After three years in nursing, I'm leaving it all behind. Considering how much I've invested myself in this field, this is painful. But it's also a relief.
In the last three years, I've already worked in three different provinces, mostly in emergency and intensive care, sometimes in rural areas. I'd like to leave a few notes based on my personal experience for new nurses to consider. Don't extrapolate too much from it :-)
Many health care providers don't like their job, but still do it because they believe leaving the field would be catastrophic (lower salary, lost of investment, fear of the unknown, instability, etc.). Some of these individuals can be a pain in the ass. Learn to recognize them and deal with them accordingly.
You don't save a life, you extend it (sometimes a bit too far).
How ever knowledge you've acquired, try to play by the rules, unless you're ready to loose your job.
What makes a good nurse is: compassion, knowledge, and integrity
What many managers are looking for is: workaholism, fear of authority, and subjective prioritizing
There are many amazing nurses out there. Learn from them as much as you can and tell them about how much you want to learn.
There are amazing teams out there. Look how they trust one another, how they love learning and teaching, how the chemistry is evolving. Get involved in projects with them.
Update yourself on a constant basis. There's no need to go crazy, but every now and then, learn a small bit about a diagnosis, a drug, a pathology, a procedure, an organ.
Don't loose your vitality. If you feel awful, take a break and look at yourself as if you were an "external observer", unjudgmental of your thoughts, but keen on your actions.
Nurses are very much the "doers" of the health care system. They are often enablers without knowing it.
In addition to the excessive amount of responsibilities nurses have, they are often required to take extra roles such as administrative clerk, social worker, maintenance, housekeeping, physician assistant, respiratory therapist, teacher, cook, security guard, legal witness, baby-sitter, etc.
You *will* be asked too much on a regular basis. Don't do it all. Prioritize and consider leaving the non-urgent, non-important, non-legal tasks behind.
Sometimes, when your patient is about to die, you have a choice: to act in the patient's best interest, or not to act; either way, it may lead to anger and resentment from the medical doctor, and you may be punished for which ever choice you make.
Get vaccinated. It's worth it, especially before a few dirty needle sticks.
Get used to blood, saliva, phlegm,faeces, urine, and the like..
Keep reading about the nursing profession and explore what's possible to do out there, including seemingly unrelated jobs - you might later decide to leave too.
If you don't know someting important, admit it now and master it later.
Don't get emotional with emotional people, especially the staff.
Trust yourself. Follow your instinct.
Poor management is a standard.
Not all standards are good.
If you wear spandex with your uniform, you're also a superhero with super-powers.
I've had very bad and very good times in nursing, and will always respect you guys. The last few years really felt like a very long acid trip, mixed with academia, medical gurus, and free chocolate. Putting the dreadfulness apart, I must admit that if I was parachuted naked in a dangerous country, with only chop sticks and a stetoscope, I would surely make it alive.
Specializes in Medical-Surgical, Telemetry/ICU Stepdown.
I think the frustrating part of being a nurse is the disrespect of nurses (everywhere: on television, in media, and on the hospital floor), and also it's very challenging to work with the corporate side of nursing and the management. Management believes nurses are the problem, believes "stupid nurses" are responsible for failing to meet their performance benchmarks, thus dragging down the entire organization.
You'd be surprised how many physicians privately hate being doctor; physicians are the primary targets of lawsuits because lawyers see them as "wealthy" in comparison to small fish in the organization. I bet getting sued does nothing positive for their professional self-esteem. CNN Careers or Yahoo Careers just had an editorial about pursuing medicine as a career, entitled "Medicine-the Million Dollar Mistake" (or something like that). The article described medicine as one of the worst careers right now, with very high dissatisfaction rates among young doctors, staggering student debt, diminishing compensation, increasing lawsuits, etc. The editorial gave a list of professions to chose instead of medicine, nursing was one of the choices, interesting.
Still, I'd like to point out that this is the reality of working anywhere, profit is the goal, employees are expendable. I don't know if you followed the story about the Bolshoi Ballet Theater in Russia, the conflict between the management and staff there was out of control, staff felt betrayed and cheated out of opportunities, one of the dancers threw acid in the director's face. People were shocked because they never expected so much anger and violence in a place of culture and artistic beauty...
I think it's possible to change nursing for something you like better, but it may be impossible to find a profession where "life is fair". It's never fair, you will always pay a price for trying hard and doing the best you can. However, if you adopt a "victim mentality" not only you will be toxic to yourself, but others around you...
Classic case of caregiver "BURN OUT" Been there done that quite a few occasions after 20 years its a matter of separating yourself and knowing who really are there for...Don't give up, try something new. You might be surprised.......Home Care is great! If you can handle being on your own but always knowing help is only a phonecall away. You'd be great at it, well-prepared for any emergency situation---
Hi, thanks for posting. You are obviously bright, creative and ambitious. Just from your writing style and ability I can tell you have a lot potential.
I had some questions though and would much appreciate hearing your thoughts please. Do you regret going into nursing or do you think taking a dive into this profession was worth it even though you are utlimately going elsewhere? Also, do you think you should have quit sooner or why are you quitting now? And more personally, do you know what your next profession will be or are you still figuring that out? Will it be in healthcare?
I totally agree and thus why I am leaving it behind! I especially loved your comment "we do not save a life, we extend it". Sadly, very true! Compassion in nursing is gone. We leave old people alone in hospital rooms and visit them bi hourly (if they are lucky) to give them some med to extend their life. This is no way for anyone to live. These people are lonely and many times this is not the best medicine, and I am no MD by any means. I believe in the mind body connection and it is not there any more.
Yes!! I think people are starting to realize this and want palliative care instead of aggressive medical treatment.
Free chocolate?? Where's mine!? A lovely quirky little list. Thank you for these reflections :).[/quote']
We got three boxes of Russell stovers for 8 staff.... Plates upon plates of cookies... I'm fat today and goodness if that doesn't do wonders for my job satisfaction. What can I say, I'm easy to please. To OP I wish you the best in your future endeavors, and I hope you were able to glean some goodness out of nursing. If nothing else it had made me thankful for my health, friends, and family, and has helped me figure out what to put in my living will. That alone makes it worth it..
does anyone know if you surrender your license, you can still use your degree (BSN) to move to another area of medicine even if you no longer carry the license? The education (degree) should still be transferable isn't it? the license to practice may be gone but the degree itself isn't correct? does anyone have knowledge in this area?
"You don't save a life, you extend it (sometimes a bit too far)."
So true. So, instead of trying to talk the family into making that unresponsive pt. on the vent a DNR, we trach 'em, PEG 'em, and dialyze them half to death - so we can send them to a LTAC/nursing home where they will spend the rest of their days in a vegetative state. It's SOOOO WONDERFUL how many lives we save, isn't it?
good luck on your next career. i'm actually changing my career to nursing and this scares me:(
I changed my career to nursing and it was the best decision I ever made. I'm even financially better off. Not everyone is miserable in this profession, it's just not a good fit for everyone -- they go into it for the wrong reasons or they just can't deal with the changes that are happening. You don't know if you're making the right decision unless you try.
Concerto_in_C, BSN, RN
196 Posts
I think the frustrating part of being a nurse is the disrespect of nurses (everywhere: on television, in media, and on the hospital floor), and also it's very challenging to work with the corporate side of nursing and the management. Management believes nurses are the problem, believes "stupid nurses" are responsible for failing to meet their performance benchmarks, thus dragging down the entire organization.
You'd be surprised how many physicians privately hate being doctor; physicians are the primary targets of lawsuits because lawyers see them as "wealthy" in comparison to small fish in the organization. I bet getting sued does nothing positive for their professional self-esteem. CNN Careers or Yahoo Careers just had an editorial about pursuing medicine as a career, entitled "Medicine-the Million Dollar Mistake" (or something like that). The article described medicine as one of the worst careers right now, with very high dissatisfaction rates among young doctors, staggering student debt, diminishing compensation, increasing lawsuits, etc. The editorial gave a list of professions to chose instead of medicine, nursing was one of the choices, interesting.
Still, I'd like to point out that this is the reality of working anywhere, profit is the goal, employees are expendable. I don't know if you followed the story about the Bolshoi Ballet Theater in Russia, the conflict between the management and staff there was out of control, staff felt betrayed and cheated out of opportunities, one of the dancers threw acid in the director's face. People were shocked because they never expected so much anger and violence in a place of culture and artistic beauty...
I think it's possible to change nursing for something you like better, but it may be impossible to find a profession where "life is fair". It's never fair, you will always pay a price for trying hard and doing the best you can. However, if you adopt a "victim mentality" not only you will be toxic to yourself, but others around you...