Need advice!!!! I hate my job

Nurses General Nursing

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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 :crying2: Did anybody else feel the same way once they first started working?

I have found an ability to use my counseling and teaching skills in home health. The pay is not as much, but for the most part it has been encouraging for me. I too like that part of nursing very much.

I have been in the hospital before as a patient and noted that only one or two nurses chatted with me for a few minutes. Those that did were multitasking by giving out meds and asking me how I was doing at the same time. Most of the time the people spending some time with me were CNAs.

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Specializes in pulm/cardiology pcu, surgical onc.
Even better, why not suggest OP quit?:)

I really don't understand what point you're trying to make. A new nurse comes here for support and advice but gets snarky answers and cryptic comments. Not real mature IMO. You can say you like a good debate all you want but it just sounds childish to most adults.

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good point!!

i had a nursing student assigned to me the other day and when i was filling her in on the report i received from the previous nurse the teacher interrupted and said "she can't have a difficult or unstable patient"

the patient was not doing good and we were closely watching him and pretty much expecting a code. our hospital doesn't allow transfer of patients to icu unless they have fully coded. it's unreal to wait for the patient to get to unresponsive then react when we can prevent it all with proper monitoring but that's a whole other issue for another time!

anyway i told the teacher the student will not give medications, not intervene in any way but can shadow me to learn.

she gave me a nasty look and said "thats unsafe" and walked away.

i just figured it would be more realistic than mr xy who is walking to the bathroom and asks for his meds. this is the same school i went to where we only had the most stable patients right until to the end of it. it's ludicrous to me.

sorry to be ot, but that is the most ridiculous policy (and the instructor is correct, "unsafe") i have ever heard of in my entire career. i certainly hope that hospital is not in my state because i would not want to be a patient there.

that said, having the student shadow you under the conditions you described to the instructor would have given her a wonderful experience. kudos to you for even being willing to have a student under the circumstances, considering how busy and stressful that would have been for you without having a student to attend to on top of it.

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Specializes in Psych, Chem Dependency, Occ. Health.

Hang in there! The first year or so is really tough. Do you find the staff to be supportive? I think this really helps as well. If you are working full-time can drop down to part time? or maybe mix up your shifts a little, some days, some nights? I found for myself that I really learned the most after I dropped back to 2-3 shifts a week and worked both days and nights. It helped me really increase my confidence level and gave me a breather in between shifts. I would not quit. I'd try to come up with ways to make the next 9 months more tolerable at the job. The only time I advocate quitting is when it is staff related issues. I once left a job after 8 weeks because the nurses/techs I worked with were so vicious, no amount of money is worth putting up with toxic co-workers. If it is just the stress from being new and learning the job, we have all been there, and you will survive it too.

Sue

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Thank you everyone for the advice!!!!!!!!!!!! It is so nice to hear from people that have experienced the same thing :) I really appreciate it...

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PS, Luv2care0907 I just got a job offer to work for a home health care agency. They have offered me more money. So do you still work for home health ? Any advice? Don't know if I should take it or not...

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PS, Luv2care0907 I just got a job offer to work for a home health care agency. They have offered me more money. So do you still work for home health ? Any advice? Don't know if I should take it or not...

That's great!

Home health has many faces believe it or not. Part of the reason for that is that there are many social classes, environments, family situations, and cultures that you will find in your community. Home health is either a one time visit or private duty. So, with that in mind, here are some tips. :)

1. If you are going to do an OASIS C, figure out some pointed questions to ask to widdle what will be a two hour plus visit to about an hour. Easier said than done. I know. I found that I had to do much of the paperwork afterwards at home from my notes. I wish I had known that before my first one because I spent way too much time there trying to fill in the blanks. :p. Nobody told me that and I wish I had known.

2. You are not in Kansas anymore aka the hospital. There is nobody to confer with in the home but a PCG. Most of them know the patient's condition better than the doctors do. OTOH, this philosophy can also be a recipe for disaster when the PCG leaves the reservation if you know what I mean. And that can happen on the flip of a dime. One minute they are coping fine and the next minute they're poppin' Xanax and making really bad decisions. There is no security guard or head nurse to come flying in to save you. You have to respond in a calm way thinking about the next right thing to do. This does not happen typically, which is another reason nurses, such as myself, leave their guard down. I am not embarrassed to say that I prayed myself through some potentially bad situations.

3. If you are doing private duty and you find a family that loves you and you love them, DO NOT LET THE AGENCY TALK YOU INTO GOING TO A DIFFERENT CASE. You can't put a price tag on that kind of situation. I had some great families that I worked for! I loved my job. I didn't go home to dear husband whining about my job.

4. Invest in an iPad with 3G. You can access a mobile connection to drugs.com that is excellent. It will compile a list of drugs that the patient is taking and tell you how they are interacting and potentiating each other. You can send and receive important information through email that is a whole lot easier to read than on a cell phone. And my personal favorite is a language translator that talks. I know a little Spanish but not enough to explain things. I type instructions and specific teaching in English and it translates it and speaks it in Spanish.

5. Invest in some sort of paper organizer so that your papers are protected and do not get crumpled and/or dotted with coffee.

6. Invest in some sort of carrier that you can use to organize your stuff. I use Thirty-One but there is one suggested on this site that is very nice albeit expensive.

7. Document everything that happens. People lie and there is nobody to say it didn't happen. One mom claimed that I didn't empty the vent lines all night. That was a flat out lie. Thankfully, I documented that fact.

8. I want to prepare you for the ultimate time when you and somebody do not click. These agencies are in the business of making money. In their minds, the customer is always right. I am sure that over the years with lawsuits being such an issue, that became the best policy. Some of these poor people are so stressed from what they are dealing with that they become demanding and critical of everyone and everything. They hate you because they just need someone to hate. My own philosophy (especially where it involves a parent with a sick child) is that they are stuck in the grieving process of losing the healthy child that should have been - without any resolution. So they call the agency and complain. The agency says, "We'll send someone else." There's no negotiation. There's no sit down and discuss a misunderstanding. You are off that case and will be waiting for another one to come available. That could potentially mean time without being paid. Trust me, it has nothing to do with you typically. Just chalk it up to this feedback loop they are stuck in usually landing them in the anger phase.

9. Insist on getting a phone number for a case manager in the event of an emergency. Don't hesitate to call if you have a question. At the end of the day, I was criticized for not calling. Calling who? They had never offered me a number to call. :confused:

10. Check and double check EVERYTHING! The glorious hospital where there are "other candidates more qualified than me" sent out orders that were so poorly written that I nearly made a huge mistake. And again, in the end you will be the one getting blamed. The agency will point the finger at you. You should have done blah, blah, blah.... I have to think of those words constantly. What will they say if this or that goes wrong?

11. Dress professionally. You only have one chance to make a first impression. It makes a difference.

12. Lastly, don't take any gifts or give any out. Apparently, this has been misconstrued as a means to Medicare fraud. Not sure how giving a parent a nice baby outfit would do that, but apparently things like that can be grossly twisted and/or misunderstood.

Hope that gets you off to a good start.

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