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.
Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
I have found that the posts on here do not match the reality of what I see in the hospital during clinical and in nursing school. I don't know why this is so. It might be the area of the country I live in; perhaps we are better off, it might be that people come online to share negatives so they are more represented. Either way, I am starting to think this forum has a negative effect on my outlook.
I am thinking of leaving bedside nursing for good, but I am afraid that I will miss it because nursing comes with a special rewarding feeling. I am debating with myself whether I should stay or leave. I like to help people voluntarily such as advocating for patients' pain and safety. I hate to be forced to pretend like I am a "super nurse" for patient satisfaction scores. Nurses are expected to do more with less time and resources. We have to put up with unreasonable requests. My mental and physical well-being will suffer if I continue to do bedside nursing. I miss my pre-nursing self .
P/s: I wear a happy mask when I am at work because I do not want negativity affects people around me, but I am dead tired inside :Ghost:
Specializes in UR/PA, Hematology/Oncology, Med Surg, Psych.
I have found that the posts on here do not match the reality of what I see in the hospital during clinical and in nursing school. I don't know why this is so. It might be the area of the country I live in; perhaps we are better off, it might be that people come online to share negatives so they are more represented. Either way, I am starting to think this forum has a negative effect on my outlook.
The nurses you see in clinicals cannot be that much different than all the nurses I know, work with, have worked with, etc. It's that many nurses do not share their unhappy feelings with most people and they hide it well at work. They do share it with close friends, family, and quietly with coworkers they trust. Some nurses can appear so contented, but then will secretly share exactly how unhappy they are. Most would never share any negative feelings with a new employee or a student. On Allnurses, we can be more open with each other and share our true feelings, even those feelings that change day to day :) Feelings we hide at work, so as to be professional and provide the best care to the patients. How people really feel and the face they present at work, can be very different.
I do feel dread to come to work, not because of fear of making a mistake, simply what sort of assignment I will have, how many crazy patients will I have to deal with etc. I started taking amitriptyline a while back to help with migraines and also to calm me down because I was getting so stressed out and getting in trouble for losing my cool at work when dealing with a ridiculous assignment. It is sad to say so many of us need meds to do this crazy job, but it is true and the meds help so I can stay calm in the chaos. I'm just trying to make it to retirement with my mind and body intact and my mortgage paid off. I think anyone that can afford it should go back to school for NP or make plans for a non bedside job. Things are not going to get better!
I don't have work related anxiety and my soul is not crushed.
I like my job, and am paid reasonably.
While I am sure there have been many changes for the worse in nursing over the years, I wonder if there also hasn't been a change in nurses.
In other words maybe all of the reports of soul crushing angst have as much to do with the current culture of nurses as changes in job demands and expectations.
I don't have work related anxiety and my soul is not crushed.
I like my job, and am paid reasonably.
While I am sure there have been many changes for the worse in nursing over the years, I wonder if there also hasn't been a change in nurses.
In other words maybe all of the reports of soul crushing angst have as much to do with the current culture of nurses as changes in job demands and expectations.
I agree with you. I think it's both.
The Customer Service thing? Impossible standards.
But yes. Some of these posts from students and new grads makes me wonder why they chose nursing in the first place. There are other careers that offer decent pay and job security that have nothing to do with sick people.
Specializes in Allergy/ENT, Occ Health, LTC/Skilled.
I don't have work related anxiety and my soul is not crushed.
I like my job, and am paid reasonably.
While I am sure there have been many changes for the worse in nursing over the years, I wonder if there also hasn't been a change in nurses.
In other words maybe all of the reports of soul crushing angst have as much to do with the current culture of nurses as changes in job demands and expectations.
You do make a point.
I do find it surprising the amount of people I am in school with that do not want to work weekends/holidays/nights. Being an STNA was my first real job out of high school so working weekends/holidays isn't a big thing...you just celebrate the holiday the day before, day after, or before you go in. Also they do not want to STNA work during clinicals because they "aren't there for that"
Nursing administration really does expect the impossible of us at the same time, really beyond what we could ever do. They aren't stupid, they know when they pair us with 10 rehab patients and 15 LTC patients on top of that, only the bare minimum will get done for the patients. This leaves the nurse feeling overwhelmed, under appreciated, and like she is a bad nurse because she didn't get to do everything for her patient she was told in nursing school she should do. Then the crap rolls down hill from there. It jades new nurses really quick.
That said we are not the only profession doing more with less and jobs on the line, My mom works in the corporate world, she literally never knows if she will have a job next month or not even though she is high up in a company she has been with since I was born. She lives frugally every month for like two years now in case she gets laid off. So we are certainly not alone in the soul crushing pressure, difference is we have lives in our hands so we put THAT much more pressure on ourselves. It can be hard to handle at times.
The unfortunate reality is that health care is a big money business and is run as a big money business. More unfortunate is nurses are not part of the big money equation. It is very clear that for the most part employers consider nurses expendable, and for the most part we are.
There is no nursing shortage in most areas. There is in fact a nursing surplus which means if you don't like the expectations your employer is dumping on you, go ahead and leave. There will be a line of nurses waiting in the wings to take the very job you can't tolerate...if they even bother to fill the empty position.
The ridiculous and prevailing model of health care as customer service has in my opinion done more to destroy nursing than any amount of poor management could accomplish. As soon as our primary job became making the patient happy instead of making the patient well the downward spiral began. Sadly I see no change for the better in the future.
When patients became "Customers", nurses became Customer Service Representatives. Nursing has been going downhill ever since.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. And what's baffling is that even though nurses are on the front lines of obtaining the ever-so-coveted top survey scores, there are more demands placed upon them to be Flo herself at the bedside while simultaneously caring for 5 other individuals, having not peed or eaten, and while it having been her 5th shift on in a row. What's more? She's likely not given the tools or resources to do her job effectively.
And I've heard the arguments on how it's "totally possible" for a nurse to pee and eat on her shift so long as she "puts her foot down." But I'm here to tell you some days it just isn't feasible unless I want to be a good 1-2 hours late leaving for my shift. All that OT piles up and then you have issues with higher management. If there is anyone that has successfully fought the acuity battle by proving to management that they're paying you more overtime by making your work day longer by increasing your numbers, please tell me. Because I haven't yet won that battle. I've had threats for my job if I don't contain my work day to the shift I'm provided, but so far, no reduction in the work load.
Organizations are desperate to keep customers to keep their businesses alive. Why hospitals feel they must do this are beyond me. Illness never goes out of stock. Sick people are a dime a dozen and if you're the only hospital in a reasonable area, the patient is coming to you regardless of your survey score, plain and simple.
You're so right. My first job was very stressful as a new grad. My HR was always in the 90s where I do normally have low HR and low BP. I felt like u was on my toes all the time and even felt bullied by other RNs with more experience when I didn't know something or did something and they didn't like my way. Not only that but you're expected to know the medications, actions, side effects, mechanism of action of meds and try doing that with all of these Beta Blockers, ACEI, CCB, statins, anti coagulants, and arrhythmia drugs plus the other meds patients take and it can feel like your brain is going to boil and burn. And on too of that you have to be sweet and nice and help the PCA clean code browns, make sure the IV bags don't go dry and the IVs don't get infiltrated, help the patient up to the bathroom or comode cuz there's only one PCA for the whole floor etc etc etc
Praise God! I was getting very nervous! I only start my prerequisites in January and expect to begin my BSN in the fall of 2017.
I've never been unhappy because of my workplace. I can't imagine a career I'm so excited about starting could be this....depressing??? I'm praying NOW, that it will be all that I have imagined it to be and what I've always heard it was. And I'm assuming that it could just be
.
FolksBtrippin, BSN, RN
2,322 Posts
I have found that the posts on here do not match the reality of what I see in the hospital during clinical and in nursing school. I don't know why this is so. It might be the area of the country I live in; perhaps we are better off, it might be that people come online to share negatives so they are more represented. Either way, I am starting to think this forum has a negative effect on my outlook.