New Grad Woes and Concerns...

[Lilnurse0803, RN]

Hello All,

I have been reading though threads in different forums on this site for quite some time now and I am finding over and over again that most new nurses that enter into a specialty like med-surg, telemetry, or an ICU setting tend to experience severe burnout and stresses to the point that they leave their jobs right away or consider leaving nursing altogether. Many times these new nurses enter these specialties to get a foundation for their nursing career and not necessarily because its a specialty they wanted, however, I am not seeing that in threads like these. Am I missing something here? I am just not seeing a whole lot of posts from OB nurses that are so miserable at work because of brutal patient loads, high patient acuity, and poor working conditions (i.e. lack of staff support/team work, understaffing, etc.) It appears that most posts on this forum are positive and encouraging.

I feel that there is something I am missing and I turn to you more experienced nurses for this. I am a new nurse and awaiting my start date for my L&D position. I am very excited and cannot wait, but am very aware of the huge voyage that awaits me. I know it's not always merry, but I just don't feel all the negative energy and sadness that overwhelms the other forums.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Melody

[SmilingBluEyes]

You are not missing anything. I know for a fact, I love being an OB Nurse. Is it easy? NO...and yes, there is a serious risk for burnout in any area of nursing, OB is no different. But I do find if you love what you do, nurture your family and homelife and leave work at WORK where it belongs, you do much better than those who do none of these things. This applies in any area of nursing.

Good luck to you in your new career.