I've been a nurse for a little over a year now. They say we all get into nursing because we have the need to serve and care.. I thought nursing would be a fulfilling job. I wanted to have a meaningful job. I wanted to find purpose.
I hate my job. I hate nursing.
I've been working in a hospital on a telemetry unit for 7 months.
I feel my intelligence is slowly fading. I almost cried the other night because one of my patients actually said thank you- that is how rare hearing those words are. How screwed up is this? My night revolves around refilling water, taking patients to the bathroom, getting extra blankets, filling up cups with "just the right" amount of ice and fluffing pillows. I'm lucky if I get a chance to look at labs, critically think, and evaluate the care plan. I'm overwhelmed.
I feel as nurses, we have done this to ourselves. We have entitled our patients to some sort of gratification; and we have no choice because we are micromanaged and everything is money related. Managers round and only care about patient satisfaction; compared to their actual health care outcomes. What can we do about this? I've thought about leaving the profession because nurses are treated like dirt. Because I don't get the respect I deserve, as a human being, let alone as a health care provider.
Are there any other nurses that feel this way? Are there any nurses that feel completely swamped, down in the dirt, and have to drag themselves to work? I get anxiety just thinking about the night ahead when I do have work. What have you done? What can I do? I need some advice because I feel completely lost and I'm about to abandon ship.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
I also think (as awful as this sounds) I would be much happier if I had an aide (I work nights) to help filter out a lot of the every day tasks.
What you are saying doesn't sound awful at all.
I work night shift. I would be looking for a new job ASAP if I didn't have aides or techs working with me. Luckily, my workplace pairs each primary nurse with a CNA, and they provide care for each patient load as a team.
I think that is also a main ache of my current job- I have complete patient care. Telemetry at my hospital (and maybe this is at all hospitals) is considered intermmediate care. I have 4 patients, but on any given night the acuity of those patients may be a ten for each of them. there are some nights I don't sit down until midnight because I'm busy doing a lot of the tasks that an aide could do. I truly didn't mean for this to turn into a complaint thread, but just good to hear that maybe my "complaints" aren't completely complaints.
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but no, it doesn't always get better for everyone. After 8 years of misery I have decided to take a long break and explore other professions. I have had 4 jobs during this time and only one wasn't INSANE. Literally everywhere I have worked has had some permutation or mix of piss poor management, blurry ethics, high turnover, rotten morale, weak protocols, weaker staffing practices, lawsuits against them, failed inspections, violence in the workplace, total lack of training or orientation, no mentoring, and favoritism/nepotism or racial segmentation. And before you say it was me, or the places I chose to work, I've never had a poor reference, been fired or written up, and every employer I've had has been a large, well-regarded hospital, clinic network or government public health entity. This industry is BROKEN, PERIOD, and only followers and the truly (and admirably) detached are rewarded.
Because somewhere, at some time, it became one big business. And the only time it is not a business is when a nurse makes an error.....
So when it is a liability it is all about nursing character and practice, but on any given day it is about the production of units......not the care of patients.
"How screwed up is this? My night revolves around refilling water, taking patients to the bathroom, getting extra blankets, filling up cups with "just the right" amount of ice and fluffing pillows."
Its screwed up that you think the above things don't matter.
I've been working in a hospital on a telemetry unit for 7 months.
I feel my intelligence is slowly fading. I almost cried the other night because one of my patients actually said thank you- that is how rare hearing those words are. How screwed up is this? My night revolves around refilling water, taking patients to the bathroom, getting extra blankets, filling up cups with "just the right" amount of ice and fluffing pillows. I'm lucky if I get a chance to look at labs, critically think, and evaluate the care plan. I'm overwhelmed.
Nowhere did the OP state that these things are unimportant. What s/he stated was that she is doing so much of these basic things that you don't need a nursing license to do and thus could be delegated, that she is unable to keep up with things like lab results and higher level thinking about the patient's care.
This is how pertinent lab results are missed, orders are missed, unfavorable trends in vital signs and/or changes in patient condition are missed, etc., when you have nurses that are so bogged down in the basics.
To the OP: I used to work tele- I understand how busy it can keep you just providing for patients' basic wants or needs. But this is preventing you from being able to see the bigger picture about the patients' progress or lack thereof. If you don't have time to look at lab results, I wonder if you have time to even check tele strips? Would you notice any new ectopy or rate/rhythm changes?
Here is what you have to do. You have to change the way you think about patient care. All of those little things are important, which is why you are doing them, but in the big picture, does it matter if you got the perfect mix of ice and water if the patient goes into V-Fib arrest?
You have to start thinking in terms of "What is going to kill the patient the quickest?", and you have to prioritize your nursing care according to that.
Checking VS, lab work, rhythm strips, and doing your head to toe (including checking IV patency) on every patient at the beginning of your shift has to be your priority. That means that blanket/water requests have to wait until YOU can fit it in. It is perfectly okay to tell a patient that you are in the middle of something, but you can get them that warm blanket as soon as you are done- so long as you use language (both verbal and nonverbal) that shows concern for their comfort and well being. In other words, you are not being dismissive of their request for ice water or a snack, you are simply prioritizing.
I agree it sounds like you need an aide. An aide could answer call lights and assist patients to the bathroom while you are doing your first round, so that you can properly assess your patients without interruption. Have you brought this up to your supervisor? Is it possible your employer might hire an aide if enough nurses spoke up about this? Do you have a unit based council or staffing committee that you could approach?
Would adding an aide be enough to reverse hating nursing? One can incorporate grabbing a blanket going into each room and adjusting pillows while asking a patient how they're feeling, I don't think it's as simple as eliminating those tasks. An aide isn't going to change the acute care culture.
My job does not define me. I personally like being a nurse but like others have said, at the end of the day I leave work at work. I keep home and work separate. I like my coworkers but don't socialize with them outside of the job. I don't want to talk shop. No matter what profession you choose to pursue there will always be the self entitled that you will have to deal with. They're in every aspect of nursing too so you just have to get over the expectations of thank you's because they can be few and far between.
It's not about eliminating those tasks. It's about giving the nurse more help so that s/he can prioritize appropriately.
Of course you can grab a warm blanket on your way into the room, or fix the pillows while you talk to your patient. You can assist them to the restroom and peek at their coccyx, assess their gait and mentation, etc.
Seriously, I would hate nursing too if I couldn't use my higher level assessment and critical thinking skills but instead was spending my entire shift attending to basic comfort measures.
Sometimes it gets so busy in the ED that I'll be tasking for a few hours nonstop, then realize I don't know what my DKA patient's potassium is, or my abdominal patient's lipase, or whether my pelvic pain patient's urine pregnancy was positive or not, and that makes me super uncomfortable. I need to know these things in order to provide appropriate care. I can't just say to myself "Oh, the doctor knows what's going on, so I don't have to". The doctor can miss things, too, and even if the doctor is aware, I am not absolved of my responsibility to be aware as well. And sometimes (and this was one of my points to the OP), I have to just put everything on hold so I can look up lab results on my patients. I have to tell someone (kindly) that they will have to wait for things like ice water or warm blankets, because I have to prioritize the things that are going to kill my patients over comfort measures.
The challenge on the inpatient unit is that the doctor is not present looking up lab and diagnostic results or putting their eyeballs on the patient. The RN is responsible for notifying the doctor of any pertinent lab results and notifying the doctor of any changes in patient condition. That is the most essential function of the RN, because while comfort measures are important, they can be delegated to UAP.
I think nurses are happier when they are able to practice to their fullest scope. If I wanted to just provide comfort measures and assist with toileting, I would have stayed a CNA and not put myself through nursing school.
So yes, I think having help so that the nurse can focus on the bigger picture and not be bogged down in basic care might address hating nursing.
Additional forms of assistance would make nursing a better and safer experience, but unless OP's coworker's also hate their job and nursing, I'm assuming the issue is an internal one. Which is okay, no one has to like it. I just don't think hate has a simple fix. Unless hate is just being thrown around in exaggeration.
Adding a CNA isn't going to change everything OP has a complaint with, otherwise the post would have just been, "I need an aide to help with patients' (legitimate) needs."
I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm not surprised to read it. I may as well have written this myself a couple of months ago. I felt battered, exhausted and burned out. This is a business where there really is no room for personal gratification. Like many others have said in this thread, I went into nursing because as an immigrant to this country it provided me with a stable job and upward mobility. Whenever I feel as though a patient was rude to me when I didn't deserve it, I just remember that this is merely a stepping stone towards something more. I definitely believe that bedside nursing is not for everyone. It wears out your body, mind and soul. Currently I'm going back to acute care on a PRN basis after seven months of being out of the game. I feel like PRN will give me just enough to keep my skills up without being so invested in all the BS and burn out that comes along with it. Stick it out a bit so that your resume looks good, and then pursue your passions elsewhere. Nobody says that you have to stay where you are for the next 20 years (I always wondered how people did that). This is a business and you need to make yourself marketable so that you can go on to different things. Good luck!
Would adding an aide be enough to reverse hating nursing? One can incorporate grabbing a blanket going into each room and adjusting pillows while asking a patient how they're feeling, I don't think it's as simple as eliminating those tasks. An aide isn't going to change the acute care culture.
I disagree. Having an aide that is motivated and competent can go a LONG way in improving nursing satisfaction in the hospital. As others have said, it would allow the RN to practice at the full scope of their practice by not being bogged down with tasks that can easily be performed by techs/aides if the RN is otherwise busy.
TheCommuter, BSN, RN
102 Articles; 27,612 Posts
I work night shift. I would be looking for a new job ASAP if I didn't have aides or techs working with me. Luckily, my workplace pairs each primary nurse with a CNA, and they provide care for each patient load as a team.