Not what I expected

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in Utilization Review.

Buckle up, I ended up typing way more than I thought I would:

So, I mainly need someone to vent to, but I also need the experience and wisdom from other nurses on here to help me figure out what I am doing. Let me give a little bit of background:

So I graduated in Ohio at a well-known nursing school with my BSN in December of 2014. By May of 2015 I landed a job at the Cleveland Clinic on a med-surg telemetry floor. Not my first choice, in fact, I've always hated med-surg, but was told time and time again to start there because you get such great experience, yada yada. I'm not saying what I've learned in the past 10-ish months hasn't been useful, but what it has most definitely done has made me want to quit nursing.

I am desperately looking for new jobs. I job hunt at home, I job hunt at work, I look into different degrees, I tell myself I'm just going to go work at a coffee shop (still a legitmate thought) and to hell with all the rest. I just don't know what to do. I am on days, part time (2 12s a week), and that has helped my stress, but I still have huge flare ups of IBS before a shift. I still feel as though I just want to quit without a back-up plan.

Despite my hours and hours of searching and applying to jobs, I have only just recently as I approach a year started to hear back from a few, 2 with interviews. The one interview was far too much commuting to the other side of Cleveland for me and constantly going to different locations. Not OK with that. The second one was through Fresenius and it's for a chronic dialysis position. Now, I don't have a huge passion for dialysis but I do think it's very interesting, I like the idea of being in a little bit of a "manager" role, and the hours are better in terms of rarely any Sundays and no Christmas, Thanksgiving, or New Years Day shifts. But I am so afraid that I go into this job (the offer may or may not come tomorrow) and decide I still hate being a nurse.

I would love to do case management or nursing informatics or some sort of support role but the problem I am finding is that no where will hire a nurse with under 3 years experience into those roles. I have also thought about outpatient surgery and truly believe that would be my favorite kind of nursing as I've done it in the past as just an unlicensed helper (stocking rooms and setting up sterile fields when in school). Another thing I've looked into is holistic nursing or just doing nursing vlogs/working from home in some way.

Honestly, I'm a fairly "lazy" person. I really enjoy my free time. With stuff like IBS and dermatitis that is triggered by stress this past year has not been enjoyable in nursing. And I know what a lot of you are thinking, why didn't you research nursing more? Why didn't you know it would be like this?... I think I was just dumb, young, and hopeful. My school constantly told us we would have no trouble getting jobs. We were told over and over how great nursing is and that you can do "anything" with it. But unless you know a guy who knows a guy it feels like majority have to get stuck with the sh*t. And I know nurses who looooove med-surg... but I am not one of them.

Thoughts?

PS. I love the people I work with. I love my manager. I have told her I am interested in going into something other than med-surg but haven't wanted to seem like a baby so haven't really told her the depths of how much I hate this job. And like I said, it's not the people at all. It's mostly the pain-seeking patients, dementia/Alzheimer patients who are fighters, the endless calls from the telemetry monitoring system who tell me ten times that my patient had a period of asystole but it was just artifact, doctors who won't return my pages, or family members who don't know the first thing about my job or who sneak in big macs to my diabetic patients and don't tell me until their blood glucose is 400. Sh*t like that just burns me up.

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Buckle up, I ended up typing way more than I thought I would:

So, I mainly need someone to vent to, but I also need the experience and wisdom from other nurses on here to help me figure out what I am doing. Let me give a little bit of background:

So I graduated in Ohio at a well-known nursing school with my BSN in December of 2014. By May of 2015 I landed a job at the Cleveland Clinic on a med-surg telemetry floor. Not my first choice, in fact, I've always hated med-surg, but was told time and time again to start there because you get such great experience, yada yada. I'm not saying what I've learned in the past 10-ish months hasn't been useful, but what it has most definitely done has made me want to quit nursing.

I am desperately looking for new jobs. I job hunt at home, I job hunt at work, I look into different degrees, I tell myself I'm just going to go work at a coffee shop (still a legitmate thought) and to hell with all the rest. I just don't know what to do. I am on days, part time (2 12s a week), and that has helped my stress, but I still have huge flare ups of IBS before a shift. I still feel as though I just want to quit without a back-up plan.

Despite my hours and hours of searching and applying to jobs, I have only just recently as I approach a year started to hear back from a few, 2 with interviews. The one interview was far too much commuting to the other side of Cleveland for me and constantly going to different locations. Not OK with that. The second one was through Fresenius and it's for a chronic dialysis position. Now, I don't have a huge passion for dialysis but I do think it's very interesting, I like the idea of being in a little bit of a "manager" role, and the hours are better in terms of rarely any Sundays and no Christmas, Thanksgiving, or New Years Day shifts. But I am so afraid that I go into this job (the offer may or may not come tomorrow) and decide I still hate being a nurse.

I would love to do case management or nursing informatics or some sort of support role but the problem I am finding is that no where will hire a nurse with under 3 years experience into those roles. I have also thought about outpatient surgery and truly believe that would be my favorite kind of nursing as I've done it in the past as just an unlicensed helper (stocking rooms and setting up sterile fields when in school). Another thing I've looked into is holistic nursing or just doing nursing vlogs/working from home in some way.

Honestly, I'm a fairly "lazy" person. I really enjoy my free time. With stuff like IBS and dermatitis that is triggered by stress this past year has not been enjoyable in nursing. And I know what a lot of you are thinking, why didn't you research nursing more? Why didn't you know it would be like this?... I think I was just dumb, young, and hopeful. My school constantly told us we would have no trouble getting jobs. We were told over and over how great nursing is and that you can do "anything" with it. But unless you know a guy who knows a guy it feels like majority have to get stuck with the sh*t. And I know nurses who looooove med-surg... but I am not one of them.

Thoughts?

PS. I love the people I work with. I love my manager. I have told her I am interested in going into something other than med-surg but haven't wanted to seem like a baby so haven't really told her the depths of how much I hate this job. And like I said, it's not the people at all. It's mostly the pain-seeking patients, dementia/Alzheimer patients who are fighters, the endless calls from the telemetry monitoring system who tell me ten times that my patient had a period of asystole but it was just artifact, doctors who won't return my pages, or family members who don't know the first thing about my job or who sneak in big macs to my diabetic patients and don't tell me until their blood glucose is 400. Sh*t like that just burns me up.

My thoughts are.. you were lucky to land a position at the Cleveland Clinic. You have 10 months experience in med surg.. suck it up buttercup. Stop focusing on the annoying details that all nurses experience.. continue to gain that all important one to two years of experience. THEN you can move on.

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At least you are honest and admit to being baseline "lazy" lol.

Chronic dialysis is not a job for people who like it easy going. I am just letting you know that as a nurse and potentially charge after some time, you will be VERY busy the whole day you work. Starting early, setting up machines, putting people on, while techs relax you will run around and assess patients, push meds ( a gazillion iv meds), and when you think you have time to breath - your patients all come off within 15 minutes apart. After that you strip and clean the machine and set up again ... in between you will find that you did not document everything from your assessment because of time and stay late to finish up. The days where you think you are ahead your patient cramps or goes south and so on and forth. Or one of the patients is not satisfied and starts a mini riot. Or the catheter does not work and you fiddle around forever ...

I highly suggest you shadow in a clinic at least for half a day so you get an idea of what I am talking about.

Don't get me wrong - dialysis is great - but I would hate you to give up a good job just to find out you hate this job even more.

My suggestion is to get at least 2 years experience. The thing is that 2 times 12 h is not necessarily the best solution for you. Perhaps 4 times 8 would be better - seriously you can do anything for 8 hours.... . I did 12 and 8 and 8 works much better for me. Granted you spend more days at work. Also, you are not that attractive with just working 24 h as potential employers may think that you are not able to get through a regular 36 or 40 h week.

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I agree with Nutella. From what you have said, you do not have the right personality for dialysis. It is busy, busy, busy and you are NOT a manager but will be supervising techs who push back at you especially when you are new to the job . And the patient behavior you described in your post that bugs you will happen every day! I have worked in dialysis in the Cleveland area for 25 years so I know of what I speak.

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Specializes in Utilization Review.

Thank you Nutella and idodialysis for giving me some feed back on the dialysis side of things. I really appreciate it and love the idea of shadowing. I will probably not accept the dialysis job if offered, I had a feeling it wasn't quiet right for me.

Been there done that: I have been told "suck it up" more time than I can count. But I can't do this job another year and two months because of medical conditions. I honestly think I will implode from stress and do believe my IBS and dermatitis are starting to cause other issues because of the flare ups. I would love to be able to stick it out for three years and get that experience because I could literally do anything I wanted after that... But I just can't. I thought this forum was supposed to help build people up? Maybe next time you can help give a little bit more constructive feedback instead of making me feel worse (don't need help there). I know I am lucky to have a job at a good company. I am a detail oriented person and can't "ignore" the details. People like you made me leave this site in the first place.

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

*sigh*

I do sympathize. Nursing is HARD and if you aren't well tuned for it, it is harder. I admire your honesty. There are other areas of nursing you can go into and may just have to keep knocking on doors until you find one of them that fits. I recently left bedside to do patient education for a specialty surgery office. The lack of stress is almost stressful to me....lol.

I do want to say that the above commentary IS constructive, though it is obviously not what you were hoping to hear. The truth is you CAN stick it out in the hospital for another year or two. It isn't that you can't. It is that you do not want to. There is nothing wrong with that, but self talk matters. You indicated the types of jobs that are attractive to you and the above posters were urging you to stick with where you are so that you can earn the right to one of those jobs. You, by your own admission, are young. Those responding to you aren't as young as you. In fact, there are years and years of wisdom in those posts. You came to a public board seeking advice. Try not to get upset when it isn't the advice you wanted or couched in pretty tones.

Keep trying to find something else. Quitting without something else lined up in your part of the country could be career suicide. Unless you are independently wealthy, I do not recommend it. Keep working your two days a week and spend the other five working on your stress level, diet and exercise to help minimize your stress induced symptoms. Fill those days with things you love so that you are able to embrace life more and minimize the effects of the two days that are more difficult. Hang in there. I wish I could say it will get easier. I wish I could tell you that. But it won't. You just haven't earned it yet. If you stick with it, you will. If you don't, your life will take a different and unknown path that may or may not have the same levels of stress or worse. Either way you go, a good supply of big girl pants will be needed. I truly do wish you well. There is no arguing that the job is hard.

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I agree with above posters and will add that the energy you're expending trying to get out of there might be contributing to your stress and stress induced symptoms.

If you could change your perspective to include: I work with great people, I work with people who are all trying to fulfil their roles and don't get it just right all of the time, I care for people whose lives are a mess and I am helping in a small way to make their experience humane, this work is hard but I am able bodied, I am brand new and am not expected to be perfect, everyone around me will respect and support my try, this huge difficult effort is an investment in me that will open doors currently closed..

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You are a relatively new grad. It may take some time to find your niche. Maybe wound care clinic? Or a physician's office .... not one with just one or two physicians, but one that is part of a hospital group. Urgent care float your boat? Travel nursing?

Hospitals are very "militaristic" setting....meaning very organized, fast paced, and magnet hospitals are very exact and precise on how things are done. But thst might not be YOUR style of nursing. A friend of mine does not like that structured environment even though he worked it for 25+ years. He is now doing nursing in prisons and loves it. It takes time to find your niche.

I love neuro and CV. I may have to work on telemetry and med surge a few years.....but I will not be stuck there. I would like to do CVICU evemtually.

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Specializes in Utilization Review.

Haven't heard from the dialysis job yet but I will decline taking it. I think I am going to ask my manager to shadow on another unit or two to get an idea of what I really want to do. Thank you to everyone who responded. I do know that my job could be way worse. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the nurses who do this, but I know I won't be happy here forever and don't want to become one of the bitter nurses who didn't get out if they don't like it. I do like the idea of changing my mindset towards the positive, reminds me of advice my mom would give :).

Ps. Just because I graduated in 2014 doesn't mean I was a traditional age when I graduated ;).

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.

I'm going against the grain, but I will say definitely look into another specialty before quitting altogether. I went against conventional wisdom and decided to go ahead and apply for another specialty. It is too early for me to say, but so far, I am enjoying it, and I still work at my old job as well. I have found that by going to an entirely different specialty and cutting down my FTE at my old job that I appreciate med/surg more, and it looks great on the resume.

HOWEVER...

If you leave this job, be prepared to stick with the next one for a quite bit. Make sure dialysis or the next job is REALLY something you want to do before making the plunge. You want to run TO something, not away from something. If you decide to leave before the one/two year mark, you are going to have to rehabilitate your resume.

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

Look for a clinic job.

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Keep working, see if you can shadow your informatics nurse, and start looking into a Master's program for informatics.

There are also RN's who work for EMR informatics companies.

American Nursing Informatics Association is a great reference. But you would more than likely have to get a Master's Degree.

MS in Health Informatics | Northwestern University School of Professional Studies

Above is one of may Master's programs online. If you can make it work on part time work, then I would add furthering your education to the list.

Best wishes.

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