I hate what's happening to nursing...

[nyteshade]

Eight years.

That is how long I’ve been in nursing. Just eight years. I haven’t been on AN in a while. I used to frequent the site a lot to vent with others, and help others with advice. Well, today is a ranting kind of day, so here it goes…

I hate what nursing is becoming. It is become overrun with elite folks who have forgotten what it’s like to just get through your shift. It’s being taken over by money hungry CEOs that are finding neat little ways to package “customer service” with healthcare. Our intelligence is being insulted here! What exactly do I mean by this? Well, what professional do you know gets “scripts” to regurgitate at patients? Why is it that we are not trusted to do our job or say the right thing?

I understand that healthcare is indeed a business. It has to be. If it weren’t, we’d all be working for free. I got that. I do my job. I put my all into my shift. I advocate for my patients. I’ve gone above and beyond…all without recognition.

But, I’m deeply saddened…Now I’m being told that isn’t good enough. All I see for the future of healthcare is walking into a patient’s room at the end of my shift saying, “My name is______, if you felt I gave excellent care call 888-tell-them, and rate me a 10.” Heaven forbid you score less than 10 three times…

Eight years ago, I felt so proud in my whites on graduation day. I felt professional, neat, knowledgeable, and respected. Now, I feel burned up, and abused. For now, I stay in nursing…patients still smile, and thank me at the end of my shift. They cannot detect how I feel under the surface.

But, I am seriously considering leaving healthcare altogether.

[nyteshade, BSN]

Wow, it's been a while since I've checked in on the thread I started...close to 17,000 views later, I stopped in. While I really have no more to add on this as many people have articulated how I feel so much better than I could ever write, I think we touched some people here. It's my hope that this is only a trend in nursing, and not the mainstay. One can only hope...

[Chiggysmom]

I will just say again........that nursing has come to this.............a very sad state of affairs indeed...:crying2::crying2::crying2:

Indeed! It only promises to get worst and worst for us too. Press Ganey scores are tied into Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements now so more and more pressure is sure to be placed on the nurses to make those scores optimal. If we think there are unrealistic expectations now, wait till this thing gets into full swing! Administration/management doesn't care anything about us, all they care about is making those numbers work so they get as much reimbursement as is possible and they won't care what they have to put us nurses through to meet that end.

[Chiggysmom]

Makes you think so doesn't it ? I don't think the US public gets it with hospitals being places for sick people. I know when I was growing up and I am not young anymore by any means but this was in 70s and 80s . Children under 12 couldn't visit anyone and in ICU forget about it and there it was 15 minutes each hour or two hours for close family even then. There were also visiting hours. I don't understand why it was changed. Hospitals are not the mall or Walmart for sure.

Because people (patients/families) have been made to think that hospitals are like resorts now!

[Chiggysmom]

Nobody told me nursing would be easy or fun, either. But the "not easy" and "not fun" things were about activities a nurse expects will not be easy or fun. I wish people started paying attention to this issue in it's nascient stages, but people in a position to give some pushback were busy paying attention to something else.

For many nurses the customer service issue isn't something benign that can be ignored. It erodes morale, gives patients false expectations of what nurses are there to do, and if not adhered to can actually cost a nurse her job. One of our contributers here recounted her experience of using scripting phrases while two managers lurking outside the room to make sure she said it right.

I was thinking this but didn't say it. Couldn't have said it better!

[Chiggysmom]

OH yes: You hit the nail on the head!

I feel so much like I am giving the " Thank you for shopping Wal-Mart" pattern good bye to my patients,when we are saying "Hope you felt you had EXCELLENT care, upon discharge. CEOs have a problem with reality vs. appearance. Do they really mean they want excellent care provided or they want the appearance of excellent care?. If you want real excellent care then give us the excellent staffing, excellent tools and excellent initiatives. Not little bells and whistle like we are in romper room, but big peoples rewards like $$$$.[/quo

Exactly! They want us to twist ourselves into a pretzel and go above and beyond the call of duty 150% of the time with no incentives for us at all, not even adequate staffing @ all times. The least they could do is make sure that we have adequate staffing so that we would have the time and energy to carry out all these agendas!

[Chiggysmom]

Sorry for my freakout on my reply to you Stressgal but I was just called by the facility and told this after I had done orientation and worked two nights on the floor. I guess my credit report took longer to get ahold of than my background check. I am just feeling demoralized. I will keep looking but I fully believe healthcare has went the way of big business and I am just a worker drone not even good enough. I am mad though and I agree nurses have got to become one voice no matter what educational level or even financial level we all are and stop this. I just dont know where to start and who to fight.

Psychtrish,

I feel so bad this happened to you. I have read about this (that almost all employers use the credit reporting agencies to hire today) but never personally knew anyone who wasn't able to get a position based on their credit report. The world is being ran, owned and operated by big corporations and the banksters! This is NOT a positive change. Hospitals are not anything like they used to be. It's all about the money, everything else is, secondary to that. I can understand how you can run a store like that but not an establishment that specifically deals with people's body's and health. To me that's a whole different ball game.

[Chiggysmom]

It is so sad where we have ended up. 25 years ago you were promoted on you integrity,honesty and how good of a nurse you were. Stellar at your profession. Now, however........you graduate school, work one night shift, have someone puke in your pocket and pee down your leg and go back to school to get your master's degree get hired as my boss and try to tell me how to do bedside nursing by evidence based practice! My question is.....when did they practice to have enough evidence to know how to do it !? I am weary of being criticized because of my lack of "ambition" to further my education and gain no respect for my 32 years as a Registered Nurse. I have a 12 and 13 year old that need college in a very few years! I have been afraid we were going to over educate ourselves away from the bedside and be replaced with cheaper "less educated" personel as LPN's, aides and techs. I am afraid my prophecy my be comming true.

Now I am afraid that if I am ever able to return to nursing.......nursing won't want me. I have suffered a catasrophic illness......I had disability through my employer. (Recently I have recieved SSDI) I trusted them to help me "get through this..... They told me all would be well and they were behind me........they were behind me all right..... when they kicked my butt out the door for "chronic attendence" issues that lead to "poor performance". I trusted them..... Now without disability insurance, unemployment ran out. My illness escalated the bills mounted.....things did not get paid. 32 years of great credit gone.........everything I have done......All I have saved..........gone:crying2:. Wiped from my history

I am 50 (ish), bad credit, no savings, unable to work................The only thing I have ever done for a job is be a nurse......it's the only thing I do well...all I ever wanted to be:o I have bedside nursed for 32 years with only 2 6 month breaks........my children.

Now I am afraid I will never work again:crying2: I feel like the profession I have devoted my life to abandonded me when I needed it most...........

It makes me very sad.........

THis makes me very sad too.

[Chiggysmom]

I work in a NICU, the 13th over my 27 year career. Despite years in the field of nursing my work ethic, high standards, and love of caring for my patients and their families has remained high. However, each year the last 4-5 management has added tasks to my role, such as we now do all our lab on our patients, we work with one less RT, so we have to do more and more of the respiratory care, we have private rooms so parents can stay all night if they choose and then you are caring for them as well as your pt, computer charting, so we are now data entry people, on w/ends we have to stock our carts. We are not staffed by acuity, rather by a number matrix. I try to find ways to be more efficient, but with the heavy assignments I often feel defeated by the time report is over. I have many 12 hour shifts when a 20 min lunch break is the only break of the night. I am still trying to deliver the care I take pride in, but around me I see many staff just giving up and picking and choosing what they will fit in on any given shift. They still take their breaks and hang out on their I-phones and if their pt hasn't had a linen change in a week, or a bath in two, the excuse is " I don't have time for fluff with my heavy assignment." Because the work load is so heavy, each staff member picks and chooses what she'll fit in to her shift. I dread going in many nights and even when I get it all done and really make a difference to a baby's outcome or the famly, there is absolutely no recognition from management or our doctors. Night shift staff is viewed as babysitters. "Just keep them alive till 7:05." I have 4 years to go till I can possibly retire and NEVER thought I would end my career feeling this way. I still LOVE what I do, I just hate how and where I have to practice my craft.

I think just about every nurse on this forum (with the exception of those that are in denial) can relate to this. So sad.

[Chiggysmom]

I am so with you on that. No way am I getting my BSN. If I have a chance to go back to school (probably when my son is in college), it will be to get a degree in a field I will enjoy. I am in an abusive environment going to work as a nurse. Why in the world would I spend a dime to increase my degree, for most likely a pay cut. That's next folks.

LOL! I DO have a BSN and it's practically not worth the paper it's written on as far as compensation and recognition goes! Heck, I don't even get to have a BSN after my name on my badge! Where I work everyone has the same thing on their badge, registered nurse or Staff RN (kinda socialized nursing?). So that and 25 cents will get me half a cup of coffee! If I had it to do over again, I don't think I would bother with the BSN degree.

[Chiggysmom]

I think u did the right thing talking ur daughter out of a nursing career. I'm glad she chose something else.

She's very happy in her profession as a dental hygienist for the most part. She still has to put up with things (no job is perfect) but she doesn't have to work week-ends, she doesn't clean anyone's teeth on Christmas Day, ThanksGiving Day or at 3:00 in the morning! She doesn't have to work shifts and her hours are more akin to bankers hrs. (the lastest she works is once or twice a week from 8:00-6:00). And they don't have Press Ganey surveys breathing down their necks! People forget that all the stuff we put up with and then we have to work strange shifts, week-ends and holidays! People just take for granted that any time of the day or night, there's a nurse available to take care of them. We are barely paid extra for staying up all night long taking care of them and their loved ones and then sleeping during the day (which is a totally unnatural thing for the human body to endure) and coming back in again that night and taking care of them again. Most people have no idea how difficult it is to switch back and forth with the different shifts. Even my husband pretends like he understands but he couldn't stay up all night long to save his life let alone, stay up and be alert and have the responsibility of several people in his hands!

[Chiggysmom]

The money isn't what it used to be. They are cutting back. Ask some new grads what they make and it's getting worse. Job security? An RN today is a dime a dozen. You do anything someone doesn't like - YOU'RE FIRED. I wouldn't call that job security. The benefits are horrible. The amount you pay for insurance is as if you had independent coverage, the employees absorb all of the cost these days. 4 days off a week - spent lying on the couch with your aching feet up and emotionally drained from abuse and all the other stresses.

Sounds super!

LOL CosmicSun, I thought I was the only one that spent most of my days off exhausted from working the three 12 hr shifts I work a week (especially when they're night shifts)! I am physically and emotionally spent when I'm done (I work oncology-very emotionally draining most of the time).

[seasonednurse56]

"You do anything someone doesn't like - YOU'RE FIRED"

Not only that, but you can be fired if you're not nice. I actually saw this on a hospital website. That really sticks in my craw!