the frequency that is encountered in some other areas of the hospital. Even the most demanding families tend to back off a little when their family member is placed on life support. And for those that are unable to contain their emotions, I can truly understand that they are dealing with nearly immeasurable stress with a loved one facing potential life and death issues.

That's not to say I have no complaints. The focus on profits over quality care is extremely frustrating at times. Being in charge of the critical care unit and constantly being hounded by supervisors and doctors to move someone out so they can put someone else in the unit is one of my biggest annoyances. Being short staffed at least a couple times a week, sometimes resulting in potentially unsafe assignments, is draining at times. And if I focus on those things I can work myself into an indignant huff that makes my job less bearable and a change in career look appealing. But overall, I enjoy my job. My goal is to leave every patient at least a little better than they were when I arrived. If I can do that and feel good about the care I provided, most of the other stuff falls to the wayside.

Good luck with your career. I hope that it meets your expectations.

SmilingBluEyes · Jul 26, 2021

If you are a future nurse, you may not have the title of "nurse" in your user name. It violates TOS. Just wanted you to know that OP.

Wuzzie · Jul 27, 2021

Profit over people and the pending collapse of our society.

JKL33 · Jul 27, 2021

11 hours ago, NurseSully said:

More importantly, what can we do so new nurses who have that same overflowing fuel of passion to help others never stray from losing it and prevent others from being swayed from making that decision to become a nurse?

Hello and welcome.

I will share a few things that will sound harsh if only given superficial consideration. If you spend some time mulling it over, it may make sense. And it isn't bad. ??

So one thing to understand is that the word passion has different connotations in different contexts and for different people. Some people simply do not think in the terms you are using even if they enjoy their career/role it or are committed to it or it was their dream or long-term plan, etc., etc. They might enjoy nursing and do a good job at it without ever using any words that conjure up bursting hearts or rockets blasting off. ?

Life isn't too black and white. Nurses are people, not just nurses/employees, workers, do-gooders, heroes or passionate angelic beings. We each have our own place that we came from, our own complicated make-up and our own road we are walking. All of that makes everybody's situation a little bit different. It actually isn't every nurse's life goal to devote every fiber of their being to nursing. Each person will decide for themselves how to identify with nursing.

It is important not romanticize nursing. That is an error that actually can contribute to eventual disappointment and dejection, so it really isn't innocuous in terms of this topic.

11 hours ago, NurseSully said:

More importantly, as a career nurse what would you want new nurses coming into the field to know and what would you want them not to have to go through to help them never lose themself and their passion?

I would want them to know the things I've written thus far. It is important to have a realistic view of 1) who they are 2) what nursing is. The way not to lose oneself is to have realistic expectations so that when the brand new nurse beings practicing nursing there isn't immediate panic about the fact that...it turns out nurses and patients are merely human beings.

In your nursing studies you will begin to explore and learn more about yourself, others and the nursing profession. And then basically that is a process that is continued during your career and life. Interesting, to say the least. ?

macawake, MSN · Jul 27, 2021

14 hours ago, Nursing_Student said:

Nursing to me has always been something bigger than myself. It was a calling that never was silent and always in bold letters. Nursing itself is to help and heal others in many specialties in several fields for a broad range of unique human individuals that are amazingly born on this earth. It's a passion and a drive that I feel can fuel an entire city, yet I feel like someone who is going into nursing I'm observing career nurses struggling to find that passion that they once had and telling others it's not worth it. It makes my heart sink. Makes me sad that Nurses who are heroes of this earth are no longer able to see the amazing work and care that they do for others every day so selflessly. Even more so they are no longer, with integrity, able to tell others who are interested to go down that path and to follow it.

Hi Nursing_student and welcome to AN ?

I’m not sure how old you are but I sense some youthful exuberance in your post?

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so passionate about anything that it could ”fuel an entire city”. Well, possibly parachuting. But that’s only because I’m an adrenaline junkie.

I don’t do my job selflessly. I work to live, I don’t live to work. Don’t get me wrong. Helping people through a tough time in their lives does feel meaningful. The nurses and physicians I work with respect me, my patients appreciate me and my manager supports me. I find my job intellectually stimulating. All in all, I really do enjoy my job. But at the end of the day, my job is just a means to an end. To be able to live a quality life. But sure, it’s a definite bonus that I get to help people while doing my job. I would recommend my job to others as long as they understand both the upsides and the downsides.

I’m a second career nurse, and when I started nursing I already had a good grasp of who ”I am” and what I want from my work life. I also had solid experience of dealing with human beings in crisis. For me personally, I think that helped me to have realistic expectations about what nursing might be like.

14 hours ago, Nursing_Student said:

More importantly, what can we do so new nurses who have that same overflowing fuel of passion to help others never stray from losing it and prevent others from being swayed from making that decision to become a nurse?

14 hours ago, Nursing_Student said:

I want to hear what could have been better in the workplace that would make it both sustainable and more enjoyable. I want to know how being short staff affected nurses and why it made it so difficult. What could be communicated better or what isn't getting communicated at all? Do you have any ideas about what could make it better? Do you know a solution that even when short staffed can make it sustainable and safe for the patients and the nurses burnt out from extreme hours and high caseloads? Do you think it's due to individuals going into nursing for the wrong reasons?

I appreciate that your motivation comes from a good place, but I’d like to offer a word of caution. Try to keep your entusiasm, but don’t be temped to look at nurses who’ve been doing the job for a longer time than you and who may not share your level of enthusiasm, like they are somehow ”less than” (the ideal nurse). There is really no right or wrong reason, or one reason that is loftier than another, for a person to choose nursing as a career. The only wrong reason I can think of, would be a person who chooses nursing solely for the power position they’ll have, and use that power to actively try to hurt patients.

I wish you the very best on your nursing journey! ??

NightNerd, MSN, RN · Jul 27, 2021

I don't think I ever went into this with anything resembling a passion for nursing. When I chose this, it was because I was having the realization that I couldn't afford grad school and wouldn't be able to for a long time. There were some other helping professions I was looking at, but nursing ended up being the most doable and affordable for me at that point in life.

I like to think this hasn't contributed negatively to my work. I did always want to work in a job that was genuinely beneficial to others, because it aligns with my values and how I want to live my life. But it's definitely work, and it's with great difficulty that I have a hard time wholeheartedly encouraging others to pursue it.

For me, there are too many problems all thrown together that have burned me out of any reverence for this field. It's the idea that we should just accept the verbal and physical abuse coming from patients and visitors as part of the job. It's how every so often another job responsibility will be added to my plate but nothing removed in its place, so now I'm drowning even more than I was before, and my patients are the ones who suffer. It's being short staffed every day and night and being told by administrators that "other units have it worse; you should be grateful you have what you have." COVID is definitely part of it, LOL. It's not being able to enjoy even a single holiday with family because I can't get a stretch of days long enough over even one of them to travel because "someone has to staff the unit." (I'm happy to work my fair share of holidays, but if I work Thanksgiving and the days before and after, why on earth can't I get a few days together at Christmas?) Also, it's not being able to get vacation time approved and then losing that time because, for reasons I'll never understand, the time off that I've *earned* has an expiration date.

I think burnout is inevitable in the conditions most nurses work in. "Self-care" is such a big buzzword now, and I'm sick of it. It's a total cop-out on the part of hospital administrators who won't take a good look at how they're contributing to the misery of their staff. They allow working conditions to become worse and worse, then deny us the means to cope with it and get some joy in our off-time. It's impossible to sustain, at least if you want productive nurses.

I like taking care of my patients, and I do feel like my work is valuable. I'm in this thing too deep to quit now, so I'm focusing on the parts that I like and raging about the things that we shouldn't be dealing with. But no matter how much fuel there is on your fire- which is not a bad thing! - I have to encourage you to keep yourself warm first, rather than direct every last bit of your energy outward, OP. I'm genuinely happy for you, and even a little envious, that you clearly have such pride in your chosen career path, and I would never encourage you to lose that. But I do warn you to be prepared that often, you will not be able to do everything, or even most things, you've set out to do in this work. It's becoming increasingly difficult to take care of patients now, for all the reasons I stated above, and at some point you have to prioritize your own health and well-being. With the state of nursing as it is now, I don't want to spend my one earthly life being defined and consumed by this job.

RNperdiem, RN · Jul 27, 2021

One thing I noticed in your post, is the description of nursing as an abstract. Nursing described as heroes of this earth selflessly devoting ourselves to the care of humanity.

Most of us don't live and work on that cloud. We live and work firmly on the ground of nursing work. Nursing not as a state of being, but nursing as work. It is kind of like the difference between parenthood as an abstract idea and the real daily hard work of childcare.

Nursing work often has long irregular hours that can affect your sleep. Some nurses start out of shifts that leave them sleep-deprived and their physical and mental health suffers. Nursing work is usually a heavy workload. Lots of people are totally depending on us for their care in their ill and disabled state. Turns every two hours, incontinence care, pain control, suctioning secretions, monitoring around the clock. Nurses are always "on" and responsible for the care of people who can suddenly take a turn for the worse makes a job stressful. Nursing work requires stamina and resilience.

Nurses get into nursing for a variety of reasons. Passion is an unreliable emotion, and not enough to sustain a person in the long run. Resilience is a trait needed to sustain a career in nursing. My opinion is that the nurses who thrive best in nursing are the ones who build a satisfying life outside of nursing. They care about nursing, they care about their patients, and they build up outside interests, relationships, travel and other aspects of their life.

OUxPhys, BSN, RN · Jul 27, 2021

Horrible working conditions. Being held responsible for people's mistakes that went through much more schooling and will be making much more money than me. Short staffing. Profits over anything else.

I went into nursing because it's a stable career field and it can pay well. So many possibilities: if you don't like one area you can move onto another. That whole "Nursing is a passion" or "Nursing is a calling" is a bunch of BS.

macawake, MSN · Jul 27, 2021

18 hours ago, Nursing_Student said:

Makes me sad that Nurses who are heroes of this earth are no longer able to see the amazing work and care that they do for others every day so selflessly. Even more so they are no longer, with integrity, able to tell others who are interested to go down that path and to follow it.

7 hours ago, JKL33 said:

It is important not romanticize nursing. That is an error that actually can contribute to eventual disappointment and dejection, so it really isn't innocuous in terms of this topic.

Hello again OP, I’ve been thinking some more about your post. I want to be careful about how I word this, because my goal isn’t to dampen your enthusiasm, but rather to try to help you have more realistic expectations about nursing. Look at it as emotional self-defense.

The part of JKL33’s post that I just quoted really struck a cord with me.

I am fortunate in that the absolute majority of my patients are perfectly nice to me. But occasionally, or perhaps more often depending on where you work, you will encounter patients who despite your very best efforts, will be horrid to you. They might scream names at you, and it won’t be ”angel”. Some might be physically abusive. These patients can be abusive due to disease processes, that they have no control over. But some people are just plain mean.

You might make a mistake that actually ends up hurting a patient. We are human and we all make mistakes. Is this something that you are prepared for?

Sometimes you will connect with a patient or their loved one, and you are unable to help save the patien’s life. That’s something that most of us have dealt with, and it requires a secure footing and a good support system in place to deal with those feelings.

You might meet children who’ve been horribly abused by the people who are supposed to love and protect them.

You might be stretched so thin due to inadequate staffing that you know in your heart, that it’s not possible to provide the level of care that you would want, and that the patients deserve. That can eat away at your conscience despite staffing being completely out of your control and definitely not your responsibility. It’s 100% the employers’ responsibility, but it’s you and all your feelings who actually meet the patients and hear their stories.

Despite my intention, I feel like this might sound like I’m trying to scare you away from nursing. But I’m not. I’m only concerned that if your self-image is that of a selfless angel who always saves the day, the scenarios I’ve described might impact you forcefully.

18 hours ago, Nursing_Student said:

Do you have any ideas about what could make it better? Do you know a solution that even when short staffed can make it sustainable and safe for the patients and the nurses burnt out from extreme hours and high caseloads?

The answer is no. Patient safety requires adequate staffing. It’s not the only thing required, but it is the foundation that safe care is built on.

2 hours ago, RNperdiem said:

Nurses get into nursing for a variety of reasons. Passion is an unreliable emotion, and not enough to sustain a person in the long run. Resilience is a trait needed to sustain a career in nursing. My opinion is that the nurses who thrive best in nursing are the ones who build a satisfying life outside of nursing. They care about nursing, they care about their patients, and they build up outside interests, relationships, travel and other aspects of their life.

I can’t like this enough. I agree 100%.

Take care OP!