I have been a nurse for about 8 years and recently left bedside nursing for community health. I am very happy with this decision and is a couple years in the making. My problem is, that I cannot shake this feeling about a hospital position that I held for nearly 6 years, and I feel as if it "ruined" bedside nursing for me.
I worked on a busy Telemetry floor and for the most part very much enjoyed working there for approx. 4 years. Suddenly, things started to change and the job was not so enjoyable anymore. Administrators would nickel and dime nurses about staffing, the interns and residents became especially useless, and just an unbelievable amount of political and bureaucratic nonsense! Long story short, I was becoming increasingly frustrated and it seemed like, not only was I the only one who would voice my opinions, but no one else really seemed to care. Therefore, and I don't want to suggest that all of the nurses I worked with were sub-par, but no one seemed to be performing beyond a minimum requirement either.
I was also a member of the Clinical Ladder team. This means I attended meetings, educated on new policies, and was a resource nurse for the staff. There were 3 of us on the ladder and we shared the responsibilities that came with it. During my yearly performance review, I was given a score of "key contributor", which basically means I came in and performed my basic job functions. I was not awarded the "role model" status, but the other 2 ladder people were, as well as a couple people not on ladder. My manager expressed how stellar of a job I was doing and told me that there was no room anywhere for improvement, but could not explain to me why I was given only a "key contributor" rating. Needless to say, I was disgusted. My manager then went on to ask me if i was going to help with the upcoming computer training!!! From that point on, I stepped down from the ladder and put in my notice a couple of months later.
I had planned to stay on board PRN. Honestly, I am not sure why, perhaps just fear of the unknown. Anyway, my manager emailed me a few days prior to a shift and told me that I wouldn't be needed any long on PRN staff since "you don't like the way things are done here". She then wished me well, end of story.
I cannot help but feel such anger? hurt? disappointment? by the way things played out. I kind of feel like I was somehow punished by speaking up, instead of marching along like a good little soldier and keeping my mouth shut. I put in a lot of hard work on that unit, and for the manager, and honestly cannot believe I was treated the way that I was. Looking back, I guess I was naive. Many of the things that I thought I was doing for the good of the unit was just making me look like a goody-two-shoes. However, I also thought I was being encouraged to handle certain things the way that I did.
Sorry for the rant but I want to feel okay about my time at that hospital and feel comfortable using my manager as a reference if need be. How can I get over this?!?
