I need a passion...

A vacation and time to decompress could be helpful. When you feel ready, put your resume together and start to apply for a clinic position or something outside of the hospital. You do not sound like an a-hole, you sound burn out. I hope you find the answer to your situation soon. BIG HUGS to you.

You need a change from the bedside. What parts of nursing do you like? Use those as a framework to figure out where to go.

Use AN as a sounding board.

Good luck.

Maybe your passion needs to be something outside of work. Not everyone is passionate about their job, but that does not mean you cannot do it well.

I do not define myself nor attempt to fulfill myself by my job. I attempt to do an excellent job while I am at work and I have compassion for the patients, but when I clock out, I'm passionate about many things that have nothing to do with nursing or work.

I'd look at your life outside of work and fix the holes there. Your post reads as though your tank must be empty. Nurses or anyone else who are getting their needs met in their personal life may not like the work of nursing but most likely they aren't apathetic.

And I'd look at your aptitude and see if any corner of nursing would fit. It may not be your passion but could at least be a match to things you don't loathe.

My first thought is, "How's your personal life?" You seem unhappy, in general ...not necessarily just with your work. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

I'm kind of stuck in the same situation, although you seem much more depressed about it. Nursing is not my dream job, and to be fair about it I don't think most people end up doing what they really want in life. You have to put food on the table at the expense of dreams in many cases. In my case I live in an area that has a number of factory jobs and little else. My choices were limited, so I chose the most expansive field where I could find a niche I didn't despise: Nursing. I just became an RN on the 10th. If you don't feel the ER is right for you move on to something else. The great thing about nursing is that there exists such a wide variety of jobs that everyone can find something. Find a passion in life. It doesn't have to be your job. Take care.

The others are right. You're experiencing burn out. Trying harder won't fix that. It's your little 'try harder' motor that's burned out. A change of perspective might help, but it's hard to find a way to learn to love what you now hate.

As others have suggested, changing to do work in a radically different area of nursing might help. My cousin, an experienced CCU nurse, spent about six months as an RN-nanny on the coast of Italy in a nice home caring for the son of a wealthy Italian family who'd had heart surgery. But jobs like those are rare and, in her case, her CCU experience was critical. You might list what you dislike most about what you're doing and then look for something without those demands. In your case, it seems to be the demands that patients place on you that's wearing. So what you said about getting into a patient-free area of nursing makes sense:

I thought about lots of options: insurance, teaching, research, pharm/equip rep, forensics (not nursing), liason, etc.

Although if you get into teaching, you're likely to find that students can be as needy as patients.

You've been in nursing for two years, so I assume you're still young but probably with little money saved up. You might consider what I did at a similar age when work as the director of a group home for alcoholics and drug addicts left me burned out. (Most didn't want to change. They just wanted to avoid prison time.)

My solution for that burn out was an extended vacation. I took what money I'd saved up and headed for Europe with one-month Britrail and three-month Eurail passes. I spent one month in the UK and then three months roving Europe from Narvik, Norway above the Arctic Circle to Brindisi, at the heel of Italy. (With those rail passes, my travel costs were zero.) To save money and time, I traveled and slept in overnight trains. When I stayed in a city more than one day, I stayed in an inexpensive youth hostel. My traveling began as Europe's tourist season ended in early September. By December, even southern Europe was getting a bit cold, so I flew to Israel, spent about six months working essentially for room and board on a kibbutz, a month living in the Old City of Jerusalem and working on an archaeological dig, and one month roving about, often camping out on a hillside or in the desert. After those eight months I could pass as an Israeli native.

I cut it very close financially. I got back to Seattle via cross-country bus, eating almost nothing for three days because my money was virtually gone. I arrived back, well-rested but with only about $1.25 in my pocket. I would not suggest cutting it that close, but it can be great fun traveling cheaply and not under any tour-driven compulsion. I remember one occasion when I stood in the main rail station in Rome and found myself deciding which overnight train I wanted to take, the one to Paris or the one to Munich. No compulsion existed and my Eurail card was good for either. I settled on Paris. I had friends there. Alas, I had no friends in Munich. It's a wonderful city.

You don't have to make that extended break to Europe. An inexpensive tropical island for a couple of months might serve as well. But the dollar is strong now, so your money will go far overseas, and Eurail offers for more options than it did in my day. If you know a foreign language, you might focus on a country where that is spoken. I spent three months blitzing Europe, but counties such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain are each worth a two or three month visit. Heck, there are cities in Europe worth an extended stay: London, Paris, Munich or Rome come to mind. Of course, all that, even done frugally, does take money that you may not have.

In short, I know how you feel. When you're burned out, it's hard to think positive about the future. Every path seems grim and dark. But an extended vacation, if it is doable, can give you a new perspective on life. In my case, a temporary job after I got back gave me time to get EMT training. I then parlayed that training into a night-shift nurse tech position in Hem-Onc pediatrics at a children's hospital. I loved that work so much, I've written it up in a book, My Nights with Leukemia. A year rambling Europe and the Middle East had so ended my burnout that I was able to take on and appreciate one of the most emotionally draining jobs in nursing. Nothing is impossible.

I realize that money is a serious problem. I spent a year carefully saving up for my European jaunt and you may not have time for that. But doing something different to break out of this circle of unhappiness would help. You might, instead, go live with a friend or relative, and look for a job as far removed from nursing as possible. Don't burn your bridges though. Renewed and refreshed, you may find yourself wanting to get back into nursing.

--Michael W. Perry

You don't need to get out of health care, you just need to stop being the one that delivers it.

Turn that negative energy into useful energy, and find it. For instance, I work for an insurance company. No longer provide healthcare, my work is denying payment for it. Fulfilling.

Thank you everyone for your inputs, and I welcome them even more. If I leave this job, I vow that my next one will NOT be bedside; I realize that bedside is not where I belong, and "taking care of patients" part is not for me. So far I have been thinking public/community health government type job, research or insurance position. Time to build some resumes and start searching.As far as my personal life goes, I am quite content when I am not at work. I can say the single cause of my life's misery now is my job. I don't necessarily have a hobby or passion but that doesn't make me unhappy; the job however does. I understand that almost no one does what they love to do for living, but I think that you don't have to be completely miserable like I am.

Until you can find something else, maybe try reading ER-related journals and research? I know that sounds nerdy, but I find going back to the science behind what I do, and behind the way I do things, helps when I'm feeling a little crispy. I might not care about the patient I'm doing a particular intervention for, but if I think about the fact that doing that particular intervention has been shown to reduce mortality by 30%, or cut a length of stay in half, I get satisfaction from doing it. I dissociate the interventions I'm doing from the person I do them to, if that makes sense.