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 dream is to become a commuter. What position are you taking as a commuter?
I am going to get certified in medical billing & coding. I know I will need 2 years of experience to telecommute but it is worth the wait and the pay cut to be able to get off my feet. I get teary eyed when I look at my legs - the veins look like road maps.
It was interesting for me to read the original post, as it certainly jived with my own experience. It's a terrible thing to say but I could never recommend nursing to anybody I liked. Yes, it's a quick way to a decent salary, and yes, I did enjoy my coworkers but that was as far as it went. Any early ideas of serving nobly for the greater good were certainly beaten out of me by a punitive system. I got smarter about how I did things so the punitive aspects became rarer and rarer, but the damage was done. I no longer put the patient's welfare first but instead my own longevity on the job. Time for me to go.
At the point when I did, I literally had not been written up in some five years for *anything*. I had met or exceeded every performance goal at every evaluation. Yet I wasn't much of a nurse. I had the technical skills and could see things coming before they arrived but I'd learned to not do anything that might earn rebuke, even if it was in the best interest of the patient.
In the last year I was working, I watched 13 fellow nurses lose their jobs from my unit alone over some trumped up crap. They'd be assigned charge duty, a staff nurse would allow something to happen, the staff nurse would be written up and the charge nurse fired! 13 times in a year! Obviously there was a purge of the older experienced nurses, who'd then be replaced by cheaper new hires/grads; many from off shore. I'd been there at this particular unit for 12 years at that point.
They hadn't caught me yet but I could see the writing on the wall. I avoided any extra shifts as they were just another opportunity to be caught in a mistake. I can remember rejecting emergency pay at 2.5 times my base rate. There wasn't enough money to entice me to work more than I had to. I went from full time to weekender, stopped working holidays (except those that fell on Saturday or Sunday); stopped attending staff meetings as well. I quit when my dad got sick with renal cancer to go take care of him. I never returned from family leave but retired at the age of 55 instead. I am *so* glad I'm out of it now. Now I live at the beach and am listening to the surf as I type this.
Specializes in Labor & Delivery, Postpartum, Lactation.
Wow, I guess I'm not alone afterall. I just happened upon this article and it really resonates in me.
When I became an RN in the early 90's nursing was great! The hospital I worked at was a pretty decent size and staffed well. We never had anything to complain about. Life was good. After 7 yrs I left work to raise my family and we decided I'd go back later when it was time to pay for college. Fast forward 15 yrs and it's college time. Whoa! I've been back in the hospital for 2 yrs and barely have the self-confidence to keep going. This is very heartbreaking. I wasn't sure if it was just difficult for me to get used to computer charting, different dynamics on the west coast,(since I had been in the Midwest), or I just wasn't cut out for it anymore. So much is different and so much seems to have changed in these past 15 yrs. The depression, anxiety, all that! I feel it and thought I am just lame and couldn't hack it in the big world of nursing anymore. The past couple weeks I've been seriously looking into other types of nursing and thinking I will take some coding classes and possibly work for an insurance company...get the heck out of patient care! I love parts of my current job, patient/discharge education but there is so much pressure put on us, I'm not having the time I need to do what I'm being paid TO DO. Nursing needs to change.
Where is this mythical med surg floor that you work on? At my hospital on med surg the nurses have 7-8 pts on tele while doing charge with one cna that has 15 pts. It's pure hell on most days and just to survive the shift often can seem like a miracle.
The culture hasn't changed despite many evidence and research showing nurses are crucial to the success of every health care facility. The gap between administration and unit nurses are the same or widening while there are nurses, both experienced and inexperienced, who are not supportive and lacking respect of other nurses. When nurses are tired of administration the nurses are always left alone in their battle with administration and they leave without peer support much less to reinforce their plight for a strong in professional working rapport with the administration. Nurses must respect each other just as when nurses interact with patients and visitors. Until all these change, there will continue to be nurses leaving the profession and choosing other options in droves.
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.
AMEN to that!!!!! When the patient has family at the bedside, you just have MORE customers to please.
I am one that has sat in my car crying, telling myself to get in there and get my shift over with after spending the hours prior dreading having to go to work. Heck there were days I wanted to get in a car accident so I wouldn't have to go in to work.
I don't know what the answers are, but I am getting my BSN right now and hoping I can find some other type of position.anyone who prays out there, Please pray for me to figure this out and get off of this ride.
I understand your pain. I used to wish that I wouldn't wake up so I wouldn't have to go to work. That is no way to live. I will pray for you. I pray for myself, my patients and other healthcare professionals before I start my shift.
A BSN does NOT define you. My nieces father has a bachelors degree in Physics & Electrical Engineering and does NOT work in either field, he has a great telecommuting job. This is possible for nurses as well.
I have been an RN for 23 years and love what I do. I am charge nurse on an open heart unit every weekend and work an office job part time during the week. I have done home health care, stress lab, endoscopy, cardiac Cath lab, multiple in patient units etc. I believe financial compensation and flexibility are better as an RN. If you are worried about a nerve wracking environment just know that can occur with any career. Do a self assessment. Can you stay calm in a tense situation? Can you keep a clear head? It might not be a bad idea to shadow with a nurse. Good luck
I am actively in the process of attempting to leave bedside nursing. It is simply becoming too much work for too little reward.
As long as everything progresses satisfactorily with the background check, I will be starting a work-at-home job next month. I desperately need the change in scenery.
Could you please share what work-at-home job you are getting? Inquiring minds need to know.
I've been a nurse for 6 months now, and I'll tell you the first 3 months were brutal. My worst shift I had 6 patients, all high acuity, I was so stressed out I was near tears and on the verge of vomiting all day. I finished work two hours late, then went to my car and cried for an hour. I called my sister who is also a nurse and told her I don't think I can do this. After that I started taking herbal supplements to help keep my anxiety under control. My unit ended up losing quite a few nurses, which prompted management to hold some meetings with us to find out why nurses were so unhappy. Since they've implemented some new changes things have improved drastically. I still have days that are stressful, but that stress is at a manageable level now. I think a lot of it comes down to management, a good manager will find solutions to help improve the work environment.
NurseAngie
357 Posts
True. I waited tables awhile and it feels very similar sometimes.