New nurses feel like quitting?

prettymica, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN, APRN, NP · Mar 20, 2012

I hated my first job in LTC. I felt that I made a mistake all my patients were perfect in clinicals.. I just moved to a different area, hospice and I love it. I also work home health its not that bad either :)!

anotherone, BSN, RN · Mar 20, 2012

Thanks all for your feedback. This informal survey is my attempt to find some of the many reasons nurses quit after a year or so in the field. The time, effort, loss of sleep, money, and sacrifice it takes to get from 'wanting to be a nurse' to 'being a nurse' is enormous. It was the hardest path I ever took (That includes running my own business, going to law school, motherhood, and living in a foreign country where customs and language were different.) I'm sure I looked like the deer caught in the headlights my first year of nursing. I was terrified every moment of every day. Somehow I survived, but there were many, many times I wanted to quit, and many days when if that 'one more thing' had happened I would have quit. Luckily, I was brought almost to the breaking point, but not quite to the breaking point.
What I'm hearing, so far, is that there is a difference between what we imagine nursing will be and what it actually is. I see that all the time when I read posts on this site about student nurses and new nurses wanting to "sit with patients and hold their hands". I'm also seeing that the burden from student nurse to employed nurse is like night and day. It's easy for experienced nurses to forget how difficult it is to suddenly have the responsibility for so many acute patients when you're still learning the practicalities of the job (like where the supply room is, how to chart unusual occurances, and what hospital protocols are).
Do you think shadowing a nurse as part of the application process would be helpful?
Do you think a more gradual transition period would help? (Even if that meant lower wages for less patient load until a nurse transitioned to more patients?)
Would it help if new nurses were allowed to spend an hour each week attending meetings for new nurses where information and concerns could be shared?
What other kinds of support would make a difference (or would have made a difference) in your early months as a new nurse?

Shadowing a nurse would help alot. I did that as part of an externship program and it was very helpful in seeing how to use your time, prioritize etc.

sameyjaney · Mar 20, 2012

I have been working for a year now in med-surg and I must say I have grown to hate it. The team I work with is great. They are supportive. My manager is great. That is probably why I have lasted this long. I had a great orientation phase with support groups and everything.

What would it take for me to "like" my job? Well, patients who are actively involved in their care and want to get better.

I am sick of dealing with those patients who have every problem in the book and continue to engage in unhealthy habits. Everyone knows them...the COPD'r admitted with resp failure who spends 90% of their time smoking and the other 10% getting resp tx. The diabetic who the doctor has now ordered an insulin gtt for because they refuse to follow their diet. This is my biggest issue.

Every day I leave work so unsatisfied. I feel like my interventions are pointless. Who cares if we start an insulin gtt and get their blood sugars down when they will just go right back up when they leave the hospital or for that matter go back down to the cafeteria.

This is the reality of nursing that I was not prepared for. Every shift running your butt off to give that PRN IV dilaudid q hour when they have chronic back pain that they manage at home with vicodin q 6. Then the charting around these pointless tasks just adds to the frustration.

I would love to work with patients who want to take an active role in their care. Patients who want to improve their health. Learn about their conditions and manage them to maximize their quality of life. Unfortunately, these patients are far and few between...

cdsga · Mar 21, 2012

This April marks my 34th year as a professional nurse. I remember to this day, the excitement I felt getting to do REAL work on my own. That came from a Diploma based nursing education which is not honored much today. But when I got to the end of my nursing school education, I was prepared to go to work. There was not a reality shock because I had worked as a student nurse for a full 2 1/2 years prior to graduation, progressing to the title of graduate nurse pending my licensure, then once passing the exam, I was an RN.

This progression is sorely missed because students are not prepared for the real world. The short periods of clinical observation do not prepare one for the workday and the shortened orientations given new nurses these days do not give you enough support to be cut loose to do your nursing job effectively-in my humble opinion.

I fully believe that academia needs to look very closely at the numbers of nurses who are leaving the profession within a year-nationwide. Evaluate in a detailed way what causative factors led to that decision. It's a waste of time, effort and money to go through a nursing program and leave the profession stressed out, unhappy, and unsatisfied.

Prepared nurses are able to prioritize, negotiate, collaborate and work within teams to get the job done. Even so, in this fast paced patient care world, you still have to fight to incorporate nursing practice into your day instead of all the mandated regulatory documentation and mind numbing redundant tasks that are time stealers and have not yet been statistically significant as making patients safer. By nursing practice I mean, answering questions from the patient and family, educating on the disease process, medication, and health maintenance, showing concern, empathy, sympathy, allaying fears, spending time with your patients and providing some humor along the way. Not to mention, individualizing care and collaborating with the other members of the health care team to ensure that the care plan is followed or revised.

It's a tough job, and one you can grow to love through time, experience and gaining confidence in your abilities.

I supported my family, on my own with a nursing salary, and while my children didn't have alot of fru-fru, they did alright-can't say I would have been able to do it 30 some odd years ago with the professions open to women not as open to us as they are today. I was willing to sacrifice for them and though I didn't make every soccer or baseball game, I was there for most of them, and was able to provide. So it's an individual choice, not for the meek and mild or timid of heart. Nursing is a profession and an art-you can be as creative or technical as you want. You can seek out jobs with as much patient interaction as you want, or as little as you want. You can work different times of day, and different days of the week. Not just 9-5. So there is flexibility. Alot of people find that attractive. I do state again, it is filled with the need for strong nurses willing to learn everyday. Each day is different, and never boring.

lrw0776 · Mar 21, 2012

I am a new LPN and got hired on a med/surg/tele floor. I passed the NCLEX Oct.28 2011 and started work on Nov.7. I had 6 weeks orientation with an RN. Even though an RN hired before me got 3 months of orientation with another RN. I told the director I did not feel comfortable going on my own yet; but she insisted there would be all kinds of support. The clinical coordinator, the director, the charge, the other RNs. Needless to say I get help only

from a few RNs that don't complain. The director calls me at home on my days off to tell me something I did wrong or something I didn't do. I asked for a transfer but won't get one for two or three months. I cry at work. I cry at home. I wonder why I choose this career. But now I have 5 months under my belt and am trying my best to make it 7 more to get my 1 year experience. I am also trying to pursue my RN while going thriugh all this. I wonder all the time if I can really do this.

cdsga · Mar 21, 2012

Don't answer the phone-when you're off you're off. If it's that important they can work with you when you come back in. You're time off should be valued and unless you are on call you are not obligated to answer. Working tele, med/surg. have someone look over your stuff before you leave if it is possible. You do the best you can do. If you cannot handle or start getting the hang of the tasks, then look carefully at what is a trend, and work on that. Find a fellow nurse who can help you along the way-you should have the same amount of orientation as the RN. ask for it.

RunningWithScissors · Mar 21, 2012

That feeling of wanting to quit never goes away. Very few of the nurses I have worked with over the 30+ years have actually loved their job. Most are looking for something else to do and move on. Bedside nursing plain sucks, and it's only getting worse. If you're newly out of school my suggestion to you is to go back to school while you're still in "school mode" and choose something other than nursing. You will be much happier in the end I promise!

learner1108 · Mar 21, 2012

I quit nursing and don't know if I will ever go back because of my age - 50+. Nursing was my second career after I retired from my first one. I had wanted to be a nurse since I was first in college, but changed areas of degree. At 50+ I was accepted into nursing school and graduated with a BSN and passed the NCLEX after 90 questions. Got my first job 2 months after passing NCLEX. It was night shift on a specialized med-surg unit which had a staff which didn't get along well.

I was like an earlier poster. Second-guessed myself constantly. Double checked everything I did. Dreaded going to work the last few weeks. Big hospital. Had to be off shift-clock after 12 hours. My orienting nurse didn't like to stay past shift end time and complained to me when she had to check on my charting off the clock. I wasn't allowed to chart (computer) after she wanted to leave. She was impatient with the time I needed to do procedures and often gave me a short lecture about how I should have learned that in nursing school. Sometimes when I needed some piece of equipment and I didn't know where it was kept, she told me to look it up in our unit book because she had told me once. She did guide me in caring for patients and our patients were cared for. (She had worked as a LPN many years before getting her RN, so she might have forgotten how bewildered and worried a new grad can be.) I think I was so insecure that I needed to know that I was normal. Now that I remember it, I think I was her first new grad. She probably didn't know how to help me know that.

I found out later that many of my friends from nursing school also second guessed themselves and thought about giving up. The difference was their orientors talked with them about having the same feelings when they were new nurses and were patient with my classmates' learning. My classmates are still nurses, but trying to leave floor nursing. Night shift med surg floor nursing must be hardest nursing there is. The ones who started out in non med surg units or day shift are still working in their units and doing fine.

On top of adjusting to the new nursing job, I had lots of stress at home because of a dysfunctional marriage. My blood pressure normally at 105/65 was at 155/80 many nights. I quit after 10 weeks of orientation. I might have stuck it out if it had been the only career opportunity I had, but it wasn't. I was fortunate to find a part time job in my previous field making half as much as I did as a new grad with half the hours of work per week.

That was a year ago. I often think I would like to go back in nursing, but I'm happy working half time. My blood pressure is low again, my divorce will be final in a month and I look forward to going to work every time.

Looking back, I think what would have helped me was more clinical skill practice in nursing school and an orienting nurse with whom I could talk about my doubts and worries instead of an orientor who wanted to leave as soon as her shift was over. I also wish I had known to talk to HR about changing units, but I didn't.

Perhaps better training for orientor/preceptors would help a situation. I often wondered how much training she got before working with me.

If I can advise you, stick it out. I felt the same way (without people's lives being at stake) when I started my first career many years ago, but I had supportive people and needed to work to live. So I stuck with it. After the second year, I felt more comfortable. I think the same thing will happen to you after a couple of years of nursing. You might talk with HR about changing units if the unit is the trouble. Other nurses on this site can advise you on talking with HR.

Join the ANA and your state nursing association. Be active in your state's association. You will meet other nurses and find out you are fine. Keep in touch with your nursing school classmates. You may find they are undergoing the same doubts and worries. (After I quit, I found out mine were. I felt like such an unworthy new nurse that I was embarrassed to contact them while I was working, besides dealing with tiredness and a stressful marriage).

Hope this helps. Stick it out. I hear it gets better.

Chiggysmom · Mar 21, 2012

I actually had the opposite experience from Stargazer. I couldn't stand much of nursing school. All the NCLEX style questions that were so ambiguous and assumed that nurses are incapable of two things at once. The instructors trying to rationalize the answers that flew in the face of logic (not that I blame them, they were good, it's just the testing style that drove me nuts). The busy work group projects. I liked the actual nursing part and finally began to thrive when I had my final preceptorship. I'm 8 months in to my new career and while I know I have so much to learn, I love it, because even though conditions don't follow the book, they make far more sense to me than the book ever did.
I think Guttercat is spot on--the reality of day to day nursing is far different than the fantasy sold in school. Again, not that I blame the schools; until you're actually doing a job, you can't possibly understand what the reality is. Clinical experience gives a person a taste, but not the full experience.
Nursing is billed as a profession. In the U.S., professionals are equated with white collar jobs, where brain power outweighs the physical. The reality of nursing (at least bedside nursing, the only kind I have experience with) is that it takes a combination of the physical and the mental. Some days I go home physically exhausted. I don't think most people are ready for the sheer hard work that goes into being a nurse. The general public thinks we do a lot of hand holding and comforting; nursing school portrays us as using our brains doing all that "critical thinking," while real live nursing includes both of those, plus running up and down the halls, transferring patients, lifting them, etc. To those who are expecting all of this, I bet it's a huge shock.

In deed, it surely is a huge shock when you find out what real nursing is all about. It is extremely physically and mentally draining. There's nothing left of me by the time I get home after working a 12 hr shift! It's really bad when I'm working 2 in a row and have to get up again tomorrow and do it again! I am not sure that anything can prepare a person for what it's really like? Othere nurses are the only ones that can truly empathize with us that's why I love All Nurses forum! My husband is a nuclear engineer and I try to tell him how bad it is and he just can't understand how it could possibly be that difficult???

Chiggysmom · Mar 21, 2012

That feeling of wanting to quit never goes away. Very few of the nurses I have worked with over the 30+ years have actually loved their job. Most are looking for something else to do and move on. Bedside nursing plain sucks, and it's only getting worse. If you're newly out of school my suggestion to you is to go back to school while you're still in "school mode" and choose something other than nursing. You will be much happier in the end I promise!

I'm with you on this RunningWithScissors!!! If I was younger, I would go back to school for something else! I'm 52 y/o and figure by the time I would get out of school for something else, I would be too close to retirement, so it's not worth it. I tell all the young people though to run, don't walk away from nursing as a career. This includes talking my daughter out of a nursing career. She became a dental hygienist and her and I both Thank God every day she didn't choose nursing. I would like to shout it from the roof tops, nursing is the worst job. You don't wish this on someone you care about!!! Period!

Patti_RN · Mar 21, 2012

The frustrations of being a nurse are numerous. I've seen the same type of patients--the smokers who knew 40 years ago the risks of tobacco and the drinkers who were warned about liver disease and the diabetics who gain more weight every year in spite of being told to lose weight. I tend to sympathize with these patients, knowing that it's hard to quit smoking when tobacco is more addictive than heroin and alcohol is thought to be part of having a good time... and of course we all find comfort in food. I have a great deal of empathy for those people; they'd have to completely change their lives, their families and their friends to get away from their triggers. So, we patch them up the best we can and hope it what we do improves their health marginally until they may finally be able to give up their habit.

The worse problem is the overall health care system is more driven by profits and financial efficiency than compassionate care. There were two Catholic hospitals in my city that both offered medical care to anyone who passed through their doors. The mega-hospital owns the rest of the hospitals and runs them like for-profit business (but are officially non-profit so avoids paying property taxes on their expensive real estate and other taxes that non-profits are excluded from paying). The Catholic hospitals lost money year after year, in part because the ambulance services would take uninsured patients to these hospitals rather than the mega-hospitals. Some years ago, the first Catholic hospital closed; three years ago the mega-hospital bought out the other. So, we no longer have true non-profit hospitals; we have hospitals motivated by money and greed.

Our hospitals are run like Starbucks or McDonald's--anything to turn a profit and make a dollar. The first target of cost-cutting is the patients. They are discharged too soon and often don't get adequate information or training. Newly diagnosed diabetic patients are handed a pamphlet and a prescription for insulin. I've had patients diagnosed and treated for COPD for years who never heard of pursed-lip breathing.

The patients suffer because the bean-counting experts look at the hospital's over-all budget and see that nurse's salaries comprise a huge slice of the financial pie-chart. So, they sit in their offices and decide that if a nurse can care for 4 patients, she can care for 5... if she can care for 5, maybe she can deal with 7.... and if she's still alive after being assigned 7 patients, let's give her 10... and after no one dies with 10 patients maybe 20 or 30 is possible. And, if she quits, there is a new crop of nurses to replace her.

Jerrysdogmommy · Mar 21, 2012

I 100% concur and wish I did not have to. Nursing is about cliques and backstabbing. I am just about one year out and am leaving this profession as soon as I find something else. It breaks my heart because this profession is NOT about caring for the sick (which is why I chose this). How sad. And what do these young girls whom are a decade and half younger than me gain by being backstabbing and talk badly about me behind my back...they have nothing to gain (I don't want their job or their first born); my goal when I started was to be kind, helpful and warm to all. I guess I picked the wrong profession. It's plain sad.