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.
Specializes in Med-Surg/Peds/O.R./Legal/cardiology.
WOW. Just reading all of these posts makes me realize how much company I have out here. Just WHO is steering this sinking ship?! If nurses walked out en masse, wonder who would cave? Big business needs a reality check...When lawyers and accountants are running healthcare with NO CLUE what is involved, this is what happens. So SAD to sit by and watch the "suits" totally destroy the lives of people they "care" so much about.
WOW. Just reading all of these posts makes me realize how much company I have out here. Just WHO is steering this sinking ship?! If nurses walked out en masse, wonder who would cave? Big business needs a reality check...When lawyers and accountants are running healthcare with NO CLUE what is involved, this is what happens. So SAD to sit by and watch the "suits" totally destroy the lives of people they "care" so much about.
Been going on for decades... my first exposure was during nursing school in the early/mid 80s when DRGs came out (Diagnostic Related Groups) where insurance decided to pay for a diagnosis (sort of a package deal) - not what the patient actually needed. To get respiratory treatments covered for a colectomy patient, there had to be a diagnosis for colectomy and whatever respiratory issue was going on- not able to just have RT come in and do incentive spirometer teaching because it made sense... It's just gotten worse since then.
The people who "approve" tests/treatments at insurance companies use an approved list of diagnoses for those tests... not on the list, no test. It doesn't matter what the doc (who actually knows the person and their individual risks/issues) thinks is prudent- somebody with 2 years out of high school, with at least a GED gives the approval or denial info...a doc may never (and likely doesn't) evaluate the case before it's denied. It's nuts.
I too have had it with this profession! Being treated like crap and not being recognized for anything good that you do etc. I would leave this profession in an instant if there was something else I could do to make money but since I've been in nursing for so long, I have no other marketable skills, no money to return to school etc. Any suggestions on what kind of job I may be able to get or someone else out there who has a similar scenario?
I'm a teacher and a nurse.....both suffer from the same problem. It's not that they don't pay well enough(but they don't); it's that doing your job well costs too much -emotionally,physically and psychologically. Both groups need to be more politically active, too. If we don't influence the political decisions that control our jobs, then SOMEONE else will.
RNAM1965, OBVIOUSLY you are a manager or administrator or something of the like.... Otherwise who else would take your stance.....? LOL
The bottom line here is that we have so many hoops to jump through these days it is absurd, exhausting, and incredibly stressful to the point where the expectation of nurses is NOT EVEN REALISTIC!!!!! I enjoy being a nurse and taking care of patients, but it should not cost me MY JOB if I don't page the MD at 2am and get a verbal order for Metoprolol because ONE of the SIX to SEVEN patients I'm taking care of was diagnosed with a 59% Ejection Fraction 24-5 years ago, and the MD may or may not have forgotten to order a beta--blocker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is just ONE of the seemingly hundreds of demands placed upon us. If you look at all of the Core Measure Requirements and then multiply that times the # of patients you have on any given 12-hour shift, in addition to all of the other things we are required to do to KEEP OUR JOBS and that does not upset you, then obviously you are not out here on the battlefield with the rest of us under fire, you are sitting in your high-horse a mile away from possible harm telling the rest of us "minions and peasants" what to do--MANAGEMENT!!!
It's fookin' Medicare. They won't pay the facilities what it costs to provide care unless patients are Happy with their service. So you can imagine what it is like in the ED when we don't give narcotics to the seekers. DOWN go the satisfaction scores. So nurses are let go. Now there are fewer (and more burnt out) nurses to try and keep the same pts happy.
RNAM1965, OBVIOUSLY you are a manager or administrator or something of the like.... Otherwise who else would take your stance.....? LOL
The bottom line here is that we have so many hoops to jump through these days it is absurd, exhausting, and incredibly stressful to the point where the expectation of nurses is NOT EVEN REALISTIC!!!!! I enjoy being a nurse and taking care of patients, but it should not cost me MY JOB if I don't page the MD at 2am and get a verbal order for Metoprolol because ONE of the SIX to SEVEN patients I'm taking care of was diagnosed with a 59% Ejection Fraction 24-5 years ago, and the MD may or may not have forgotten to order a beta--blocker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is just ONE of the seemingly hundreds of demands placed upon us. If you look at all of the Core Measure Requirements and then multiply that times the # of patients you have on any given 12-hour shift, in addition to all of the other things we are required to do to KEEP OUR JOBS and that does not upset you, then obviously you are not out here on the battlefield with the rest of us under fire, you are sitting in your high-horse a mile away from possible harm telling the rest of us "minions and peasants" what to do--MANAGEMENT!!!
OMG Jlyn77nurse! This is brilliantly stated, I could not have said it better and . . . you have articulated EXACTLY how I feel almost ALL THE TIME these days! I probably say at least once a week "they just keep raising the bar, higher and higher and giving us more and more hoops to jump through". I'm beginning to seriously think we're part of some kind of experiment to see how much stress and pressure we can take before we blow?
Short and to the point: I remember the term going postal, and thought to myself they have no idea! Some tx us like circus animals jumping through hoops,walking on wires without a net below,and swinging on ropes,oh yea and jumping over beds. Give us peanuts and then we return to our cages.......TO make the Ringmaster look good and make more $$$$$$
This scripting is just being introduced to my place of employment. After 30 yrs of nursing and 35 yrs. of being in the medical profession, I find this is very demeaning and controlling. If I wanted to be an actress, and learn scripts, I would have done so. But I have chosen to
be compassionate, caring and intuitive and this spells NURSE! We have learned to take cues and react and speak according to our pt's. needs and not by a script that someone in management who hasn't handled a bed pan in 20 yrs has orchestrated for us.
Even the phrase "It is my Pleasure" is getting old at Chick fil A, but I can see it as a tool for students and nonprof. people who have not attended college to use. What did we take Speech, Ethics, etc. for in school if we have to now use a script to to talk to our pt.
I ALSO REFUSE to lie to my pt. and tell that I will be back in 5 mins exactly when i know that when I go outside that room I will be bombarded with 10 other things that take higher priority and it will probably take 10 minutes before I will be able to do it.
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
This scripting is just being introduced to my place of employment.
*** JUST NOW! Scripting was a huge fad that quickly went by the way side years ago. Your hospital is both a SLOW adopter and disregards EBP. The worst of both worlds. I have seen it sucsessfully done away with if you can get all your nurses on board to simply refuse to do it.
Scripting has been introduced at my place of employment. We implemented hourly rounding awhile ago but it's all scripted. Saying things like "I have the time" (but really I don't...), "it would be my pleasure to do so" "it is our goal to give you the best experience possible...." um, that H stands for Hospital, not Hilton!!! I'm sick of all HCHAPS and all of this customer service crap and I really haven't been a nurse for that long. I think it belittles our profession and also doesn't allow me to use my professional nursing judgement. "Oh, pt in room 1 is somnolent? well if there pain medicine is due, you give it to them!" (true story). Forget about patient safety because all of the higher ups care about now is "customer" satisfaction.
It's just gotten worse since then. 
DutchRN09
214 Posts
We are all attending mandatory education about this right now