Nurses leaving in droves...

Published

Seems to be a popular nursing news headliner for awhile...

Curious.

Are you a nurse planning to leave or has left the profession?

Where will/did you go?

New nurse, seasoned nurse?

Do you know many nurses who have left?

Specific reasons why you are leaving or have left?

I think about it frequently....but have made no moves towards a second career. Where are other nurses with this?:uhoh21:

Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

Oh those poor NPO patients!!! I would be so angry and tortured if I was one, that is just cruel!

Yeah, they have nurses do all sorts of things beyond what they should be doing. Our facility has the nurses taking out residents garbages from each room before end of shift. Considering I work in Assisted Living it isn't like we have potential for medical sharps or blood in regular trash like you may in hospitals (IE admins excuse for having nurses dispose of garbage..it may have blood or sharps..oh thanks!!!), and we take our own trash out in bags as we do our duties (IE dressing changes, cath care, etc) because the admin doesn't want family to see that stuff in the garbage anyway?!?!? Uhhhgggggg...we have a huge housekeeping department..why can't they!?!?!? They don't do direct care for residents, we do...so why have us hauling garbage from room to room...sounds like a serious cross contaminiation risk to me...but my admin won't listen (because housekeeping doesn't want to do garbages).

I now have 3 or 4 Doctors on my side on this one, hopefully that will change. I have actually gotten orders from MD's that Nurses or Nursing staff are NOT to haul garbages around their patients. We have also gotten a few orders from CNA's and RN's alike from our own MD's stating it was a cross contamination risk, and risk of injury to back..so they are excused from doing it. We will see, hopefully soon my admin will give up and let it go!

But baking fresh bread? UHGGGGGGG! What a pain, I don't even bother with it at home! LOL! Don't suggest fresh cookies now...great smell for a soothing effect..but what a pain!!!!!!!! (or pumpkin pie...okay now I am hungry!).

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Been an RN for 20 years, and I am back in school to get OUT of the hospital. Corporate mind set does not belong in health care. We have a new "customer service recovery initiative" that involves teaching us nurses to apologize, admit we are wrong, and hand out McDonald's gift certificates. I wonder why hospitals don't just hire WalMart greeters and be done with the pretense that they are institutions of clinical competence. It makes me so angry. I was out of the country for 15 years, and the pay I was offered when I returned was less than I was making as a new graduate. I am trying to educate my family and others to be nurse advocates while they are patients. Nothing will change until the public stands up and says they want to be cared for by people who know what they are doing, not by people concerned with "customer service".

Oh my, now I have a dilema - I have been a nurse for 24 years - the last 15 in Quality, Risk Management, JCAHO - and have decided to make a change. I am sick of the management BS and corporate crap. I had made my mind up to go back into hands-on patient care. GUESS where ? In Louisville, KY!!! I see you are from there and now I am not sure if I want to head in that direction. This AM I was talking to the DON of our small hospital and she told me she hated healthcare and planned to give her resignation! How sad to have these wonderful skills and not be able to find a happy place to land.

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I really don't mind doing 'some' extras as long as I'm staffed for it..and that's the problem nowadays isn't it. It bothers me that the facilty's $$$ is going to these special 'customer service' projects like bread and chef made meals.... vs getting adequate staff to give good patient care, and paying educated nurses decently.

So true. Extras are nice........ no ogre here about that....but they were so poorly staffed and underpayed to boot. What a ridiculous notion. So inappropriate. The epitimy of what is so farked up about healthcare. I have never met a nurse manager that was worth a nickel, and that's sad.

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Is there any hope in sight?

Reading all of these posts has made me sooo sad.

I am now applying to nursing schools, and there is SUCH a long wait. Now that I hear this, is it worth it?

I think, yes. I know other places are different and some are worse than others. The place I am currently volunteering at is wonderful--I may have some SERIOUS issues with going to nursing school if I start to see some of the things posters have mentioned here.

:uhoh21:

I'm so sorry for the disillusonment of all here.....:o

All I can hope is that we can get more people through the programs, so there won't be these shortings in staffing, which I sense is the biggest problem facing nursing today.

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But there are some fantastic nurses who enter management and have the sense to get the H*** out before the brainwashing occurs......because they know they won't last long doing things the RIGHT way.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

.........and others of us who know better than to ever enter into management to start with. Because we cant' live with the mind-games, the manipulative administrators and the B.S. We are tired of doing more with less, and would not want to ask that of our staff as managers. Some of us know better than to go there, because we know we could not live with ourselves in today's corporate hospital environment. So sad. The good managers were and are out there, but they are being squeezed and burnt out fast.

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Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

I sure wished someone had told me the more unsavory side of nursing when I signed on. Not that I thought it would be all glitz and glamor, but wow did my eyes open up when those graduation doors hit my rear!

The most common complaints I hear are about poor staffing, horrid pay or lack of benifits. Something to really examine when choosing a job before hand! Turn over rates are also a huge complaint I hear, and I actually ask at the interview how long nurses stay, how many are they, and why they stay! If I don't get the answer or it isn't what I find correct, I thank the interviewer and leave saying that this particular job isn't what I am looking for.

But the largest of the complaints is the duties of nurses getting far too broad, and nurses having to take on extra duties for whatever reason admin can dish up! I have a copy of my duties, and it seemed very cut and dry when I applied, but I should have looked deeper (which is something I will certainly learn from in the future!). The title is very broad now that I look back, and basically if there is any position in the facility that needs someone in a moments notice I am supose to take that over and earn their pay! Housekeeping, CNA, maintenance...all of it! Opps I didn't understand that, and I have been asked to cover as a CNA!!!! Thank goodness they found a replacement at the last moment!

Watch and listen very carefully at your interview process to ensure you feel your best interests are in mind. Get your own copy of the duties, and any paperwork you sign! And always have a min of 5 questions written down that you feel are important to a workplace for you to know in advanced, and actually WRITE down the answer you are given. Then take it home, wait a few hours, and review it again and then choose. I will even let it wait till the next day before making a choice.

That helps, but then again...admin does tend to change things later down the line, and that is when I bring out that job duty list and see if I signed on for that..if not..my next battle...stay or go?!?!?!

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Specializes in LDRP; Education.

I've been an RN for 6 years and after 3 years of patient care, went back to school to get out of the patient care environment. Couldn't handle the demand on my personal life and the stress.

I'm in an Education role now in the hospital setting and I hate the hospital politics. I am paid less than a new grad and its insulting. We have a customer service initiative here as well but guess what? It doesn't end at the patient bedside. It also spans interdepartmental.

We have interdepartmental scorecards where q quarter we are rated on our customer service. If we get good scores, we have to call the person and thank them. If we get low scores, we have to call the person and ask what we can do to make it better. Oh, and my boss's raise depends on these scores.

I feel like a sales representative more than I do a nurse educator. I've been toying with leaving healthcare for a while now; the only thing that holds me back is opportunity.

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.........and others of us who know better than to ever enter into management to start with. Because we cant' live with the mind-games, the manipulative administrators and the B.S. We are tired of doing more with less, and would not want to ask that of our staff as managers. Some of us know better than to go there, because we know we could not live with ourselves in today's corporate hospital environment. So sad. The good managers were and are out there, but they are being squeezed and burnt out fast.
True. But still a kudos to those with good intentions that give a shot at infusing the system with some common sense values. It never works, but none the less, we can't just give up and agree to be enslaved. The only choices are to fight or to lay on your back and take it.
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Specializes in Derm/Wound Care/OP Surgery/LTC.

BM=Breadmaker????

*L* I would think I was on bedpan duty if someone didn't clarify that one for me. :rotfl:

It's a shame that the careers that should be the most revered (nursing, teaching, police, fire dept) are probably the lowest paid professions. Sure, all we do is mold minds and save lives...but, if you can bounce a ball down a court and look good in a pair of sneakers doing it...you can make millions!

Always burns my ***...I remember being in school, competing for the scholarships. I was top of my class academically...and made measly scholarships for nursing school, while the athletes got off campus housing paid for, perks, cars and scholarships that would put me through TEN years of school!!!

It hurts to be so underappreciated for all we do...and from time to time, I have considered going back to where I started...law. Lawyers are arrogant alright...but not as bad as doctors. *L*

Naaaah. I couldn't leave nursing. I love it too much...just hate the way we are treated.

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http://www.caller2.com/2001/newsapp/1214.cfm

Here is an example of what we have to look forward to. Boutique hospitals. Sure, all the nice "extras" don't cost much.......we can always take it out of the nurses pockets to pay for it. Massages and fresh baked bread. Yeah, that's why I went into nursing.....I guess it is making the hospital look pretty good, according to the article (lol). Hilton all the way baby.

Oh, did I mention live entertainment to boot?

I guess if you see a G after your name, you are on Guitar for the day.

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Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

What scares me about the recent elections and healthcare are things on either side are geared so hard core into everyone having access to 'good quality medical care'...okay what about leaning just as hard into 'great providers'...there is just so little incentive with they way things are now..and you can't have 'good health care' if there is no one there to provide it!

I think people need to think harder into their choices in measures and canidates and see if this 'good healthcare for everyone' is really going to work sanely! I know if we have an influx of hundreds, thousands or millions of people expecting this 'good healthcare'...then we better get the incentives back for quality healthcare providers to stay and do their job or we will be taking on more patients with less time and staffing!!!! (but what can you do? I don't want people uninsured if they can help it...but wow, it can backfire so quickly, burn out more providers, provide sub standard care because of the numbers game...uhgggggg hard place and a rock!).

At my facility (assisted living) we are about to loose 2 nurses to retirement, and they are about to loose me because of the politics (I can only take so much before it goes too far and effects my homelife...I can not tollerate their politics to effect my family!). That is three of seven nurses. This will close the facility unless they go totally NO nurses..or only one nurse for day shift...that is DANGEROUS, but I can see them doing it! What then will happen to my current residents, and the ones they are bringing in by the volumes! These are the elderly, they can't have this happen to them in this point of their lives...and it makes me sad and furious at the same time. WHo will protect them once we nurses leave?!?!?! (I have stayed mainly because of this reason...I don't want them to suffer as long as I can tollerate the BS to a point).

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