Why is Nursing not in the top ten most stressful jobs for 2014!

[chiefaics]

Why is Nursing not in the top ten most stressful jobs for 2014! By Carlos Feliciano, RN, MSN, CHC

Last week I worked a 12-hour shift at the medical surgical unit. I stood up all night and ran (actually speed-walked) from one room to another non-stop answering call bells, cleaning poop, feeding patients, lifting patients, dealing with upset family members, passing schedule and as-needed medications, talking doctors, educating patients and their families, and re-assessing patients at least twice per shift. I was exhausted, and about 30 minutes before shift change I realized that…OMG!!! I had not seen the patient on room 230 at all during my shift. I had forgotten all of her meds, wound care, and blood work so I panicked! I thought, was she even alive? What was I going to do? Was I going to lose my job? And then… I woke up. My heart was in my throat, and I was hyperventilating like I’d had just ran a marathon. Once I was able to settle down, I thanked the All Mighty that it was just a dream. Sounds familiar?! Although I am retired, I still have those dreams, so imagine my surprise when I read an article published by Yahoo Business earlier this week, which listed the 10 most stressful jobs for 2014, and nursing wasn’t one of them.

The list included some professions worthy jobs like: enlisted military members (as a former enlisted member, I can agree), police officers, firefighters, airline pilots, military generals, taxi drivers, event coordinators, newspaper reporters, public relations executives, and senior corporate executives. As I scratched my head in disbelieve, I sought to find out the methodology used to justify why nursing wasn’t in the top ten most stressful jobs.

It turned out their methodology was based on the following: Travel amounts, income growth potential, deadlines, working in the public eye, competitiveness, physical demands, environmental conditions, hazards encountered, own life at risk, life of others at risk and meeting the public. So I went down the list. So, are you telling me that the physical demands of a taxi driver are more stressful than that of nurses, or that the senior corporate executives encounter more hazards at work than nurses do? Are we to assume that public relations executives have to deal with public demands that are harsher that those that nurses have to deal with in a daily basis, and that have cost some of them their lives? Is an event coordinator more challenged by a “Bridezilla”, than a nurse with 6 patients during the mid-morning med-pass? Are we to believe that missed deadlines by a newspaper reporter will cause more harm and stress than a missed blood pressure medication, or a blood thinner? I could go on and on, but the most important question that we must ask as a profession is: Have we become so irrelevant that no one wonders why nursing wasn’t on the list?

In the last couple of years the nursing community has expressed outrage about the way that nurses has been portrait on TV. From drunks to drug addicts, from aloof to unintelligent, but no one has questioned why is it that we have so little influence in the drafting of healthcare policies within our organizations, our community health, as well as at the state and local level. We are the qualitative experts, but few understand or value what we bring to the healthcare team. As long as we continue to sit idle and wait to be recognized as a community of hardworking experts, our personal efforts will continue to go unrecognized, nursing burnout will increase exponentially, and nursing as a whole will be replaced for more money making and cheaper alternatives.

[NewYorkerGirl]

No one in healthcare made the list. How about surgeons? Anesthesiologists? Are they less stressful because of income growth potential? I don't understand how $$$ makes a job less stressful. Life in general, yes. Job, no.

[Anonymous865]

In nursing you have intense stress while you are at work, but once you clock out, the patients become someone else's problem.

The corporate executive, event coordinators, and probably some others are expected to work ALL the time. They are expected to answer their cell phone 24 hours a day. When called they are expected to also have their laptop with them at all times. They work nights, weekends, vacations, and holidays.They literally never have a day off. (The event coordinators they are referring to aren't wedding planners. They are talking about the person responsible for putting together the conference for 10,000 people, scheduling speakers, making sure all the AV equipment is where it should be and is working, working with catering to provide the meals and snacks to the attendees, assigning booth space, getting power and internet to the booths, negotiating with the hotels for blocks of rooms and special rates, and dealing with the million problems that occur all day every day at the conference, etc.)

You also have other nurses and healthcare professionals you can turn to when a patient is going bad. The airline pilot and co-pilot are on their own if there is a problem when they are in the air and they are responsible for the lives of 300-400 people at one time. They have customers who complain if their flight is delayed because of weather. The pilots have tremendous pressure to stay on schedule and have to decide if they are going to risk flying in bad weather or risk unhappy customers and management if they delay the flight.

I'm not saying that nursing isn't stressful. I'm saying that you don't realized until you've done another job, or lived with someone who does another job how stressful that job might be. Most people are under a great deal of stress.

[MissyWrite]

I was exhausted, and about 30 minutes before shift change I realized that…OMG!!! I had not seen the patient on room 230 at all during my shift. I had forgotten all of her meds, wound care, and blood work so I panicked! I thought, was she even alive? What was I going to do? Was I going to lose my job? And then… I woke up.

I HAVE THIS VERY SAME NIGHTMARE!!! and I, too, am retired. It doesn't happen often, but when it does I am shaken. Sometimes in this re-occurring dream, I haven't even seen *any* of my patients at all. Waking up is such a tremendous relief, as is the relief that I don't have to work as a nurse any more.

There's a reason we have PTSD, I say.

I had a friend who watered plants in offices for a living. She told me that her job was just as stressful as mine, because 'sometimes a leaf begins to turn brown.' Yeah, well, that's nothing compared to a 'Code Brown.'

[GrannyRRT]

Ask taxi drivers how many times they have had a gun or knife just a few inches from their head or have been physically assaulted.

Also, that rude puking patient you got out of your ER by calling a taxi will now become that driver's problem by him or herself. They will probably vomit in the taxi putting it out of service and cost the driver several fares plus the cleaning expense. They also have to get the person out of their taxi by themselves without getting hurt. The local PD usually don't respond or at least not quickly until there is blood since people behaving badly in taxis are common.

I think wedding photographer ranks right up there with wedding event planner for stress. There will always be those screaming "you ruined everything" with their attorney and using the Internet to ruin that person's business.

But, I have also seen patients posting bad reviews of doctors and a few are also naming other health care professionals by name and title in the posts about hospitals.

[TLSpaz, ASN, RN]

Everything's a pi**ing contest these days. And why is martyrdom suddenly so fashionable? Even I find myself slipping into it sometimes. Just this morning I posted a meme to my FB page about EMS, firefighters and nurses working every holiday and no one bats an eyelash, but retail workers get asked to work Thanksgiving and Black Friday and everyone loses their minds. We all need to remember that these careers, first and foremost, are choices.

[GrannyRRT]

Many chose retail over all the other career options because of decent hours and fewer holidays to work. It has only been in recent times that retailers stay open 24/7 and 365 days. I vow to only shop retailers which still believe Christmas is a time to spend with family rather than shopping for bargains even if it is convenient for those of us not working 9-5.

[TLSpaz, ASN, RN]

Many chose retail over all the other career options because of decent hours and fewer holidays to work. It has only been in recent times that retailers stay open 24/7 and 365 days. I vow to only shop retailers which still believe Christmas is a time to spend with family rather than shopping for bargains even if it is convenient for those of us not working 9-5.

I won't shop on Thanksgiving because I will likely be working, and if I'm not working, I will be sharing the day with family and friends. I don't personally feel compelled to boycott retailers who offer holiday hours. If people want to shop on those days, that's their business. The demand for shopping those days is obviously there, or retailers wouldn't offer it.

As to this being something that has come about in recent times, I hear you. My father has been in retail management for almost 40 years, 30 of those in management. I remember as I was growing up that holiday hours gradually crept in to his work schedule over the years, which sent my mother into bouts of anger that increased in direct proportion to the increase in the hours themselves. After awhile, she resigned herself to that "new normal." In recent years, she appears to have adopted the "if you can't beat em, join 'em" ranks. She is now notorious for forgetting some critical ingredient for Thanksgiving dinner, which finds her scurrying to the grocery store on Thanksgiving morning, and giving thanks that she has the option.

[Tina, RN]

I HAVE THIS VERY SAME NIGHTMARE!!! and I, too, am retired. It doesn't happen often, but when it does I am shaken. Sometimes in this re-occurring dream, I haven't even seen *any* of my patients at all. ...

ME, TOO!!!! I can't even guess how many times I've had this dream. It's terrifying every single time... LOL

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

ME, TOO!!!! I can't even guess how many times I've had this dream. It's terrifying every single time... LOL

I'll add to the nightmare variant with mine: I KNOW I have Mrs. Smith in Room 241, but no matter WHERE I look, I cannot FIND Mrs. Smith. I am running down hallways, sticking my head into dozens of rooms and procedures, and still cannot locate this patient. I keep checking my (dream) clock and find that the hours are ticking by, I have given her no meds nor assessments, PLUS my other patients are now behind in pretty much everything too. And there's my clinical instructor, wearing her lab coat and holding her danged clipboard, and asking "where is Mrs. Smith and why aren't you with her?" Argh.

I had these dreams as a student and thank heavens they don't chase me in my sleep anymore!

[GrannyRRT]

I won't shop on Thanksgiving because I will likely be working, and if I'm not working, I will be sharing the day with family and friends. I don't personally feel compelled to boycott retailers who offer holiday hours. If people want to shop on those days, that's their business. The demand for shopping those days is obviously there, or retailers wouldn't offer it.

As to this being something that has come about in recent times, I hear you. My father has been in retail management for almost 40 years, 30 of those in management. I remember as I was growing up that holiday hours gradually crept in to his work schedule over the years, which sent my mother into bouts of anger that increased in direct proportion to the increase in the hours themselves. After awhile, she resigned herself to that "new normal." In recent years, she appears to have adopted the "if you can't beat em, join 'em" ranks. She is now notorious for forgetting some critical ingredient for Thanksgiving dinner, which finds her scurrying to the grocery store on Thanksgiving morning, and giving thanks that she has the option.

Our choices and preferences also change throughout the years.

Some hospitals grant senior staff weekends and holidays off.

Some prefer to come off of nights as their body ages or their priorities shift or they now have the years vested to move to different hours.

I worked nights for almost 3 decades. But, I now find I really like 4 ten hour days with every weekend and holiday off. I also am enjoying holidays which were glossed over when working all of them. Sometimes you don't know what you are missing until you really get a chance to enjoy it.

I also know there are far worse jobs than health care. Like education, if you choose not to invest in your future, you really can't complain with the life you have made for yourself. But, I try not to belittle someone else's job. I see too much of that at work with the ******* contests between the professionals.

As I stated before in another discussion, working at a McDonalds in a hospital has got to be on someone's top ten list of worst jobs.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

I've done other jobs and realize where nursing stress is on that list....pretty DANGED high.

Yes, that taxi driver *may* have been faced with a gun or knife, but so may a nurse have been. He might get yelled at for missing a turn, but can't really say that's worse than anything ANY patient's family and/or friends hurl at nurses on a daily basis, either. And when that taxi driver clocks out, he isn't STILL thinking about whether he charted all the important details, or whether he missed giving a vital medication or treatment....oh, wait, he's a taxi driver and he doesn't HAVE that kind of stress!

At least passengers tip their drivers, LOL....