I read Allnurses every day, rarely do I post. Over the past year or so I've been reading more and more about how hard "that first year of nursing" is and how many new nurses just can't handle it and are looking to get out. I understand.
As an old, seasoned nurse, now retired I have watched nursing get harder and harder, working with sicker and sicker patients with less resources. How long can this continue? I've read lately about nurses who need antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds just to be able to come to work each day. And we all nod and say that's just how nursing is now. I read about nurses who cry and dread each day that they have to come to work, working in fear of making a mistake. The horror, a human being might make a mistake. And then I read other nurses who say, "we should never make mistakes, we should triple/quadruple check everything we do because the poor patient should not be harmed in any way, ever." What utopia do they live in? And yet we have to drop everything that we are triple checking to run and get a family member an extra pillow or a soft drink or risk being reprimanded.
What other career puts such a burden on it's members? I can't think of any that routinely have members dreading to come to work and needing medications to get through a shift, maybe airtraffic controllers, or combat soldiers. I don't know.
And then we tell ourselves that we should be happy that we're lucky to have a job. Really? What is so lucky about this?
I started nursing 40 years ago on a busy labor and delivery unit. I was afraid at times. But there was a support system from the top down. Director of nursing, nursing supervisors, head nurses (they weren't called managers back then) and the shift charge nurse, everyone pulled together. I miss that. I left hospital bedside nursing 10 years ago because of the lack of support and teamwork, and the increasing focus on the patient "experience" versus a positive outcome of disease or injury.
I don't have an answer, well I do but for some reason, nurses I have known don't want to talk about solving problems for their profession. We're great at solving everyone else's problems but not our own. How long can this continue? I feel sorry for new nurses and for my older colleagues as well.
My preceptor has been a nurse for 30 years, but because she has her ADN, she is stuck. The hospital requires charge nurses and any sort of nursing administrator/educator to have their BSN. It is a rural location, so there are not any other hospitals within 30 minutes. They have taken advantage of her in the past, yet she cannot really go anywhere else and make the money she is making since she has been at said hospital for so long.
I purposely got my BSN right away so I could have more options. I knew I never wanted to stay at the bedside because I don't enjoy working holidays and weekends. I am literally just trying to get 2-3 years bedside experience and then moving onto other types of nursing that are away from the bedside.
Wow, what a beautifully worded post. I am going to save this one and remind myself of it when preceptoring new grads or teaching new students. We have to change the culture of safety around mistakes
Wow, what a beautifully worded post. I am going to save this one and remind myself of it when preceptoring new grads or teaching new students. We have to change the culture of safety around mistakes
Which post are you referencing? Please use the Quote feature.
I'm afraid compounding this problem is the sad fact that nurses can no longer get all their training on the job- in the 80's wen I was a CNA, it was still possible to learn at the side of your LPN nurse, and get all one's training from CNA through RN at your facility. NOW they have to do everything through a college program first, thanks to college lobbyists I guess, to route the money and increase the cost of education, and when CNA's are put "on the floor" they have to take quite a bit of time to reconcile te classroom and the textbook patients with reality. IE, too dang many patients. Not enough time. Smae with LPN's and RN's- those most they have had in their clinicals has been 2-4 patients so wen faced with 24, or 60 in a SNF for example, they are overwhelmed. They can only really learn their meds by heart by working with them daily, by rote, and looking them up constantly until they know them. That can take some time. Then once they get a load of the horrible management practices of so many hospitals, that will surely discourage them more. It can be a shock if you haven't learned this stuff and gotten used to the idea on te job.
More nurses aides and better ratios would solve a lot of these problems. I wish unions would ask for these things instead of pay raises. Pay raises are nice but not at the expense of my sanity.
I am one of those nurses that cried every day I had to go to work for the last few months of my bedside nursing career. I was on anti depressants and took Xanax most night to go to sleep. I was seeing a counselor on a routine basis. I was burned out bad and probably should have left bedside nursing earlier. I felt as if I was going to die or stroke out while working. I have been out of school 39 years, with a diploma. Nursing in the past was fun, my co workers were like family. Unfortunately health care has radically changed in the past 5 or so years. I did not want to be told what to say to my patients and how to say it. I have always been a serious person, not perky or bubbly. I was told that serious was not how nurses were to be seen. I have been away from the bedside for a little over 2 years. I don't make half of what I had in the past. But the stress is off me. I still am a nurse,but in a very different setting.
I have a hard time reading most posts as my heart starts racing and I can feel my anxiety level go up. Most of my friends feel the same way.
I have been reading this thread with interest, especially the comments about unions. I am from Canada originally and every nurse there is part of their provincial Union. Unfortunately, the union did little for its members. We could not strike because we were deemed an essential service by the government. New grads could not find new jobs because of a perceived nursing surplus at the time so we were all hired PRN. Of course, we essentially worked full time hours but we floated all over the hospital. The union "objected" to this but their plan to improve this was to have the PRN staff fired. I'm sure unions can be beneficial, but we need to know what the end game is for all members before we ask for a solution.
One other comment, the nurse who commented that her ADN is not worth the paper it is written on due to the desire for BSNs. This is another worry about the union. Being from Canada, I have our equivalent of the ADN--the three year Diploma. I was out ill for a while and am now trying to get another job. Despite living in Houston, one of the largest health care towns there is I am having trouble finding a job due to a lack of BSN.
In all, it comes down, I think to Nurses supporting each other and to paraphrase Tim McGraw "When you get where you're goin'/Don't forget turn back around/And help the next one in line/ And always stay humble and kind".
I will throw my two cents in, and that is about what it is worth. The face of nursing had changed greatly over the past twenty years that I have been an RN. I have recently had to retire due to medical issues. Interestingly, many of my remaining co-workers are older than I, but have not been nursing nearly as long. I have been a BSN since I was 22. Many of my co-workers are "second career" nurses. I sometimes wonder if my early start just wore me out physically, it always did emotionally, even though I loved being a nurse with every fiber and knew I was not meant to do anything else. Now I struggle a bit to find life meaning. When your job has fed your soul so long, hard to know exactly where to find meaning thereafter. I am working on it.
As far as the face of nursing changing, one thought (and this is one of many) I have is to wonder if perhaps there being more second career nurses in the profession is raising the working standard expectation a bit. Folks from other professions may come in and see how the health care system is run, and just shake their heads and wonder why they choose this nonsense...lol
It's either you had a bad shift or a good shift. No profession is perfect but it would be nice to have legislature to protect nurses from their environment. Legislature protecting us from other co workers in the field same with violence etc. I am also a new nurse. All in all it goes down to team work and if you have a good helping hand in times of your patient care needs. I believe in Jean Watson and that we have to take care of our selves as well especially in the spiritual realm to keep ourselves going. Without my God, I wouldn't have survived nursing. Allnurses provides a reassurance for me that "I am not the only one who has been in a certain situation"
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Biosphere
35 Posts
You get what you put in. Good times or bad times , you must press on. It's not for everyone , no job is but its only as hard as you make it.