Need advice!!!! I hate my job

dudette10, MSN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

This is not directed at you, but my goodness I wish everyone would stop complaining. I'm really looking forward to being a nurse, and I come to this website to get motivation, and then I see countless posts about hating jobs and how this happened at work and the pay is not enough and I have too many patients BLAH BLAH BLAH...Here is the best advice I can give. If you don't like your job...QUIT. What are people going to tell you in a forum that will make your job better. get real and grow up this is the real world.

I felt that way when I first started reading/posting, but if you stick around a while, you not only get used to it, but you also understand it. I don't know how far along in your clinicals you are, but that also makes a difference in understanding the pressure that nurses are under. You certainly won't agree with all "vents," but you learn to keep your mouth shut until you've experienced the same situations. I know I did. :coollook:

dudette10, MSN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

As a dinosaur:rolleyes:, this is one of my biggest complaints about nurse education today, my last term we took full assignments got and gave report, working a full day shift then attending class, by the time we graduated, we had time management skills down and at our first jobs we had 2-3 weeks orientation to learn policies and where stuff was all the while taking a "lite" assignment and then we were good to go.
Theory is all fine and good but when it takes 4-6 months or more to train a new grad somethings wrong with the system.
And to the OP's point, being exposed to "real world" nursing at school would have helped you tremendously.
I loved working with the old Diploma nurses...they rocked:up:.

Having some diploma nurses in my family, I really wish they would bring that educational model back and incorporate it somehow into BSN programs. It helps both critical thinking (a test doesn't suffice) and technical skills (12 hours a week doesn't suffice).

I feel like I've learned more in the short time during my preceptorship than I did in all of my class work.

Up2nogood RN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

Ok I just graduated from nursing school in December. Took state boards in Feb, which I passed on the first try :). Started a new job, working on a cardiac telem floor and I hate my job. I don't know if its because Im new or if it's really because I don't like it. I can honestly say it is'nt what I thought it was going to be like. I like working with patients more one on one. I have five patients now and I feel like all day long all I do is go from room to room passing meds and doing assesments. I loved it, in school when we only had three patients and I could actually sit with my patients and find out in more details what was going on with them and educate them. It felt like I was really helping. Please help I don't know what to do Did anybody else feel the same way once they first started working?

Sorry this is reality. If you can stick it out for a year....believe me you would feel like this no matter what unit you worked on. Cardiac/tele experience will be great on your resume too. Once you hone your time management skills you will def have more time to spend with pts. You may try asking more experienced nurses, if you haven't already, for advice. And I agree with some other posts on that preceptors should have you taking a full assignment before you graduate.

As a side note, I'm trying to get off my current unit, GI surgical, because I'm bored to death! I'm basically a drug waitress/babysitter at night and applying to move to a cardiac or respiratory unit to eventually get to critical care.

Chin up · Apr 10, 2011

As a dinosaur:rolleyes:, this is one of my biggest complaints about nurse education today, my last term we took full assignments got and gave report, working a full day shift then attending class, by the time we graduated, we had time management skills down and at our first jobs we had 2-3 weeks orientation to learn policies and where stuff was all the while taking a "lite" assignment and then we were good to go.
Theory is all fine and good but when it takes 4-6 months or more to train a new grad somethings wrong with the system.
And to the OP's point, being exposed to "real world" nursing at school would have helped you tremendously.
I loved working with the old Diploma nurses...they rocked:up:.

Here here! They were the total package! Healthcare has missed them in more ways than one...

dudette10, MSN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

Yet another reason why it would behoove a nursing site to be restricted to actual nurses....

I disagree. Better to see how it really is before hitting a floor, than to be one of the idealistic new grads determined to change everything they've seen in clinicals, only to crash and burn with great fanfare. Posts like Corey's (and my very first post on this here forum...search, it will make you roll your eyes!) may be annoying, but the responses from other nurses and continued reading by the nursing student is when the enlightenment happens.

hopefulwhoop · Apr 10, 2011

Having some diploma nurses in my family, I really wish they would bring that educational model back and incorporate it somehow into BSN programs. It helps both critical thinking (a test doesn't suffice) and technical skills (12 hours a week doesn't suffice).
I feel like I've learned more in the short time during my preceptorship than I did in all of my class work.

What is the "educational model" of a diploma program?

dudette10, MSN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

What is the "educational model" of a diploma program?

Spending most of your time actually on the floor, rather than in a classroom. My family members from traditional diploma programs sponsored by a hospital spent the first year in the classroom and the last two years mostly in the hospital with some class time. A lot of the diploma programs were literally attached to a hospital, i.e. the dorms were on the hospital property.

ETA: The reason I stated that it would "somehow" have to be incorporated into a BSN program is d/t the required number of semester hours associated with a bachelor's degree. In my state, the number of hours changes depending on the setting of instruction.

1 hr class=1 semester hour

2 hrs lab=1 semester hour

5 hrs clinical=1 semester hour

(I think those are the equivalencies, but you get the gist.)

You need 120 hours for a bachelor's degree (60 of which are required to be general education), and when you are required 5 hrs clinical for every 1 semester hour for the last 60 major-specific hours, you need a hands-on program that is carefully designed to provide the required number of hours for a BSN. Tough to do and actually have people graduate in four years.

hopefulwhoop · Apr 10, 2011

This is not directed at you, but my goodness I wish everyone would stop complaining. I'm really looking forward to being a nurse, and I come to this website to get motivation, and then I see countless posts about hating jobs and how this happened at work and the pay is not enough and I have too many patients BLAH BLAH BLAH...Here is the best advice I can give. If you don't like your job...QUIT. What are people going to tell you in a forum that will make your job better. get real and grow up this is the real world.

1) You're not a nurse yet, so you don't understand. 2) People come to this forum for many reasons. One reason is for support and just to vent. 3) Quitting a job is not as easy as it may seem. There are many factors to consider. 4) "Get real and grow up"??? Seriously? Again, you don't understand. You are not a nurse. You might find yourself in the very same position years from now. 5) Often, you can tell what a thread is about from the title. If there are certain threads you don't like reading, just don't read them.

GHGoonette, BSN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

What is the "educational model" of a diploma program?

I was accepted into a teaching and training hospital as a Student Nurse. I worked a few months on the wards, under the guidance of nursing sisters and senior nurses, while doing basic practical orientation with the clinical training sister.

I was then sent for my first 3 - month "college block" in which i was prepared for my first set of external (Council) exams. I went back to the hospital and continued working, and rotating between wards for 5 months, then returned to the college for revision and my first externals. Then it was back to the hospital for another 5 months, until I returned to College for another 3 months to prepare for my second set of externals. Once again, back to the hospital for a few months, until it was time for the second year externals. Third year the same. Oh, and we had to complete a certain number of practicals each year in order to continue at college. Before writing finals, we also had to do an external practical exam, and the marks obtained were added to our theory total.

Students worked in every department, from ER and resuscitation to theater, recovery and high care. The only depts where we didn't work were the ICUs, outpatients and, if memory serves, psychiatry (those students who studied psych went to one of the psychiatric hospitals).

RNKITTY04 · Apr 10, 2011

The comments posted by people on this board is why I very rarely come on this site anymore, I THOUGHT this board was for venting with other nurses who understood what it is like, but more times then not I see nurses getting slammed just for speaking their minds, looking for a little support.

If I wanted to be talked to like crap I would be at work at least getting paid to listen to idiots spout off about things they know nothing about.

Bitter much ? You bet!! Hugs to the OP and my fellow NURSES who understand and don't judge.

:)CoreyB · Apr 10, 2011

I just wanted to expand on what I wrote. Admittedly, I am not a nurse yet, but I have had two jobs in the hospital where I got to see the stress of being a nurse first hand. It was this experience that made me want to become an RN. Also, my advice to the op was to quit, and it is genuine. I'm insulted by one of the posters who made a reply on my original post about returning to the bank of your parents or whatever. I know the real world. You don't have to be a nurse to feel its burden, and I have been on my own since I was 16. I know the real world quite well. My advice was for the op to quit, but obviously she would never quit without another job first. But here is some real advice, Why not do something that will make you happy? That's the reason these posts get under my skin. You can return to school. You can find a different job. But, there is no way I would ever do a job that I absolutely hated without knowing something better is coming in the future. 2 of my closest friends went through the torture of nursing school and 1 was an ICU nurse for 7 years and one day she left. She is a bartender now, and she warns me everyday to not go through with my plans. She is HAPPY, and really makes a similar salary. Nursing is not going to get any better anytime soon. Also, just so that everyone is well informed, I don't care about candy coating what I feel, so you will all need to learn to deal with it.:redbeathe

:)CoreyB · Apr 10, 2011

And this coming from the one who wrote and I quote, " I don't want to answer a call light and pour the patient a glass of water". You don't even like nursing...enough said.

If you would read the entire post, you would realize that I was making a comparison of some of the meaningless tasks that nurses sometimes have to deal with, and another profession altogether. You don't know what I like so use those quotations wisely.