Ive been out of nursing school 2 years now and I have bounced between countless jobs. ICU, NICU, med/surg, home health, and different hospitals. Sometimes I feel so strongly that I REALLY dont like nursing, but its so hard to look past the flexible hours, pay, and benefits. Im depressed, anxious, a nervous wreck, now Im having physical pain from the tensions.
My question: Do most nurses REALLY love their job and their patients? Or at least most of the time?
Because I cant honestly say I do.
PS. I have an associates degree, so I feel limited to the bedside.
I only say PSYCH is my dream job. If I had to work in any other field of nursing, I would QUIT. I also can not find anything else that will pay me over 100 grand. After 20 years, I am stuck. Try psych nursing, you will LOVE it. Especially if you can find a psych job OUTSIDE of the hospital setting.
A while back (either still in orientation, or just out of it) I replied to a thread having to do with what to do on one's days off. People were suggesting fun, relaxing activities...and I popped up with something like "study research articles and read to improve my practice."
Ha! Who was that smarmy bast'id, and where did he go to?
Just shy of two years in, and I feel the same as many in this thread. I spend my four days off trying to *forget* about work. I takes 1-2 days just to get the ringing of monitor and vent alarms out of my head, and to stop brooding over every decision made (especially with the really critical patients).
I have felt this way since my first shift off of orientation (loved orientation, for the most part). At first, I told myself it was just "new grad jitters" as described in this forum extensively, and that it would get better as I developed as a nurse, got more skills, and generally became more comfortable in my role.
Well, guess what, I have gotten over most of the jitters, grown in competancy and confidence, and I still dread my (boo-hoo) three day work week. I have lost the joy I had in studying nursing/medical subjects. This saddens me, because I'm just a big nerd at heart, and I generally loved the academic side of nursing school.
Probably the saddest thing is that I feel like such a cry baby. Compared to what I have read and heard, my unit is great. Staffing is almost never unreasonable, co-workers are (for the most part) helpful and supportive. I work 3 days a week and am making about double what I ever made in over a decade of menial, 40-hour work week jobs. Heck, there are almost as many calm, low-stress nights as there are crazy, patient-trying-to-die-for-twelve-hours-shifts.
Work-ethic, personal responsibility, and human compassion keep me giving everything I have when I am working. All modesty aside, I do a good job at what I do. I just wished I liked it more.
My two-year new grad contract is up in a few months, and that may be a time to start shopping around. I am proud of my nursing education and credentials, and yeah, I'm just plain proud to be a nurse. Just need to find a niche. Seems pathetic to be miserable making good money and having a four-day vacation every week! A couple of you in this thread are making me reconsider psych nursing, maybe I can get some use out of my BA in psychology...
(Golly, think I've been holding this all in for a while ?)
Well, guess what, I have gotten over most of the jitters, grown in competancy and confidence, and I still dread my (boo-hoo) three day work week. I have lost the joy I had in studying nursing/medical subjects. This saddens me, because I'm just a big nerd at heart, and I generally loved the academic side of nursing school.
Sounds like you just need to change things up a bit to rekindle that spark! I think if you do shop around a little after your 2 years is up, I bet you'll find a new position/specialty and get rejuvenated. :)
Specializes in acute rehab, med surg, LTC, peds, home c.
A while back (either still in orientation, or just out of it) I replied to a thread having to do with what to do on one's days off. People were suggesting fun, relaxing activities...and I popped up with something like "study research articles and read to improve my practice."
Ha! Who was that smarmy bast'id, and where did he go to?
Just shy of two years in, and I feel the same as many in this thread. I spend my four days off trying to *forget* about work. I takes 1-2 days just to get the ringing of monitor and vent alarms out of my head, and to stop brooding over every decision made (especially with the really critical patients).
I have felt this way since my first shift off of orientation (loved orientation, for the most part). At first, I told myself it was just "new grad jitters" as described in this forum extensively, and that it would get better as I developed as a nurse, got more skills, and generally became more comfortable in my role.
Well, guess what, I have gotten over most of the jitters, grown in competancy and confidence, and I still dread my (boo-hoo) three day work week. I have lost the joy I had in studying nursing/medical subjects. This saddens me, because I'm just a big nerd at heart, and I generally loved the academic side of nursing school.
Probably the saddest thing is that I feel like such a cry baby. Compared to what I have read and heard, my unit is great. Staffing is almost never unreasonable, co-workers are (for the most part) helpful and supportive. I work 3 days a week and am making about double what I ever made in over a decade of menial, 40-hour work week jobs. Heck, there are almost as many calm, low-stress nights as there are crazy, patient-trying-to-die-for-twelve-hours-shifts.
Work-ethic, personal responsibility, and human compassion keep me giving everything I have when I am working. All modesty aside, I do a good job at what I do. I just wished I liked it more.
My two-year new grad contract is up in a few months, and that may be a time to start shopping around. I am proud of my nursing education and credentials, and yeah, I'm just plain proud to be a nurse. Just need to find a niche. Seems pathetic to be miserable making good money and having a four-day vacation every week! A couple of you in this thread are making me reconsider psych nursing, maybe I can get some use out of my BA in psychology...
(Golly, think I've been holding this all in for a while ?)
Psychnaut, Just a suggestion but what about going for your crna? If you will have 2yrs icu experience and a bsn, you qualify to get into a program. And if you are a nerd, that is even better b/c I imagine it is very challenging. They are some of the highest paid nurses--I wish I could do it. Good luck in whatever you decide.
I have only been on the floor nursing since February 09 and I am feeling like quitting already. I actually found this post by typing in a search with the words not liking nursing and was really surprised to see so many people feeling the way that I do. I feel like such a failure at this point. I made so many sacrifices and caused my family, especially my kids to do the same and now here I am hating it and thinking I have made such a huge mistake but too ashamed to say it. I keep thinking what have I gotten myself into. I hate going to work and get sick just thinking about it. I hate working 12 hrs whether it is days or nights although I am on nights of course and can never get enough sleep or time with my family. I am so disappointed and feel like I had the completly wrong impression about what a nurse was and what I would be doing. I went to nursing school because I wanted to take care of people and make them feel better. Not chart for 6 hours and still worry about whether I charted everything I did or was suppose to do. It is so crazy. There are just too many protocols and things to remember. I am so STRESSED OUT!!! Plus for me the money really sucks. I am not really making anymore money than I was before and now I have student loans to pay. Someone please tell me how I can make more money. I am working in the hospital on a cardiac telemetry floor and even try to pick up extra's sometimes and the money is still horrible which just makes the whole thing that much worse. I am like all I have to do and put up with and for what? A terrible paycheck. I just don't know what to do??? Please help.
ttjmom - I have no words of wisdom for you, other than to say I know EXACTLY how you feel. If I had it to do all over again, I would have chosen another profession. LOL - have to laugh to keep from crying - this is my second career. I have been doing this for a year and a half and I am utterly wrung out and burned out. So much so that I am going to see what I can do to take some time off - and that isn't like me at all...
I am a strong woman. I single handedly left an abusive husband - stayed at a local women's shelter, put myself through school, lived in poverty following that episode while raising my two kids - got on welfare (viewing it as the government's investment in me) - got off welfare for good - pursued a career in IT and was very successful in that (I was a Microsoft Certified Trainer) until the market went bust... Put myself BACK in school for nursing and am here now - seeing that even my difficult past - as strong and as independent as it made me - wasn't close to being enough to have prepared me for what I've seen in nursing. It's dysfunctional, it's not healthy - and for the sake of the patients - it's not always safe. And that doesn't even begin to touch on the stupid mistakes I've made in the name of naivete and inexperience...
I've read the comments that nursing should be "a calling" and that if it isn't, one should "get out". Well, nursing was a calling for me - and could be still - but what I experience at work - the aides yanking patients around and yelling at them (with nothing being done by upper mgmt), the ultimatums about getting charting done on time while taking on more patients, having suggestions made on how to "cut corners" on my work... well - let's just say that I am reconsidering what nursing is and the very likely possibility that I'm made for better things than what I've been seeing.
It is nearly the same everywhere - just google "I hate nursing" and see the results. These comments and emotions from nurses do not exist in a vacuum and people don't wake up in the morning and say, "Hm... let's see how disgruntled I can be about my career and nursing..." Something (or several somethings) makes a person turn, to get burned out... Where does that trauma, that pain that mind numbing distress originate?I certainly didn't start my first day as a nurse with any of those emotions or pain...
I can speak for myself when I say that I wasn't burned out when I started nursing school. I can say that I was happier then. I can say that I fell for the idealistic version of what nursing was purported to be. I can say that after a year and a half of being knee deep in vomit, stage four sacral wounds over and over... having things flung at me by patients, yelled at by doctors when trying to take care of 'our' patients, being given ultimatums to cut corners or else... and having to deny decent patient care to instead do charting - has sucked the life out of me. It certainly did Mother Theresa... she began to question her very faith... as I question my faith in nursing.
Oh, I will continue on in the profession. I am currently talking to someone about this as well... But - after all I've read - all the negative experiences surrounding nursing - doesn't anyone else see that something has got to change? It's not supposed to be this way.
So - in keeping with that - ttjmom - how would you change it? I am completely out of ideas... and I am completely serious.
This is just a suggestion and to be honest i didn't read all the posts. Do you think maybe changing your attitude about why you work woud help.
Let me give you an example. I'm no florence nightengale i come from a long line of nurses and REFUSED to become a nurse. Then I talked to a friend who has been a nurse for a long time, he said some really interesting things. This is the gist of what I got. Nursing isn't my life, it isn't my mission, it isn't how I define myself. Its my job plain and simple. My life is my life, my family, community I live in my vacations, my friends thats my life. I define myself as a good mom with two cute kids and a great husband.
Nursing is a means to an end for me. I'm good at it, I'm safe and a team player but when i hit that elevator button at exactly 7:30am I forget the unit and when those sliding doors close behind me I forget the hospital.
I don't make friends of my co-workers, that meaning I don't party with them. This helps me not to mix my 'real' life with my 'work' life. I guess my point is if you can't change your work, change the reasonwhy you work.
Fantastic post. I went into nursing thinking i would absolutely love every part of it, from the patients, to the staff, etc.(extremely naive, in other words). Unfortunately, reality is much different. Nursing cannot be one's entire life, although that may sound politically incorrect. It needs to be thought of as a job, only for one's sanity.
really, it seems to be the poor working conditions (that are very pervasive in hospital nursing) that make many of us not like our jobs, rather than nursing itself.
Ah, what they DON'T teach us in nursing school. There seems to be a studied avoidance in nursing school of discussing the topic of nursing's true stresses & martyr-level sacrifices, not to mention the many ridiculous aspects of today's $-driven, lawsuit-fearing health care environment. Too many patients, too much charting, too many scripted lines, too much sense of entitlement by everyone these days, too much siphoning everything through the nurse, etc. I guess students would flee if they truly understood... So why the silence about the truth.
Ah - yes - "too much sense of entitlement"... I was just talking about that with a friend yesterday - but in terms of the younger generation. Went right past me when thinking of it from this perspective... Thank you!
RiverNurse
Ah, what they DON'T teach us in nursing school. There seems to be a studied avoidance in nursing school of discussing the topic of nursing's true stresses & martyr-level sacrifices, not to mention the many ridiculous aspects of today's $-driven, lawsuit-fearing health care environment. Too many patients, too much charting, too many scripted lines, too much sense of entitlement by everyone these days, too much siphoning everything through the nurse, etc. I guess students would flee if they truly understood... So why the silence about the truth.
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marilynmom, LPN, NP
2,155 Posts
I agree :)