I would like to share my experience as a RN for over 20 years. Besides providing patient care, being a nurse in modern times is toxic to your mind, body, and soul! Being the "backbone" of the healthcare industry, nurses are modern day slaves for healthcare administration, physicians, and boards of nursing. Nurses are expected to maintain the highest standards of professionalism both on the clock and in your own personal off time. Any actions less than perfect, on or off the clock, others will judge and criticize you as not being a "good nurse". As a nurse, your not allowed to be human and you will always have this "good nurse" complex hanging over your head. Have any of you nurses ever heard physicians be told a "good doctor" would do this or that? I highly doubt it yet nurses are the ones correcting physicians mistakes on a daily basis. Ha! Yet nurses are the ones most frequently judged. Toxic for your mind, body, and soul.
Lets now talk about this flawed healthcare system. Over the past two decades, light has been shed on the fact that healthcare consumer costs in the USA is the highest in the world, however, favorable patient outcomes are sub-optimal compared to several other countries which has stimulated the need for healthcare reform. Who do you think this has had the greatest impact on? Nurses! We are now expected to provide higher quality of care using less resources. Seriously? This is like a slap in the face. It's like nurses are being punished for a flawed system from the get go and this concept makes it sound like nurses have been lacking in compassion, lazy, and providing poor patient care. Toxic for your mind, body, and soul.
How about this eternal nursing shortage? I just completed a RN to BSN degree and learned one of the methods of mitigating this nursing shortage is to promote teamwork. I am all for teamwork but patient workloads that I am unable to manage on my own puts my patients safety and professional license on the line. Assuming someone else will be available to help me with my workload is no guarantee. This is another situation where nurses are having to bridge another flawed area of the system. It is not the nurses fault that the industry can't recruit and maintain nurses. With the harsh working conditions and low pay in comparison, I am not surprised we can't get more people to join the nursing workforce. Toxic for your mind, body, and soul.
Patient safety. Patient safety only applies when the voice of administration is directed towards the nurse. However, when the nurse's voice regarding patient safety is directed towards administration we are stepped on like cockroaches.
Education requirements for nurses are climbing while the working conditions for nurses are going downhill and no increase in pay. Boards of nursing hover over your head forever just waiting for you to make a mistake so they can rip your license away because they are there to "protect the public". This is such a crock also. They should be more concerned about micromanaging the healthcare industry putting patients at risk due to inadequate staffing resulting in high nurse to patient ratios which has been proved to be a significant cause of mistakes leading to increased morbidity and mortality. Toxic for your mind, body, and soul.
I realize magnet status hospitals are a step in the right direction for those who actually exercise its conceptual components and don't just make themselves look good on paper to achieve the award. But! Magnet status hospitals only account for around 6% of the US hospitals.
I could go on and on especially about how the lack of PPE and nurses lives that are being put at risk over this pandemic. What horrible planning and management by the organizations who have received tons of money to protect us. It's a shame and once more toxic for your mind, body, and soul!
