Good Bye to Nursing for me...

[healer27]

Well, the start of a new year and I'm kissing nursing

good bye after only 5 short months. I graduated in may and started at a hospital in august. My very first preceptor was a nightmare, on my 3rd day on the floor she said I was too slow and put me down in front of other

nurses or whoever was in distance of hearing her. At one

point she even said, "well, I have her she know's nothing I have to show her everything." So being enthusiastic I decided NOT to let it get to me and proceeded to take her C*ap for another couple of weeks. At which time I was moved to a different floor with a preceptor who was great and I learned alot from. PRoblem was at this hospital IF

I wanted to stay I'd have to take a evening position. SO I left a found a hosptial closer to home on days. Well, once again I have the preceptor from hell not only that but the managers In my opinion are nitpickers. ON my first day on the floor they wrote up a nurse who was in charge of making sure all the phones were back at the end of the day, for not having a phone returned. (someone took one home accidentally).. I found this ridiculous, it's a busy med/surg floor with an 8:1 patient ratio and they are worried about PHONES???? I could go on and on about the other horrors but it would be to long.

Long story short I've decide to quit. Luckily I don't NEED the job to support myself or I wouldn't be able to leave. my hubby makes a decent salary. I do feel bad placing all the financial burden on him but I'm planning on just picking up a admin position somewhere. I don't care if I'm making half the money I jsut want to be happy. I'm so SICK of being stressed going into work, stressed coming home, worrying about this, being stressed on the floor. To me its just not worth it. My hubby is worried that I'll change my mind and want to come back to nursing but won't be able to after leaving 2 prior positions. bUt seriously I can't imagine feeling this way.

I also just found out I'm expecting my first child and I really can't imagine the stress level as well as not eating/drinking/peeing an entire shift is good. So I'm gone. I give up, I give in, I just feel like I can't do it. I'm thinking I'm just not meant to be in nursing, or i woudn't have just kept inheriting bad circumstances and preceptors from hell.

Well, I'd love to hear if anyone else has left nursing? come back and any other thoughts you all might have.

Hope this is a good new year for all.

[Gromit]

kstec-

I'm not sure I agree with the 'dysfunction' rationale, but oddly enough, I'm not sure I dissagree with it either (yeah, figure THAT one out! )

I CAN answer part of the question however -as to why we enter a field where we are destined to be over-worked (and if pay=responsibility+risk, then we truly ARE underpaid since our responsibilities are great, and the risk to our health AND licensure are also great) and have to battle short staffing and a host of other issues JUST TO WORK. I say its because somewhere down the pipe, we like the challenge -or if not like, then need the challenge. Many people cannot handle the stresses involved in our field -hell, I'm not always sure >I

For my part, I do try to lessen my stress by putting my most critical patient on the split-screen monitor if I'm going to be in another patients' room for any length of time (its a nice tool, splitting the screen, but since the name of the patient is on the monitor, it would open up a whole other can of worms where hippa is concerned -so one must make sure to remember to change the screen back before one leaves the room).

I'll say it again. For whatever reason, we MUST like the challenge. :)

[incublissRN, BSN, RN]

Healer27:

I am so sorry you have been exposed to the underside of nursing. There's a saying, "Nurses eat their young." I too was given a hard time when I first became a nurse. I got a job two weeks before graduation at a local nursing home and I quit within 30 days. When I did quit I told the DON (the third DON in that thirty day period) exactly what had caused me to leave. Not two weeks later a narc book went missing and they HARASSED me for an entire month wanting to know where it was. I hadn't even been the last person to have it, the pharmacy tech who wasted the narcs and my supervisor had been. Finally the state board of nursing called to follow up on it because they had made a suprise inspection two days after I left. When I told them about the harassment, they stated I was not the only nurse that that facility had done this to and I lodged a complaint then and there. A few months later I found out from a friend who was an aide there that they had lost their rehab and skilled certification becuase of all the problems and it turned out my supervisor had "accidentally" taken the book home to "fix some count problems".

By that time I was hired with a wonderful agency that sent me to assisted living and skilled rehab homes. I would work a few days at one facility and then the next week it was on to the next place. I just went in, did my work, and didn't have to really deal with any problems at whatever facility I was at. It helped me learn prioritizing, flexibility, and how to avoid a lot of conflict with staff. Several facilities asked for me personally and one of the DONs wrote a letter of recommendation for me when I moved to another state.

My advice is to take some time with your pregnancy and if you need to work and keep your license up to date, look at working with an agency. Many of them guarantee only a certain amount of hours and you pretty much make your own schedule. At the very least, get a subscription to a nursing magazine. They sometimes have mail-in credits for education and information for classes in your area.

If you still find yourself leaving nursing, then good luck to you. May you have a safe and wonderful pregnancy.

So you worked for an agency as a new nurse? Did you find this difficult? A friend I graduated with in May is working for an agency and she LOVES it! She had experience on a med-surg unit as a student nurse before graduating.

[lupin]

IncublissRN:

I had a year's experience as an LPN before I finished my RN so I had a bit of nursing experience under my belt before graduation. I found it hard at first to be dropped into a new facility where no one knew me and I usually got the worst resident assignments the first couple of times to a new facility. I definitely learned how to prioritize and be flexible and how to effectively delegate, something a lot of graduates have problems with. But I had a certain measure of say-so in when and where I worked. If I didn't like a place, I didn't have to go back. If I wanted weekends off, I could arrange my schedule so that I would have them off.

After a few times of going to the same facility, I actually had DONs asking my agency for me specifically and the regular staff would lighten up a bit. In their defense, I had run into some agency nurses who would play the "I'm new here so my mistakes don't count" or those who sat around and didn't help the regular staff because "I'm not regular staff so they can't fire me". As agency you usually make a lot more than regular staff does and they know it so not pulling your weight or making a lot of mistakes makes them really mad. I don't blame them but as soon as they realized I didn't do that they would chill out some. Just whenever signing up with an agency, research it first. Some of the nation wide ones are not the greatest to sign up for. My agency was privately owned and run by two former DONs and that made a big difference I feel. I was just really naive and luckily got in with a good group of people.

Hope that was helpful. :monkeydance: :monkeydance:

[lupin]

Healer27:

Some of the doctor's offices I applied to said that they didn't hire brand new nurses, they hired those that had some experience. Also, a lot of doctor's offices hire LPNs or MAs because they can do a lot of the same things and they don't have to pay them as much as an RN.

Then again hospital will hire new grads and put them right out on the floor with barely any orientation so I really don't understand that mentality. Doctor's offices are not usually as acute as hospital pts and hey we all have to learn somewhere right?

Just don't be suprised if the pay is lower than that of bedside nursing. I asked for 16-18 dollars an hour at an interview and was told I was out of my mind for that.

[Epona]

I have read all 8 pages of messages here. I agree with one of the posters... that we do this because it's a challenge. I think that's right on target. I, myself, love challenges and the opportunity to help. I heard once that being a healthcare worker is like being an auto mechanic. They fix and tend to cars, we care and fix people. It's a huge responsibility and with that comes stress and insanity, but I guess.. we need the challenge... the challenge to make someone better. We help people. That's our job. Yes... a challenge indeed.

I am leaving my first career behind (Media) to dive into Nursing. Media was very fast-paced. There was no real forgiveness for error either and the "powers that be" at the top could be cruel. Ratings or circulation was down... people were cut. Gone. I saw folks with 25 years exp. gone like that. They put in 12 hour days to get a story out..... work through the night. These were hard working people. They had families to support. As journalists and reporters, WHERE would they work?? It's not like there is a TV station or newspaper right down the street. I pulled nights, weekends, holidays too. So with all these posts about the "pitfalls" of Nursing, I think I will be somewhat prepared as I can see some correlations b/t the two fields. You'll run into morons in any field, maybe moreso in Nursing, but I have already dealt with many in Media... the "I am the top anchor" personality "Bring my coffee and make-up bag to the set"... to "this is how you operate a tape machine"... please... to phone calls with "my house is burning down!!!" and I have to send out a crew as I am running down the hall with them carrying a map and microphone in hand....from the posts above I can see where Nursing may have some of the same similar dynamics. BUT thank goodness there are a lot of avenues to explore in nursing, the pay is good and in my area there are many jobs available. I studied Biology Pre Med in college also and was going to go into the health field initally, but ventured into broadcasting. Wish me luck this time around !!! E :selfbonk:

[Gromit]

Well, I'll say that nursing will give you another pair of advantages -odds are great you won't get canned because of 'slow seasons' -though some facilities participate in call-outs. The other part is that if you leave or are forced out, there are plenty of other positions just down the road :)

[dexter99]

Hello everyone! After reading some of the posts all I can say is do what you believe will make you feel happy... Life is too short to be miserable! But the thing about human nature is that we never get contented...

Oh and regarding your experiences with your preceptors I think these situations doesn't only happen in nursing... You see you have to be thankful in all the things you learn in life because you realize you're becoming a better person... Consider these as challenges there are two possible outcomes you quit(which doesn't affect your preceptor) or you glide go with the current and stay focused(then you can say to yourself I did it!)...And before you know it your so good at what you're doing that you're enjoying it , it become a part of your system...

[GardenDove]

Everytime I see this thread now, I think of the line "Goodbye cruel world!". It strikes me as melodramatic actually. Say, not to change the subject, but did anyone watch the Saddam execution video?

[GardenDove]

:offtopic:

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

everytime i see this thread now, i think of the line "goodbye cruel world!". it strikes me as melodramatic actually. ?

it strikes me that way, too. it amazes me, though, that someone who quit three jobs in six months seems to believe that her problems are everyone else's fault. (and that there are so many members willing to go along with that theory.) i'm not blaming the victim here, but surely she should at least take a look at her own contributions to the problems she was having!

[Sheri257]

I sincerely doubt that "hospitals allow" or even encourage the sometimes nasty behavior that nurses are having toward new nurses. Lets be a little more realistic (if not reasonable) here. Its ENTIRELY an attitude problem, and can stem from a number of different reasons. Think about it for a minute.

Older nurses (depending on how many years ago they started) started with a paltry wage by comparrison to what a new nurse (RN or LPN) starts with today. They also were not allowed to have the range or flexibility of todays nurses -what they were allowed to do years ago is by comparrison 'nothing' compared to what we can do today. They had far less respect than we get today, and were viewed (depending on how far back you wish to go) as far less necessary or integral to the well-being of the patient.

What you get then, is (either intended or not) resentment toward the newer nurses who have (by comparrison) a phenominally better starting wage, and in most cases far better working conditions than THEY started with -and it took them years to get what we essentially start out with. If you don't think that this can build resentment, then you aren't being very realistic when it comes to human behavior.

I have heard older RNs comment how the 'new ones' seem to have ever-increasing starting wages, but 'their (older ones)' wages didn't go up by the same ammount.

I won't say that its 'right' for the bad behavior to continue- because (of course) its not right. And it IS self-perpetuating. Those who were treated badly, will likely (and may not even realise it) do the same to the 'new guys' when (they) become the 'old crew' (much the same as an abused child will in turn have greater odds of growing up to be an abuser).

Seeing some of you actually try to reason that a hospital would encourage this behavior because of the silly notion that it would distract the nurses from how the hospital treats them is just silly, flies in the face of reason, and is downright paranoid.

I agree that the hospitals probably don't always encourage it intentionally ... although I do think some of it trickles down from management in one form or another. And I understand what you're saying here about the income problem at many hospitals.

But I had a nightmare preceptor at a union hospital where the veteran nurses did make great money in comparision to new grads. In that case, you made a lot more money if you had a lot more experience and everybody's pay and working conditions were negotiated by union contract.

So income wasn't an excuse to treat new grads badly in that case. The fact is: my preceptor was a witch because she wanted to be.

:typing

[Sheri257]

As a new grad who's worked as a student extern for the last two years, I've already gotten a taste of toxic environments. On the other hand, I was able to find a great job where toxicity wasn't a problem. Unfortunately, I just can't work for them since I need a pension and they just cut pension benefits for new hires ..

So ... my next job is going to be with the state. There are at least four different facilities and dozens of units I can transfer to if I run into the toxicity problem again, without losing my benefits. That way, I won't have to feel like I need to quit nursing. I'll just keep moving until I find home.

It's weird that as a new grad, I feel I have to plan my career this way but ... I'm just being realistic.

:typing