Icu Nursing isn't for me help

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Looking for advice! I am a relatively new RN-bsn, almost 2 years in, all day shift critical care. I also worked as a cna in the same department during nursing school. So I feel that I have given critical care enough time to know that it's not for me. I spoke to co-workers and managers previously, all said stick it out because I'm a good nurse and I will see that at the one year mark. They said everyone feels like this at first and if it doesn't get better you can go anywhere with icu experience. Well that doesn't seem to be the case. I am still extremely stressed when I am there and always afraid I'm going to make an error. I don't have fun or enjoy my time at work because I am so stressed. I feel like icu nursing lets me know a little about everything, but I'm not an expert on anything. I have applied to numerous specialty fields (mother/baby, l&d, surgery, and oncology) with the hope that I might like nursing if I could become an expert in one thing. I never even get an interview. All the job postings say they require x amount of years experience in that field. My mom is a clinical manager for a hospice company. Although she has offered me a job there, I'm not sure I would like that type of nursing either and I do not want to put my mom in a bad spot if it doesn't work out. She reviewed/edited my resume and cover letter and feels they are very good. So how do I go about getting out of icu? Are there any other jobs besides nursing I can do with my BSN if I can't get into a specialty field? I am just lost and have no idea what to do. Some times I debate going back to college and starting all over with a new career, but really can't afford to go into that much more student loan debt. Any advice would help.

Specializes in Med/Surg.

I completely get where you are coming from! I've been in ICU for 1.5 years and still feel stressed all the time and I only have 2 patients. I can't imagine trying to take care of 4!

Have you thought of looking into diabetic education? I just thought of that when you said you like the DKA patients and being able to sit with patients and educate them. I don't know the requirements to become a diabetic educator but it seems like something you might like. Much less stressful and definitely fewer codes!

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Thanks for the responses I'll start looking for ambulatory jobs too. I never thought about that setting. Yes, BSNgrad2010. I would LOVE to do some sort of nurse educator job. I have that set into my job searches, but I rarely ever get any results for that category. The few I have seen required MSN. So that's another job that seems almost impossible to get. It has just been frustrating feeling like I'm stuck in the icu. I have been searching for jobs for about a year now and every requirement is so specific so if I don't met the requirements I do not even send in my application now. I have tried numerous times, but never even gotten a call back. Hopefully something will come along soon! Sorry you are feeling so stressed in the icu too! Do you think the icu is where you want to be or are you trying to leave too?

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

I'm sorry you're having so much trouble finding something else! I am trying to stick it out a little bit longer but I'm keeping an eye out for jobs that I might like. I am leaning towards the OR. I think I would like having 1 patient at a time, no families, and working as a team (as opposed to feeling like I'm on my own). I don't know though since I've never been in the OR. I will probably try to shadow to see if I would like it. Good luck to you!

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Specializes in CCU, CVICU, Cath Lab, MICU, Endoscopy..

Patient educator for diabetes patients admitted in the hospital might be of interest to you :-) doesn't require an MSN like the Nurse Educator in most places but it doesn't hurt to have one eventually.

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Specializes in SICU.

Hmmm.... this is quite interesting. Almost all the nurses I work with really do love the ICU. Personally, I consider it the best kind of nursing. I wouldn't want to do anything else, but then again, I am young and spry lol.

From reading your posts, it seems you might be able to isolate some of the reasons you get so stressed.

1) Your unit sounds miserable. If they're regularly giving you these 3 patient assignments, they're doable, but they're not what you want to do on a regular basis. Get into a big ICU and you're basically going to have a 1:2 assignment, even if one of your patients is a transfer. We will triple up maybe once every 3-6 months on my unit.

2) If you are too busy, then you're going to fall behind on charting. This is the stuff bad dreams are made of. When you're behind on your charting, you can't peaceably think about your patients, and yet you're spending all your time with them, so really, nothing feels efficient or good. This is a direct result of stress factor number 1 - too many sick patients.

3) You don't understand enough about the ICU. Whether this is true, or you're so lacking in confidence that it just seems like this, this will continue to stress you out. If you truly don't know enough, then a CCRN book will go a long way. I remember being stressed out about getting someone in DKA because I did not understand what was going on with potassium. It would start out high and then we'd be giving it before long! Couple that with the idea of giving someone sugar in their IV?! I hated that. So I went home and studied the heck out of it and then I understood it. Now, like you, I like the diagnosis of DKA! It makes sense :). When you know those ACLS algorithms by heart, codes are no longer scary! If you stay with the ICU, I'd highly recommend making mental notes of things that you didn't fully understand, and searching them at home in your free time. This will make you crazy smart and you'll soon notice that fear of the unknown slips away.

4) MICU will burn anyone out after a while! I don't know how people do it. Your unit gets a lot of medical diagnoses, which tend to be dirty and ugly and an incredibly slow turn around. Many times you see the same diagnoses in the same people and that gets old. Lots of props to the MICU nurses out there that love their medical stuff. Me? I work on a surgical and trauma ICU and it's very different. We will get someone who is so close to death and 3 days later they'll be walking out of the place (or at least transferring lol). Lots of rewarding days around surgery.

I don't know what the right option is for you. Maybe you do need to change to a totally different setting. For me, I knew I loved ICU before I even got into it. In the meantime though, I think there are some things, as mentioned above, that you could do to alleviate some of the stress. Who knows, maybe you'll start liking it? Otherwise, home hospice is AWESOME too! :)

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Bless your heart . It sounds much like my unit and I work In Medsurg ! We can up to 8/night ! Horrible

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Have you thought about the NICU? Not gonna help you escape poop, but I find baby poop to be much easier to handle than poop from adults. ICU experience would be a value to you, as people sometimes forget that the NICU is also an ICU. Things are definitely different compared to the adult world, but there can be a lot of variety in the patients and diagnoses you see. Lots of room for education of parents. Some of the most satisfying education I have done as a nurse has been in the NICU. Teaching a 17 year old how to put a diaper on her 34 week old preemie....2 weeks later helping that same Mom give her baby a bath....2 weeks later watching them both leave and hoping that this will be the start of something wonderful for the both of them. Not all of the situations in the NICU have great outcomes, obviously, but I do feel a greater sense of hope there than I ever did in the adult ICU.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

But if you hate all the things you listed....we do all that in NICU with a much smaller margin if error.

It seems you like teaching....can you work in an educator role or outpatient care? Or work in the Sim center with nurse residents?

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Turns out I may just hate being a nurse all together, not ICU specific. I switched to a different department at the end of April. I went to the Women's care department. We do a mixture of mom/babies, peds, and female med/surg patients. This is definitely less stressful and sooo much easier, but i still don't like it. I don't hate it like Icu, but I still dread going to work. I hate the long shifts, working weekends/holidays, and I hate not being appreciated. So I'm just at a loss. Nursing is nothing like the profession I thought it was going to be. I really wish nursing school would better prepare you for what the real world of nursing is like. I would have switched majors first semester if that were the case. I can't afford to quit and go back to school full time at this point. So I need to find another comparable paying job that I can do. Any suggestions or stories about what worked for you would be helpful. Thanks!

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Well, the newborn nursery is a close second but at least there you have back-up!

My Community Health rotation as a student was absolutely excrutiating. I went into one home where the woman was a hoarder. There was junk piled to the ceiling throughout the entire house, with just one narrow little path through from the front door to the kitchen, one place clear at the table, and then another path to the bedroom. The bathtub was full of used toilet paper and the toilet didn't flush. There were about thirty cats living there and no littler box that I could find. The smell . . . .

I had another patient who lived in a not-so-nice part of town. It was winter, and dark when I finished my visit. The patient wouldn't let me leave her house until her husband came home to escort me to my car because she was afraid I'd get beaten up, raped or mugged on the way to my car. When her husband came home, he scared the everlivin' bejesus out of me, but he did get me safely to my car.

And then there was the home health nurse in my area who was murdered while out doing her rounds of her patients. (I think it turned out that the ex-husband did it, but the idea that it might have been a patient kept me in nightmares for weeks!)

The thought of doing home health has me shivering in my boots!

Bless all the home health nurses out there. I knew from day one I couldn't/wouldn't practice in this specialty. I give them a lot of credit in that they are not in a controlled environment (like a hospital, for example) and don't have someone always readily available to discuss things with. You are all very brave souls, in my opinion!

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Only things that come to mind....

Like others have mentioned, an educator of some sort. Maybe diabetes if that disease process in particular interests you.

A pharmaceutical representative? As far as I am aware, a Bachelor's degree is acceptable for this career.

Case management or social work? Although I think you would actually need a social work degree for that job.

Sorry, that's all I have to offer as far as suggestions. Good luck to you, I hope you find your niche.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, ICU.

I think you need to get away from bedside, not nursing all together. Have you looked into case/care management? At my hospital, this is a nursing position that only requires a BSN and pays comparable to a floor nurse. Working in a physicians office will give you a schedule you prefer with no weekends or holidays. As afr as appreciation goes, I can't think of very many professions where one feels appreciated on a regular basis. Most people feel dumped on by upper management regardless of setting.

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