After five years of nursing, continuing my education, and hoping for a better day than the last one, I decided to quit my nursing job. Nursing is very demanding, psychologically challenging & most of the time frustrating due to the lack of respect from other employees. Even with a BSN and supervisory positions I could not find any happiness in this field. The hard truth is, no matter where you work, the nursing position you fill, there will always be pressure from up top (management). I started as a floor nurse at a local hospital, putting in long hours, taking in experience, just like most graduates. After three years of work on a medical-surgical floor, I was already burnt out. High acuity, understaffing, long-hours, will make your life miserable. I decided to switch positions into a supervisory role. The hard truth about supervisory position is that you are a management (bit..h). Management controls everything, from keeping the floors understaffed, preventing from hiring enough people to have adequate staffing, as-well-as drilling me to deliver teachings left and right. I felt bad for my few co-workers that worked with me prior to my management position that now I drilled about some documentation that nobody even looks at. The hardest truth to take in is that some business, clueless, worthless education individuals set rules for hard working professionals like nurses and don't give a crap about them. An RN is an aide, nurse, occupational, speech, physical therapist, a medical advisor, housekeeper, electrician etc. I decided to leave once and for all and be unemployed. I shared this just to see what you guys think about the move, was it a mistake?
Just apply to various insurance companies...you never know if you'll be called to schedule an interview.
After 10 inglorious years of working the floor, I snagged a work-from-home position as an RN case manager for a major insurance company. Dreams do come true...
I work with a girl that does similar but she didn't give me the impression she was making quite that much. As I just posted in another forum I'm considering case management or telephone triage in the future as I want the ability to work from home when I get tired of chasing people at the bedside. I figured I'd get in somewhere, learn the ropes of how it works, then try to figure out how to move to a warm beach. In your estimation is it possible to spend half the year doing what you do in the Caribbean? That is my DREAM.
Yes Marisette, you are right. The shame of it is that in Florida I just read that 81% of the state's population earns $40,000 or less per year. This puts nurses in the top 19% of wage earners.
So what will happen? More nurses will be fed into the grinder by the second to fill the insatiable needs of the hospital corporations and those weasels within Nursing itself who see a new and never ending demographic of potential victims.
The system has always been set-up to promote disillusionment and, yes, "burnout." And this despite the endless and lame ice cream socials.
I aint gonna lie though...I am all about getting that ice cream!! Then I slip out the back door so I can avoid the "social" part
I respectfully disagree. I do not have that coveted BSN, I work in a magnet hospital, no contract, no commitment....... I don't work on a medsurg floor.
I understand burnout, I'm sorry you don't like your job. But this is not exclusive to nursing and what you have experienced cannot be applied across the board.
You are mistaken about magnet status. Truly. Read up on it. It has to do with retention, not degree.
Not according to my magnet hospital. It is the ONLY reason I am up right now on this forum ducking my paper for my RN to BSN program. I have a bachelor's in biology and have ZERO desire for one in nursing. But I signed a contract because magnet.
I quit in 1988 (CNA) as I was moving to go build my house I had worked so hard to pay for doing all the overtime I could in 4 departments; nursing, kitchen, laundry, housekeeping. I thought my mother selling our Santa Cruz house (she came with me) would get me a little money from the sale so I could build my already paid for dome kit. My mother lied, kept the money and I struggled in an area of recession (where my fully paid for but cheap land was) trying to work at an army base ( no military service in my background , ineligible for most base jobs) , cleaning, cooking (for the mean troops with dirty minds always harassing me), cleaning base buildings, cleaning houses for $5 an hour, odd jobs for locals, I had it finally in 2003 and got into the nursing program, but it only took me to the LVN level. I was always a good worker but couldn't impress anyone in my new home. (Small town). So i had to drive 40 miles to school on $100 a month (my food budget was $20 a month- I lived on a 6 oz can of tuna [when tuna cans had 6 oz, they don't anymore!!! and they aren't 50 cents anymore]and a spoonful of peanut butter a day for I don't know how long, almost a year, until I met and married my husband at 41). Sadly, I was almost through my RN prerequisites in 2005 when my husband told me I couldn't finish my last semester- I had my LVN license and he wanted me to use it, as RN upgrade was a 2 hour drive away. it turned out my first job was a 2 hour drive away and I spent 11 months gone 6 days a week, coming home for church and zipping off Monday morning to do it all over. Here it is 2016 and i never got back to finish my RN and With responsibilities at home and JC's with RN upgrades so far away, I don't know if I ever can.
So you may need the break like I did- but I really wish I had gotten my RN back in the 1980's before I moved out to the frontier. If anything, keep your CEU's up and your license up so if something good comes along you won't regret it.
Here's an idea, something a couple of Moms with RN daughters have told me about, they have phone jobs, I think an Online RN of some sort, doing pt teaching and answering questions over the phone. I don't know what it pays, but it would be ideal for stay at home moms that were RN's , it would be ideal for me, I love to chat about health, though no one ever takes me serious, they just ignore me and go on smoking or whatever.
When ever I've had a hard decision to make, I can tell it was the right
one when I feel a sense of relief after the fact. If you are unsure, you can always go back to nursing...I assume you did not give up your license? It is not over until you decide it is over. Is it irrevocable?
roser13 "Quality p.t. care?" That's only in the satisfaction surveys.Reality is that new graduates are more valuable to employers than a seasoned nurse because 1.) low base salary 2.) more educated (Looks better) (MAGNET status) 3.) easier to control (hrs, weekends, rotating shifts). The turn over rates are insane currently.
Why do you assume that new graduates are "more educated"?
Guest957596
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How so? What is telling about this? That the OP is financially stable enough to quit?