Job satisfaction/disatisfaction Internal/external or both

KarenAR · Jun 17, 2004

My dissatisfaction stems mostly from the job itself. I do not like being in a profession where I am expected to know as much as the MDs and can be held legally responsible if I do not catch an MD's mistake -- yet I do not have the authority to obtain and apply special diaper cream without an MD order. I am expected to keep up with my neonatal patient's lab values and test results and anticipate/plan care based on those results, but am not at liberty to discuss these results with the patient's parents.

Makes no sense to me.

Angela Mac · Jun 17, 2004

There is no "I" in team. We hear it all the time, and although we all try our best to work as a team.........there is always at least one administrative person that stirs the bees hive and tries to cause chaos.......

SCRN1 · Jun 17, 2004

I have found that there are advantages & disadvantages to EVERY job I've ever had. When you see me complaining on here, it's just to get a little grumble off my chest so I can get past it and move on without blowing up on someone at work - that wouldn't be too professional, now would it? LOL! Seriously though, getting it off my chest before taking the problem to the person who's at the root of it helps me to get things into perspective so that I can handle it in a more mature, professional way.

Pretzlgl · Jun 17, 2004

Nursing is just ONE of the ways in which you can touch other people and "build the Kingdom of God." Hospital nursing saps me of the mental, physical, and spiritual energy needed to do that "building" - both inside the hospital and at home. Maybe another area of nursing would be a better way for me to do that, but not hospital nursing.
It is wonderful for you (and your patients) that you know it is your calling and are able to give it your all. Some of us don't have exactly the same calling. Or some of us do, but there are problems within the field of healthcare that keep us from being able to fulfill that calling well!
Being critical of those problems is not the same as berating.
This is UNFAIR. Among us "complainers," there are plenty of us who work EXTREMELY HARD and are always there when our patients' call lights go off. We don't all have "screwed up personal lives," and we're not all terrible at bedside MANNER.
Sometimes complaining and bitterness stem from people WANTING and WORKING to do the right thing, to do a good job, to be there for patients - but not being able to because the hospital environment does not make it possible.
Kona's and Canoehead's posts were EXCELLENT on these points.
One of my complaints about nursing that a nurse needs to be virtually SUPERHUMAN in order to be considered a "good nurse." We are expected to be omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent - not to mention perfect, because mistakes are simply not allowed or tolerated, no matter how small and harmless.
None of us are THAT great, no matter how much we jog, study or pray, and no matter how stable our homes lives are.

Thanks, Karen, for putting my thoughts into sentences. Great post.

AcosmicRN · Jun 18, 2004

I have never seen nurses pushed too hard, where I live anyway. Even in the nursing home where I worked as an aid, the nurses didn't run from room to room; they barely did anything at all until the end of the shift. But man, did they ever complain. Even in the hospitals in this area where they supposedly have understaffing, I never saw the nurses really busy. Not like the stepdown floor where I work now as an RN (and they have only 4 pts.) The stepdown floor is busy in my opinion, and it has the most professional nurses who complain the least.

I hold out that there may be hospitals where a nurse has too many patients, no matter what. But the answer is not to berate nursing but rather for all the nurses to quit that particular hospital, which they eventually will, and find jobs elsewhere. But I worked in a dungeon of a nursing home, and it wasn't for lack of staff--it was for lack of staff movement that there was too much to do. In the dungeon, if everyone did their job at a reasonable pace, everything could get done as needed and on time.

Nursing requires energy, no doubt. An obese, negative, lazy uncaring nurse is going to have a hard time caring for one patient, much more, ten.

"Ohhh to be a new nurse," one says. But I'll be the same way in 30 years when I retire to paint dog portraits and seascapes to supplement my SSI. It's not being new, it's simply giving a darn. It's work ethic. I'm not saying I have it more than anyone else. I'm only saying that it's what is required to be a good nurse and a happy one.

Acosmic

NsgTiger · Jun 18, 2004

Sometimes it's the "more holy than thou" attitude that can be a bear to work with... unfortunately it is common in this profession

Pretzlgl · Jun 18, 2004

Sometimes it's the "more holy than thou" attitude that can be a bear to work with... unfortunately it is common in this profession

Yeppers. I would bet, Acosmic, that you are a brand spanking new RN. Idealistic and all. Not a bad thing - but give it 10 years and get back to us.....

nekhismom · Jun 18, 2004

I hate my job. I say the environment definately contributes, as do my co-workers. And the fact that I'm expected to KNOW everything, but can't actually DO anything about it.