Help! Early burnout!

[paulamac]

I am a nurse of less than a year and already feeling burned out. I dread going to work. I am a floor nurse on med-surg. I love the people I work with and they are very helpful; however, I typically have 7 patients (the nursing home crowd for the most part), usually the majority of them are "poopers", TPN, blood, pain meds Q2hrs X several patients, and I am run ragged. We often have only one tech who is so busy I feel guilty asking for her help. I go home trying to remember what I forgot to do. Often I can only pass meds and change dressings and leave with patients upset because they feel they didn't get good care - and they truly didn't because there was not enough time even though I feel that time management is one of my strong points. I am not lazy, simply overworked. I have to escape. The mental stress, not to mention the fact that I physically don't get a break, (sometimes not stopping to eat or pee the entire shift) is killing me. This is a second career and I'm no young chick. Can't keep it up.

I'd like suggestions on where to go from here with my one year of experience. I was an administrative assistant in a large corporation for nearly 20 years prior to nursing and I really love paperwork, have no problem with sitting at a desk. Patient care is not something I must do. I'd love to do research or work with clinical trials, etc. but don't know where to start to find a position such as this, if they exist. Can anybody help?

Another problem in applying for a job is the fact that at my hospital, we don't do IVs or draw blood, so I don't have those skills. It makes me feel totally dumb to apply for a job when I can't do these things. We have IV team and phlebotomists who do this and I need to learn but the hospital doesn't offer any options. I feel like an RN should be able to do this, but opportunity to learn is just not available where I work.

Thanks.