So I took this job in Med/Surge recently, after working a year of psych. While I enjoyed very much the atmosphere, my coworkers, and not feeling stressed about or really dreading going to work... I had to leave psych because for me, it was getting boring and unfullfilling. Decided to come back to a regional hospital, where I would have more options. I can return to psych if I like, I can try the ER, I can do different things. Right now I'm doing Med/Surge.
I've only been there less than three months. I went into this job with all four feet, determined to do a good job and make a difference. In just the past couple of weeks, my attitude towards this job has taken a major nose dive. This past Friday, I felt physically ill, just because I had to go back to that place, after four days off. The floor that I work on has the potential to get really horrible in a very short amount of time. The patients we care for are always TERRIBLY sick, and we can go up to eight patients at a time. We don't have enough aides, and they generally have at least ten patients to themselves, many of them total care... I personally don't think that is enough aides. It's obvious that most of the doctors there don't care what us nurses think. The patients there don't have much of a choice as to where to go (it's a fairly remote area) and they seem especially rude. We get tons of complaints and they get posted right where we can see them.... in the dang staff bathroom. The bathroom isn't even a nice place to "get away" for us, as we have a lot of memos and reminder letters and meeting notes and stuff posted in the bathroom. Our breakroom is very very small and messy and it's the only place that we have to take a break and kinda "get away", I mean it's really about the only place unless we go down to the cafeteria between 1:30 am and 3am when it is open, or go to the smoking area.
Plus, it's been in the past couple of weeks that night shift (us) has started to have to pass most of day shift's meds. We have a large 6am med pass. So we have two huge med passes to deal with on our shift, the 9pm med pass and then this 6am med pass.
I'm just very discouraged and unhappy and don't know what to do. I want to quit but what I hear from my husband is "You are giving up... you haven't even been there three months". I know that what I am experiencing is present in most hospitals, and I should be happy that it isn't worse.
Am I giving up if I start looking for something else now?
