Nursing - changing me for the worse

[king red]

I don't really know what I hope to accomplish by posting here, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Thanks in advance for listening.

I'm coming up on one year since I passed the Board and started off in the MICU. My coworkers and supervisors have been great and very helpful at all times. However, despite the fact that I have recently become engaged and bought a house, I have become a different person. I dread going to work to the point of becoming sick to my stomach and do nothing but whine and complain to my fiance about my job. I worked as a pharmacy tech before and if it wasn't for the (slightly) higher paycheck, I would go back in a heartbeat. The never-ending abyss of knowledge I need to acquire, the introduction of new paperwork everyday, worrying about being involved in a lawsuit and losing my livelihood, knowing that any "mistake" I might make on the job could make me a criminal, the lack of a tech or unit secretary at night, etc are things that are weighing heavily on my mind. The night shift is killing me. I've been doing nights for six years now (as a pharmacy tech before nursing). I would like to switch to days to spend more time with my fiance and other family and friends, but day shift gets paid less and the ICU is chaos during the day and I don't know if I could handle it.

I usually work the typical 12 hour shift, but I work an extra 4 hour shift every other week. My last shift was one of those short 4 hour shifts. I have been sick the last few days so I called and asked to be cancelled, but they said they needed me. I go in and get my assignment. My first patient is an obese man on a vent and multiple drips with Qhour glucose checks with a pending trip down for a CT scan. I'm also up for the next admission. CT shows up without ever calling first, so I have to rush and call the RT to set up the portable vent, etc. The unit secretary then informs me that I have a new patient coming in...great. So I head down to CT and struggle trying to get the obese patient into the machine, etc (the propofol was already maxed and he was still fighting). I get back to the unit 2 hours later just in time for my new patient to arrive with tons of orders. At this point I haven't even begun to chart anything. This is a typical shift in the ICU and I hate it. It is not for me. Last week I was given 3 critical patients two shifts in a row. Nice.

So here's where some advice would be appreciated:

My father was in the hospital over the weekend with pneumonia. He was on the floor. I went to visit him and realized how vastly different the floor environment was to the ICU. My Dad was still wearing his blue jeans in a nice private room and was able to get up and use the restroom or walk around at any time. I only saw a nurse come in briefly to check on him once while I was there. No need to continually watch him and be on pins and needles the whole shift. It seemed like such a contrast to the chaos of the ICU. I understand that floor nursing is very busy, but it just seems like it's a different kind of "busy." I would prefer the extra charting on 5 to 6 patients than to have to deal with just 2 ICU patients.

So, has anybody ever gone from ICU to the floor and liked it better? I know I can't stay in the ICU much longer. It is making me into a person that I don't like at all.

[ChristyRN2009]

I work on a busy stepdown unit where my patient load is almost always 4 and this is where I've always worked. I floated to the floor recently and I totally understand what you mean. It made me appreciate the acuity of my patients vs theirs. All my floor patients were walkie talkies, half of them didn't need vitals but once a shift, and they had less meds to pass. But I still caught myself treating them like stepdown patients (even caught myself thinking "this patient could go to the floor"). Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I felt that whole grass is greener feeling too. HOWEVER, I know from other nurses who transfered from the floor to my unit that I had a gravy day, not all days are like that and they don't have the nice resources my floor does when someone is going bad. So in summary, I understand what you are feeling but you probably just got a snapshot of their reality, I would not take it to mean that all days are like that on the floor, kwim?

And I also agree with a previous poster who said you wanted to be a nurse, not a nurse at the same facility in the same unit forever. Try signing up for shifts on other units to see if you like that, or you could even go PRN at a different facility and see if you like that, it may just be your hospital. There are lots of options out there don't give up! We have all been there.

[interleukin]

"I have been sick the last few days so I called and asked to be cancelled, but they said they needed me. I go in...'

First mistake. Never go in when sick. You're not responsible for staffing.

[nursecassia]

it sounds like you have already made up your mind...I think there is this misconception that going from ICU to a reg floor is some sort of step down?? this is not true, it is just a different pace..still nursing..I dont believe one place is better than the other they all have strengths and weaknesses...Maybe all you need is just a change in position, it isnt like you cant go work in ICU again one day?? That is the great thing about nursing is if you dont like one area you can try lots of different ones, the only thing holding you back is yourself...