I hate nursing, never thought I would say that but after 1.5yrs of working as a floor RN, I know this crap is not for me. This job will suck the living life out of you.
Your emotional, physical and mental health will suffer along with your family life. I have finally decided to leave the bedside and I've never felt so happy. At only 25, I felt like I was going to be stuck in this state for the rest of my working life but I found the courage to finally make the decision that saved my health and my marriage.
I went into nursing with the intention of helping people and being the one to make a difference to those who may feel hopeless. All my intentions were quickly shut down when I started working on the floor.
We deal with some unappreciative, sarcastic, rude, and egotistical (patients, family members, physicians, coworkers, and managers). There is no care in nursing just bottom-line concerns.
My first nursing job was ok, I worked in ND at the time, I moved to FL and that gave me the green light to officially leave floor nursing. I hate the anxious feeling before every shift, the nagging family members, pts who are rude self-entitled, coworkers who throw each other under the bus, physicians who disregard concerns, and a whole lot of other things I can elaborate about that is just downright awful.
I'm glad to say my degree didn't completely go to waste as I am now an RN case manager. I believe being away from the bedside will renew my interest. I refuse to live a day dreading having to go to work, nursing has literally changed how I respond to people before I use to smile at everyone now I walk past people with my face looking like a pit bull ready to bite.
Whenever someone would tell me to smile I thought, "Wow I have changed for the worst" I refuse to be a martyr for this profession.
Taking care of myself is more important than risking it for people who **** on theirs.
Thank you guys for the support but I'm so flabbergasted as to some of the responses. This is a discussion board and usually you can agree or disagree but for those of you who are negative this is exactly the reason nursing is declining and will continue to do so. Why do we have to be so negative? Why do nurses eat their young? Why should that even be a phrase in our profession? To all my Florence nightingales out there, great job y'all I'm glad you never had to worked short staffed, take unsafe patient load, always be on time for every single minuscule pt/family request, dealt with some lazy and rude coworkers who find great joy throwing eachother under the bus. If I wanted to be in bedside I would stay and be just as miserable as some of you with the negative posts. My health and happiness is far to important to me.
I couldn't love this more, op. I got out of bedside nursing as well. I'll spare you all the horrid stories and details. Op, you really don't have to convince people why you had to leave, but it would be nice if the members of this thread gave you encouragement and respect for your decision. I personally wish you well. You will have a life for you and your husband that you wanted! Take care.
You have no business being in management with that attitude!!! If you can't handle bedside nursing, you'll never survive as a functional manager. The managers have to be the best bedside nurses to effectively manage others. Shame on you!
I'm a bedside nurse turned manager who voluntarily still works at the bedside to stay in touch with the needs of the patient, their families and my staff. Yeah, some days suck, but it makes me a better nurse and a better manager.
I wish more managers were like you. So many forget what its like to work in the trenches once they get into administration.
We're blessed where I work with a great supervisor who is hands on and will help you with anything, just wish there were more out there like her.
Please, please, please do yourself and your patients a favor and do NOT become a hospital nurse case manager (or perhaps, a case manager in any setting). We are out there on the front lines just as much as you are at the bedside, just in a different way. If you don't like difficult patients, demanding families, unappreciative doctors, a spectacular lack of community resources and obstreperous MCO interactions, I can guarantee you will hate case management. I personally love the challenge and for each difficult situation I experience 5 awesome and fulfilling ones....but you sound like one of those nurses who literally says at the job interview for the CM position something to the effect of "I got sick of working so hard on the floors so I thought I'd try something easier, like case management". EPIC FAIL.
BTW, your 1.5 years of experience is will not qualify you to apply for most CM positions, anyway; 5 years' acute care experience is usually required.
Wow, just wow! I've been at the bedside for 20 years now and I still know that this is what I am supposed to do. Yes there are demanding, rude, self centered, egotistical patients, families, doctors and other staff members. Our society is all that, all the time. I feel like I need to "win over" the difficult patients and families and stick strictly to business with difficult doctors. I have been a float nurse for 17 of my 20 years. The floating keeps me out of all the "politics" of one nursing unit or the other.
I went into nursing knowing that there would be difficult days. The people we care for are going through their own difficulties, they are afraid, painful, anxious, dying, learning to live again. Their families are trying to deal with all they've be handed. It isn't supposed to be all sunshine and fairy tales, it's real life.
I'm sorry that it hasn't worked out for you. I truly hope you find what you are looking for. That's another great thing about nursing, there are so many different avenues to explore!!
Have you ever considered why? I have also changed jobs, for pretty much the same reasons. However I empathized with my patients, my doctors, most of my coworkers. Patients don't intend on being rude to YOU, you are just the one they see the most! Doctors do care, they have to meet guidelines of people that have no idea what it is like to care for people. Coworkers are just trying to survive the same hell. I am so upset that my favorite job in the world has become too difficult to do and maintain a family, but I don't blame who you blame. I blame our corrupt stars and points health care system!!! As a patient, as a caregiver of loved ones, I get pretty fed up with it all, too. But as a nurse, I know not to attack the front line, the nurse. We are all built for different things. Maybe you have found what you are built for.
Also, I wanted to give in long before I did. I know that I have a gift, I am an awesome bedside nurse! I felt like if I quit, then I wouldn't be utilizing my gift that God gave me. I found another job as a nurse that let me continue to use that gift. I like to think that I am leaving my old job to a nurse with my heart and my drive that I had in my twenties!!!
Specializes in L&D, OR, Case management, Dementia.
Well....I'm sorry to tell you that you probably will not like case managment any more than you do bedside nursing. I am a case manager; have been one for several years - practiced in an incredibly busy and large hospital and also in the community setting. Bottom line....people are broken and yes, some feel very entitled. Mostly, they just need someone who cares about them no matter how stinky they act. People hurt, and by the time they get to us in the hospital, they have been ignored, mis-treated, mis-diagnosed, misunderstood, and lacking any answers to their questions or feeling like anyone "out there" gives a hoot they are alive. Case management, particularly in the acute care setting is as challenging as it gets for nurses, and because we do not provide clinical care, we are often misinterpreted as "having any brains either" by patients, family members, nurses, physicians, and generally the world. So, think again that case managment will provide you the relief you seek - I assure you it will not. Because performing case management is a higher level of nursing care. You have to possess immense knowledge of insurance, ethics, advocacy, legal and risk and quality issues, and have a higher level of crucial conversation skills than you ever needed at the bedside, because the hard conversations and issues will always be turned over to you as the case manager. We are expected to be the "go-to" person for every issue that arises in the care setting, and we also help lead the team regarding the patient's care continuum - another thing you must have advanced knowledge about. In addition to all this, are the clinical reviews and information required of the case manager to be provided to all payers to insure the hospital gets paid for the patient stay - and you have to be able to have those challenging conversations with patients and families about why their insurance will not cover this or that thing that they are demanding and yelling at you, "the messenger," about!
I love case management..... it is a tremendously rewarding and exciting nursing specialty. But after hearing your heart in the posting, I doubt seriously that you will like it. I invite anyone to take a walk with a case manager for a day & then determine if this is something you really want to do. Is it a job you can screw around on & not work hard? Depends on where you work. At my facility, no freaking way. But we like that and it's the team camaraderie that keeps us all engaged and breathing in and out when things are very hard. At times we are the villain and no one wants us near them. At other times, they love us to pieces because we stepped in and made the impossible happen.
Case management is not for nurses who are so burned out at the bedside by the hard work that is nursing. It is harder than bedside care in every way except physically. You will be more tired, feel more abused, and discouraged in this position than any other in nursing. But those golden moments make all the down-side worth it.
Just an fyi for anyone entertaining the idea that you can "escape" into the world of case management. Not gonna happen! "They" will find you! ah hahahahahahaa!!! :)
Try Home Health. I loved it. Patients are glad you are coming to help them and appreciate you. You don't necessarily provide all the care, you "teach" them how to provide their own care. Charting does suck, but if you have computer charts, you can prewrite a lot of your chart and cut-and-paste.
I am 57 years old and trying to get out of the bedside/clinical side of nursing. How did you do it?? I can't even get interviews for case manager jobs or care manager jobs and I've done hospice case management for 8 years! I am so discouraged and tired. Exhausted. And for what? More and more and more and more menial things heaped on us and demanding families and patients who want to control their own healthcare but haven't got a clue. JACHO and state regulatory agencies are burying nursing with policy and procedure. I'm tired and want to sit behind a desk 8-5, have weekends and holidays off so I can enjoy my "golden years"!
Happy for you and your patients that you are leaving the bedside. I however, don't think you will find any more joy or fulfillment in your role as case manager. The nursing profession is fraught with issues but I am afraid the way you feel about your patients maybe the real issue here. Not everyone is cut out for nursing or working with patients and their families. Maybe it's time you find something outside of nursing or even outside of a hospital.
Specializes in L&D, OR, Case management, Dementia.
Hi! The field of case management is rapidly expanding and there are a number of new opportunities opening all the time. Where you are located in the country might have something to do with difficulty integrating into case management departments. Acute care case management is very difficult and demanding and yes, we cover the hospital 24/7, so there are weekends and holidays involved in scheduling.
My suggestion is to plug in with one of two professional case management organizations and start your education there. CMSA and ACMA are the two top professional case management organizations. Maybe jump in and attend their next local, state, or national conference to network and get a true feel for what you are seeking. Your nursing expertise goes a long way in conversations you will take part in.
Anyway - start there. Visit both websites, do some investigation, talk with case managers where you work and maybe even job shadow with one or two.
Good luck to you! It is a fascinating specialty and we are currently at the top of our game....everybody wants case management's input into how our health care systems need to be adjusted to manage patients through the entire care continuum. Everyone wants to know "how" to get the most "bang for our buck," and how we can avoid financial penalties that could potentially kill an organization. They also need us for our smart regarding regulations and how to status patients appropriately. There is much, much more.
Kellorn, ASN, RN
9 Posts
I wish I was one of those nurses who get by without antidepressants...oh well.