I do not care anymore

nurseinlimbo · Jul 16, 2009

Sounds like you might need a break. I get this way sometimes, just going through the motions, without alot of heart in what I do. The job still gets done, but my give-a-damn is busted... If I take some me time, I usually come back to life and get my personality back. Nursing can be a thankless job, and when the patients don't appear to care enough to help themselves, sometimes it takes too much energy to muster up the passion to try.

diane227, LPN, RN · Jul 16, 2009

You know, when I was first a nurse it really got under my skin that people would not take my advice. I just could not understand how they could not understand my logic and take what I said to heart. But when I went to work in a large county hospital ED with over 400 visits per day I finally came to understand that some people want help, some don't, and some just want to manipulate you. It is human nature.

Now I am the charge nurse of a large med surg floor. I spend a lot of my time explaining things to patients and families and for the most part they seem to appreciate my time and many of them do value my input. But some don't and that is their choice. I do make a note of documenting my conversations with them.

When I have a patient that simply won't cooperate (assuming they are able to cooperate) I get down with them on what the expectations are. I tell them the things that have to be done. For example, I had this real drug abusing patient the other day who would not allow anyone in her room except to give her pain meds. I went in and told her that we would no longer be giving her any pain medications without a set of vital signs. I told her that we had to know what they were, had to monitor her if she was going to get pain meds and that was the bottom line. She changed her tune.

People are people. You can only control yourself and your reaction to a situation. You might want to do to Utube and look up a woman named Jeanne Robertson who is a humorist. She says it is important to see humor in every situation and I agree. She really cheers me up and she has given me a whole new outlook.

moosemadness · Jul 16, 2009

Sounds like to me there is more to it than nursing... thought about see a mental health doc???? Sounds like you need too, and it's ok, don't get me wrong, but explore this option.

prwd2bRN · Jul 16, 2009

I can agree w/ many view points on this issue. Ya, you probably need a vacation and ya, people can be childish and ugly when it comes to be asked/begged/ taught about what is good for them. Finally, ya, people also have the right to refuse care and make their own choices, even if they are bad choices w/ bad outcomes.

But, please follow me on this...

I would like to offer another perspective that I haven't seen here yet. Have you requested a psych eval on this lady? Could she be depressed and / or have feelings of "impending doom"? Maybe, (just maybe) it's not about being a brat and refusing just to get on everyones nerves. Maybe, her issues go deeper, maybe she is yearning to die? May I suggest that you bring this to the attention of the doc and see if he will order a phych eval?

tandlsmom · Jul 16, 2009

I know when I felt "burned out" during my 25+ years in nursing, I transferred to a different department in the hospital. It made a huge difference! I felt that I was learning and being challenged again. It can be a scary thought but it is worth it!

mabell52 · Jul 16, 2009

Sounds like you may have Compassion Fatigue. Take a vacation and someone else suggested or go and pamper yourself with a spa day. I get that way at times when our Press Ganey scores come out. We bust our butts for the patients and their families, I work PICU, and we get crummy scores. It is very deflating.

GaGaL56 · Jul 17, 2009

sounds to me like you are burned out and really do need a break. A vacation or even taking some time for some fun may be all you need to revitalize yourself. But you may want to consider switching jobs or areas. Finding a new area to explore can also challenge and revitalize.

I have had my days when work was "just a paycheck", and would have to drag myself thru the activities of the day. But I know that life is too short to keep on working at a job I hate. Find a project, something that may need doing on the unit that no one seems to find the time to do. Or maybe it will be a personal project-learn to fly, rock climb or build something. But YOU have to do something or it will only become more depressing.

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Jul 17, 2009

Do any of you have trouble caring about what patients, residents, or anybody does anymore?
Today the nurse on 3rd shift was telling me that so and so just will not get out of bed anymore. All I could do is look at her and say I do not care.
If she wants to lay in that bed and rot let her. I have talked until I am blue in the face with this A&O X 3 resident and she chooses to not get out of bed. I am sick and tired of teaching people and they do not do a single thing I ask them to do.
I think that the residents, management, and my co-workers have sucked the passion of nursing out of me to the point that I do not think that I will ever care about a whole lot again. The well of compassion is dry and I do not think that it will ever fill up again. Oh, I will give good nursing care to my residents and their needs will be met one way or another, but that little bit extra will not be there. This breaks my heart in a way, but I can no longer get enough energy to do anything about it.
What do the rest of you do when you can no longer give a care anymore?

My instant impression is that the resident has gotten so depressed she literally doesn't care if she lives or dies. I feel bad for her, because I have been there too when I lived in an assistive living facility.

When I was first admitted there, everything but the noise outside (It was in a student housing area in a university city)was good. But after the hilarious church group who came weekly to feed us a special meal, left, and the cook who became the administrator then quit, signing the job over to a non qualified person who was much too bossy, and the regular staff left, things went to pieces, and I was left there alone with only the new staff and that person who didn NOT do a good job at all.

I trained the new staff to give a bed bath, and I was the patient. Some of the new staff didn't even speak english, and after I was overdosed, and starved (one bowl of salad for lunch and one for dinner.) I asked the president of the Board to fire that administrator, and told him why. However, he refused.

I decided to place my name on a list for a senior apartments complex that had an excellent reputation. I waited 7 very long months, but I finally got it.)Now I'm happily living in a wonderful place, and even have my own flower garden.

JB2007, ASN, RN · Jul 18, 2009

My instant impression is that the resident has gotten so depressed she literally doesn't care if she lives or dies. I feel bad for her, because I have been there too when I lived in an assistive living facility.
When I was first admitted there, everything but the noise outside (It was in a student housing area in a university city)was good. But after the hilarious church group who came weekly to feed us a special meal, left, and the cook who became the administrator then quit, signing the job over to a non qualified person who was much too bossy, and the regular staff left, things went to pieces, and I was left there alone with only the new staff and that person who didn NOT do a good job at all.
I trained the new staff to give a bed bath, and I was the patient. Some of the new staff didn't even speak english, and after I was overdosed, and starved (one bowl of salad for lunch and one for dinner.) I asked the president of the Board to fire that administrator, and told him why. However, he refused.
I decided to place my name on a list for a senior apartments complex that had an excellent reputation. I waited 7 very long months, but I finally got it.)Now I'm happily living in a wonderful place, and even have my own flower garden.

You poor thing. That place you were living sounds awful and should be shut down. Nobody should be treated in such a way. Nothing like what you described would or will be happening where I work, ever! No matter how beaten down I may be my residents will not be treated in such a way while I am around. I may be exhausted and feel like I no longer care, but I do care enough to raise one heck of a fuss about basic needs not being met.

You can be sure that we are doing everything that we can to help this resident both emotionally and physically. I have been bouncing ideas off of my unit supervisor who has many years experience as a nurse of how we can help this resident.

Shaka · Jul 19, 2009

I too have come to the place you are. I have taken over a year off after working for 36 years in this profession. Unfortunately, these feelings in me created a great amount of guilt, as I always felt my work as a service to humanity. I began to isolate myself on my time off, not wanting to carry over my work into my "life". Trying to separate the two led to a life of isolation though I was very productive gardening.....and I had my two dogs, the birds and nature which seemed to be the only thing that regenerated my energy.

When I began releasing all that I had acquired to let go of nursing, I believed I would not return to it again, I sold and gave away everything I had accumulated in my life......house, dogs, gardens....stuff. I let the car I had go back to the bank and took what I could get for the house. I then moved to Costa Rica. I lived there for 10 months in the rain forest, during the rainy season, which created a place of living life force, offering itself to me in healing presence. I then began the process of looking at myself, being open to the discovery of who I am, digging as far down as I could to try and understand what I had chosen to do with my life. There came a point where I realized that I needed to come back and assist with the transition of our country during this time of change.

I write all of this to let you know what one nurse's choice has been in dealing with what they call "burn out". One of the things I have understood about our profession is that the art of healing, soul to soul, is not in the equation. We have created a society of victims that only seek energy outside of themselves to live. We are not taught nor do we teach self responsibility. As nurses at the bedside, it is our energy that is most readily available for those who have depleted their own by the choices they have made in their lives. I could feel it when I would walk into the building where I was working. It was heavy and draining and I had to brace myself against it. It felt like a suction machine was stuck on the "on" switch. No way to live in my mind. We, as nurses, are responsible to the hierarchy of the intellectuals that have created a monster of extraction of energy from those who work in the field of health care. Nurses are trained to be fixers and doers which goes against the nature of being. We are not responsible to fix anyone but ourselves and cannot do otherwise. We are subject to rules and regulations that are put in place to do this, consequently we work under a cloud of failure before we can even begin, which creates a sense of failure from the get go. This is what caught up with me after so many years of not honoring what I have seen as the time has passed by. Like everything else in this world we have sought the solutions outside of ourselves, butting our heads against the wall in unison. I watched as my peers worked on the verge of tears or a state of hardened apathy toward what they had invested their lives in. I talked and listened to what was said and felt, trying to introduce new ways of approaching our work, to no avail. I can't tell you how many times if I had personal problems at home. It has been hard for me to believe the resistance and denial that steps up when something is falling apart before our very eyes.

I am in the process of re entering the nursing field. I am free of debt and have bad credit so I can't get back into the scheme of living a debt based lifestyle. This one of the traps I fell into working, making a good living wage. I ow have boundaries on what I will do for the money. I need little to thrive in this present society and time to find my own creative avenue, through looking at all of the information science is offering us, outside of the box, to be healers of souls not creators of victims. This is my priority and what I agreed to do when I first began my professional journey. I feel clearer about who I am in the greater scheme of life and will offer that as I perform the tasks that are asked of me in this over regulated, narrow thinking field of health care. My priority is to offer my compassion and understanding first and foremost, knowing that each of us has the right to choose how we live. I feel strong enough to support that choice in others, without guilt or feeling of failure.

I offer support and courage to all of my peers in nursing who are experiencing anything like what I have written. I have written a small pamphlet that gives a holistic method of regenerating our energy for those who can't make changes in their immediate circumstances. I have spent a lifetime of studying our spiritual aspect and dedicate myself to including this in the healing energy that I offer as I resume my profession as a healer of the human condition.

Blessings to us all......

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Jul 19, 2009

You poor thing. That place you were living sounds awful and should be shut down. Nobody should be treated in such a way. Nothing like what you described would or will be happening where I work, ever! No matter how beaten down I may be my residents will not be treated in such a way while I am around. I may be exhausted and feel like I no longer care, but I do care enough to raise one heck of a fuss about basic needs not being met.
You can be sure that we are doing everything that we can to help this resident both emotionally and physically. I have been bouncing ideas off of my unit supervisor who has many years experience as a nurse of how we can help this resident.

My thought is that it eventually will be.

I am happy your place is so much better, and your resident is receiving the care you can possibly give as a nurse and as a caring human being. Maybe you do need a few days off or to be moved to another floor if possible? Just a thought.

mommiof2kids · Jul 19, 2009

Sounds to me like you are burned out. Take a vacation, clear your mind and then find something else in nursing that you're passionate about. It'll do wonders for ya