Nursing Is No Longer Worth It

[AnonymousSuper]

I'd Like To Tell You A Story

I've been a member of Allnurses for nearly a decade. It's a little surreal to contemplate that amount of time but I vividly recall writing posts in the pre-nursing students section pleading for help in Anatomy and Physiology.

A decade! Time really flies.

Given my involvement in this forum over the years, I created this new username to remain anonymous and to speak freely about my opinions and feelings about nursing.

In the beginning, nursing was an exciting, interesting, and thrilling career. As a student, I would spend extra hours delving into extra readings about A&P and care plans. I would tutor students and help anyone that I could. I even volunteered in a local hospital to get more exposure.

I was addicted to the idea of becoming a nurse!

As a newly minted nurse, I loved connecting the pathophysiological dots at the bedside and helping the providers make well-informed decisions by providing them with valuable assessments and up-to-date patient data.

I've worked in many specialties over the past 7 years but my primary focus has been pulmonary step down. I've traveled all over the country and worked in a variety of hospital systems big and small.

I've helped save lives through rapid responses, code blues, administered vital medications and important treatments. I've teamed up with fellow nurses to help them catch up on meds or other tasks, then find ourselves at a local diner for an early morning post-shift breakfast.

Those are the best!

I've also experienced a significant amount of pain and agony. I've seen more patients die than a I care to count. I've listened to hearts stop. I've seen heart die on monitors. I've watched people take their last breath completely and utterly alone in this world.

I've laughed, cried, and been stunned. A host of emotions over the years.

When I was done working acute care, I transitioned to ambulatory nursing and started triaging patients in a variety of specialty clinics. This was a weird shift because I thought ambulatory nursing where were lazy nurses go or older nurses go to finish out their career. I found that outpatient nurses were just as hard but simply in a different way.

I even found myself in a nursing supervisor position where I currently reside. Something I never would have thought I would have found myself in. I even tried to talk my boss out of it when she first approached me about it because I thought to myself, "You must be crazy! Why would you consider me?" I am grateful for the opportunity ultimately.

Something Has Changed

There was a time where I absolutely loved the nursing profession and my place in it. But, something changed along the way. Burn out? I have my doubts it's that simple. This feels more definitive than the insidiousness of Burn out. This feels more permanent than burn out.

Over the past couple years, I've really questioned my place in nursing. Is this profession for me? Was it ever? Is it worth it anymore? I think Covid 19 really pushed me over the edge and was the straw that finally broke the camel's back.

Here's The Bottom Line To Me

• If I had to do it over again, I would not choose nursing as a profession.
• Nursing is no longer a profession that is worth pursuing and if a person would ask, I would recommend they choose something else.
• While there was a time when the love of the patient was what did it for me, ultimately, at this time in my life, nursing is no longer worth it because we are completely undervalued, underpaid, underappreciated, and understaffed.
• We are forced into dangerous scenarios with massive liability with compensation that doesn't match the risk we take as professionals and individuals.

Hospitals Just Do Not Care

While they give the facade of caring, healthcare organizations and hospitals ultimately don't care about you and your well being as a professional nurse.

Hospitals don't want quality. They want the appearance of quality but in actuality they want quantity. They want more with less in even lesser time. More patients. More calls. More responsibilities. More liability for you. More destruction on your physical and emotional well being. You are treated like a disposable piece of equipment with a short shelf life.

And, when it comes down to it, your professional and personal butt is totally on the line and if you screw up, there will be every effort to blame you, avoid organizational liability, and throw you under the bus.

Don't ever believe your hospital is there to back you. Consider yourself fortunate if you happen to find a manager that will stick their neck out for you and back you when the **** really hits the fan.

The PPE Crisis We're Facing Is Unbelievable

It's shocking to me that our hospital "leaders" didn't have the wisdom or foresight to have massive stockpiles in place. Now, nurses and providers are force to buy PPE on-line (impossible currently), wear the same PPE over and over, or not have any at all. This is a clear example of the failure of leadership all over the country and the clear lack of consideration for the front line worker's safety. Of course, nurses aren't the only one feeling this pain.

Nurses Are Severely Undervalued And Underpaid

We take massive liability when we're administering medications and implementing the plan of care. Yet, where's the pay? When you try to negotiate your pay with HR, you're going to get a giant middle finger. Organizations have standardized pay scales and there is zero room for negotiation. Nurses have zero pull when it comes to pay negotiation.

My theory about pay is that nurses are a cost to the healthcare system. You are not a financial asset like a provider who has billable treatments and procedures. We don't bring in revenue to the organization. Therefore, nurses don't have negotiation power. Yet, we're somehow sooo "valuable?"

Don't buy us pizza, baked goods, and crappy nurse's day prizes. Give us better pay and better benefits. That is the way to create loyalty. Yes, nursing is also about providing a service to the patient but if you're a valuable, highly trained, highly skilled, and highly knowledgeable professional, you should be paid adequately. Period.

Here's a current representation of the pay issue. I'm seeing travel nursing contracts for $4,000-$8000 per week in some parts of the country. That's crazy money! The organization I presently work for is "volun-telling" ambulatory staff to either "go acute care or use PTO/unpaid leave." However, when these staff to go in-patient, they don't receive temporary differentials or hazard pay.

Furthermore, the acute care nurses taking care of Covid patients aren't receiving hazard pay either even though they are reusing PPE and taking care of dangerous patient populations. So we're going to pay travel nurses six figures? But, when you force nurses back into acute care or not adequately pay acute care nurses, that's supposed to be okay? Think again.

Nursing Isn't Worth It Because Of The Liability

I've traveled in certain locations where nurses were taking care of 10 patients at night on an acute cardiac unit.

Unbelievable. Talk about liability.

I'm not going to go into it now but if you practice nursing without professional Liability Insurance, you're basically having unprotected sex but expecting not to get pregnant.

Why do you think providers have professional malpractice insurance? Yes, nurses get sued to and remember what I said above about hospitals throwing nurses under the bus? It's literally pennies a day for peace of mind. If you have any valuables or assets in your life you wouldn't want to be taken away, you need professional liability insurance.

Nurses Are Part Of The Problem As Well

The nursing culture is full of malignant toxicity, backstabbing, and bullying people. It's vial and toxic and incredibly hard thrive in.

I have rarely seen a unit or clinic act in a cohesive, team-based manner. My professional career has only been in nursing so I'm not sure how other professions are. However, most places I have been to, have been the same.

There are many nurses that bring their contagious negativity to the bedside and to the clinics. It's distracting and disturbing to be around and it has taken a toll on myself and I know it has on others around me. I'm speaking in generalities of course because not ALL nurses are like this but it's fairly common. Just spend a half a day on a nursing unit and you'll quickly notice who those problematic people are.

I once had hope for the nursing profession that someday they would come together and help change it for the better. There's what, about 3 million nurses in the country? That's a lot of voices. We're too busy bickering amongst ourselves to ever truly come together and create meaningful change.

Bickering, backstabbing, and bullying is easy. Coming together with a cohesive voice to promote real change in the nursing profession is hard and it will never happen in my opinion.

I guess I could go on and on about the failings of the nursing profession but I'll leave you with this:

Quote

Nurses are treated as expendable pieces of meat that are readily replaced like a disposable dead battery. You are severely under paid for the skills and knowledge you bring to the table. Hospitals don't give a crap about your well being even though they say the do.

Nursing Is No Longer About The Art Of Nursing

• It's about the numbers.
• The output.
• Doing more with less in less time.
• The satisfaction scores.

You only live once in this life. If you happen to discover this article and you're considering nursing, I would urge you to turn around and look elsewhere.

Nursing isn't worth the risk and the personal effects it has on your life.

[JKL33]

On 8/6/2020 at 8:54 PM, DJSexton said:

It's hard to see that this work here is merely more than a vent.

Even if it is, that's okay. Personally I hope it has empowered the OP to take self-preserving measures in whatever healthy form may be appropriate.

On 8/6/2020 at 8:54 PM, DJSexton said:

Great leaders stay the course and do not give up. We silently absorb the negativity and re-channel it in the form of education (like here).

Whatever you believe you're re-channeling, it needs to come in the form of solidarity.

On 8/6/2020 at 8:54 PM, DJSexton said:

We want to provide everything that you ask for. And we know that if we did, the likelihood of supply would zero out faster than we could resupply - 100% reality. What would you have organizations do when they only have, and or can get so much supply?

You as a caring person may wish that you could magically provide whatever nurses ask for. Your superiors, on the other hand, make plans that, at best, do not take nurses' concerns into account, and at worst are very purposeful in not providing what nurses and patients will need and in not caring whether nurses and patients will suffer. Your mistake is in believing this whole thread is about covid. It isn't. Covid is just breaking the camel's back.

If your reference to supplies refers to our PPE dilemma, organizations took purposeful steps that helped bring us to the situation in which we now find ourselves. Some are multi-billion dollar corporations that abruptly stopped caring about N95s/fit testing, etc., 5+ years ago for their own business reasons--and then proceeded to put a couple of PAPRs here and there throughout their facilities. Now any thinking person would recognize that such a plan would not leave them prepared for anything other than an extremely small-scale need for respirators. It leaves them unprepared to protect nurses, but if that is too selfish a thought for your sensibilities, keep in mind that it also left them unprepared to care for patients and to protect patients. Yet they unapologetically decided to hedge their bets and be ready to loudly proclaim their innocence and helpless PRN.

Staffing plans that keep RNs in a position unable to do justice to the role of caring for patients even on a "good" (pre-covid) day is another matter of abuse of nurses and patients that has now become abject unpreparedness for the current crisis, including the systematic poor treatment of bedside expert RNs such that their presence has been reduced.

What's done is done, you may say; we must accept the circumstances and positively move forward sacrificing ourselves and being real leaders and real nurses who are in it for the right reasons. Is there no value in choosing not to tolerate unethical foolishness and especially abuse? Our Code of Ethics (Provision 5) addresses this.

I appreciate your dedication but the case could also be made that those leaders who are willing to give everything and sacrifice everything to the call of nursing would not continually find new ways to accept mistreatment of patients and nurses. It is not unusual to hear from nursing leaders about what bedside nurses should sacrifice and how bedside will need to compromise. (Some) nursing leaders have an endless supply of inappropriate optimism about how things will turn out if only others will just sacrifice and stop complaining. Yes, I do know that leadership positions can be legitimately agonizing and that there are incredible stressors and many sleepless nights endured, but even that is not the same as going into covid rooms wearing contaminated pieces of paper because of greedy business decisions.

On 8/6/2020 at 8:54 PM, DJSexton said:

For the most respected profession in the world, it cannot be about money.

It also cannot continue to be about the types of sacrifice that cannot in good conscience be thought of as necessary.

This isn't about the heroics required in unforeseen circumstances; this is about others making plans for nurses to sacrifice solely because of our own history of doing so even when it is unethical and not strictly and objectively necessary. I again assert that our Code of Ethics does not call for the kind of repeated sacrifices we have been asked to make. Keep in mind that in some of these "sacrifices" we have compromised on a lot of things that have greatly affected patient care (not to mention our profession).

On 8/6/2020 at 8:54 PM, DJSexton said:

To be completely empathetic, I do understand the OP opinion. But at the same time, our philosophies on duty, sacrifice, and privilege to serve others couldn't be more far apart.

You are entitled to your opinion and beliefs on the matter and owe it to yourself to act in accordance with your conscience.

On 8/6/2020 at 8:54 PM, DJSexton said:

I wish the OP author well in whatever profession suites you better.

If you are okay with the number of good nurses who have been casually disparaged and treated as if they are the problem, that is your prerogative. Personally I believe the topic should bother you on a level other than to call someone's ethics or suitability for the profession into question.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

Singapore journalists spent a day at a Hospital to find out what it is about a nurse’s job that makes millennials hesitant to take the plunge – and why some nurses choose to do it anyway. Their article is both unique and universal... In my opinion.

5 Reasons Why Being A Nurse Is Tough But Completely Worth It

https://thesmartlocal.com/read/sg-nurse/

[DJSexton, RN]

10 hours ago, JKL33 said:

Even if it is, that's okay. Personally I hope it has empowered the OP to take self-preserving measures in whatever healthy form may be appropriate.

Whatever you believe you're re-channeling, it needs to come in the form of solidarity.

You as a caring person may wish that you could magically provide whatever nurses ask for. Your superiors, on the other hand, make plans that, at best, do not take nurses' concerns into account, and at worst are very purposeful in not providing what nurses and patients will need and in not caring whether nurses and patients will suffer. Your mistake is in believing this whole thread is about covid. It isn't. Covid is just breaking the camel's back.

If your reference to supplies refers to our PPE dilemma, organizations took purposeful steps that helped bring us to the situation in which we now find ourselves. Some are multi-billion dollar corporations that abruptly stopped caring about N95s/fit testing, etc., 5+ years ago for their own business reasons--and then proceeded to put a couple of PAPRs here and there throughout their facilities. Now any thinking person would recognize that such a plan would not leave them prepared for anything other than an extremely small-scale need for respirators. It leaves them unprepared to protect nurses, but if that is too selfish a thought for your sensibilities, keep in mind that it also left them unprepared to care for patients and to protect patients. Yet they unapologetically decided to hedge their bets and be ready to loudly proclaim their innocence and helpless PRN.

Staffing plans that keep RNs in a position unable to do justice to the role of caring for patients even on a "good" (pre-covid) day is another matter of abuse of nurses and patients that has now become abject unpreparedness for the current crisis, including the systematic poor treatment of bedside expert RNs such that their presence has been reduced.

What's done is done, you may say; we must accept the circumstances and positively move forward sacrificing ourselves and being real leaders and real nurses who are in it for the right reasons. Is there no value in choosing not to tolerate unethical foolishness and especially abuse? Our Code of Ethics (Provision 5) addresses this.

I appreciate your dedication but the case could also be made that those leaders who are willing to give everything and sacrifice everything to the call of nursing would not continually find new ways to accept mistreatment of patients and nurses. It is not unusual to hear from nursing leaders about what bedside nurses should sacrifice and how bedside will need to compromise. (Some) nursing leaders have an endless supply of inappropriate optimism about how things will turn out if only others will just sacrifice and stop complaining. Yes, I do know that leadership positions can be legitimately agonizing and that there are incredible stressors and many sleepless nights endured, but even that is not the same as going into covid rooms wearing contaminated pieces of paper because of greedy business decisions.

It also cannot continue to be about the types of sacrifice that cannot in good conscience be thought of as necessary.

This isn't about the heroics required in unforeseen circumstances; this is about others making plans for nurses to sacrifice solely because of our own history of doing so even when it is unethical and not strictly and objectively necessary. I again assert that our Code of Ethics does not call for the kind of repeated sacrifices we have been asked to make. Keep in mind that in some of these "sacrifices" we have compromised on a lot of things that have greatly affected patient care (not to mention our profession).

You are entitled to your opinion and beliefs on the matter and owe it to yourself to act in accordance with your conscience.

If you are okay with the number of good nurses who have been casually disparaged and treated as if they are the problem, that is your prerogative. Personally I believe the topic should bother you on a level other than to call someone's ethics or suitability for the profession into question.

Greetings,

It seems we both are passionate and I applaud that. Thank you for being thoughtful, and collaborative. There are many points I could respond to, some out of or presumptive of context, and yes, I am both still a floor nurse at heart who dons the necessary garb if needed, and a steadfast realist. I like to think that being in the needs-based business we are, we will willingly endure the everyday work that characterizes our reputation. So, yes, I am going to continue to pursue the ideal sample of excellence in all that I do, because they duty of the role demands it every day. Yes, there is some inherent risk.

Regarding the Covid situation, I really do think that they were unprepared for the magnitude, and I do feel the government should have mandated businesses to manufacture PPE, but I really do not get the genuine sense that executive leadership is in any way malicious in their approach - not at least for my providers.

Nursing has surely changed over time, and like anything that produces something of quality from raw material, it is a business, some profit, and other's NFP. As I write this, I am thinking this is non-debatable as no one has the facts, it is unfortunate. I do not recall any one provider that in their wisdom had an adequate supply. I also do not think that all providers in that philosophy were greedy. It's excessive to presume.

"(Some) nursing leaders have an endless supply of inappropriate optimism about how things will turn out if only others will just sacrifice and stop complaining. Yes, I do know that leadership positions can be legitimately agonizing and that there are incredible stressors and many sleepless nights endured, but even that is not the same as going into covid rooms wearing contaminated pieces of paper because of greedy business decisions."

Nursing contains some inherent sacrifice. And no business benefits from complainers. This last statement above is presumptive - far reaching without concrete support. And to reiterate, I stand fast in regard to the negative OP. There are other more productive ways to channel energy like advocating for legislative support. Of course the subject concerns me. What and how we go about it is the difference. Some run to the fight, and others from.

[JKL33]

Hello @DJSexton,

I'd like to reply to your assertion that my belief is far-reaching and without support. I did provide an example of why I believe at least some portion of our current on-the-ground dilemma has to do with greedy business decisions. If a business chooses to replace the cost of N95s and annual N95 fit-testing with PAPRs and then doesn't obtain and provide adequate PAPRs to even conceivably cover the situations in which the N95s would have been used, I personally am comfortable labeling that a greedy business decision. I am not guessing about why these things happen; the rationales have been told to me point blank by various administrators over the years.

On 8/10/2020 at 12:30 AM, DJSexton said:

I do not recall any one provider that in their wisdom had an adequate supply.

Right--1) because wisdom still has to actually be utilized and even when it (arguably) is utilized it can be applied toward any number of desired ends. My belief is that in this case, the desired end was financial savings, since that's what I was directly told. Certainly you can't argue that replacing N95s and a fit testing program with a number of PAPRs that could not provide the same level of organizational preparation was wisdom that was primarily concerned with patient and nurse safety. 2) Because trends. Quite simple. If your competitor figures out how to not deal with the expense and logistics of an N95-based program, you surely will too (whether FP or NFP). Soon you have numerous places that have fundamentally altered their need for N95s based on the bets they hedged.

On 8/10/2020 at 12:30 AM, DJSexton said:

And no business benefits from complainers.

I would mostly agree with that based on the spirit of the definition of complain.

But it is interesting how the word itself is weaponized.

It has become very common to label others' inquiries and reasonable critiques as "complaining" especially when there is a desire to not answer the question or consider the critique.

[For the record, I am not accusing you of this personally, I am saying that's what goes on in nurses' workplaces. There *is* (non-productive) complaining. And there is a lot of responsible question-asking and concern-raising that is labeled "complaining," for convenience and as an outright means of vilifying others who raise legitimate concerns or ask reasonable questions about logistics.]

On 8/10/2020 at 12:30 AM, DJSexton said:

Nursing contains some inherent sacrifice.

Yes it does. Most nurses do not have a problem with sacrifice, especially those sacrifices which are inherent, as you say, to nursing itself. These come in the form of the general energy (emotional, physical, cognitive) that is expended in others' best interests. They also come in the form of altered lifestyles due to scheduling needs and sometimes the difficulties that are directly related to such (sleep, dietary and even hygiene irregularities for example). My observation is that most nurses accept degrees of these types of inherent sacrifices and well understand that it is part of the job and part of the professional nursing role.

The "sacrifices" we are talking about in this thread, though, are not at all inherent. And that is the major difference.

[DJSexton, RN]

13 hours ago, JKL33 said:

I do not recall any one provider that in their wisdom had an adequate supply.

The quote above is intended to mean that the whole industry was caught off guard. Not everyone got rid of their N95 fit testing, so it's not fair to say all are guilty because of limited examples. But no one was prepared for the pandemic.

13 hours ago, JKL33 said:

And no business benefits from complainers.

I'll maintain the dialogue based on clarifications of my own material since your sample dialogue contains extensions out of context from often one-word capture of mine. Another quote of mine to infer yes, complainers in general are non-productive. Not a vent - different. Vilification - WOW!.

13 hours ago, JKL33 said:

Nursing contains some inherent sacrifice.

You and I differ in this because I come from a military mindset where war is war, and a sense of duty dictates the service level. The OP felt it was too much. You may also. But leave no brother behind is akin to leave no patient behind. War is never pretty, but neither is a pandemic. The lines of inherent risk change when the war comes to the doorstep. Perhaps when war is afar, it seems acceptable, but war at home is not. It is still an enemy. Sadly, realistically, it comes down to resources.

[JKL33]

6 hours ago, DJSexton said:

You and I differ in this because I come from a military mindset where war is war, and a sense of duty dictates the service level.

I appreciate your service.

The written word is difficult and I am not sure how you are taking my words. I will ponder what you have said and I hope you will consider what I have said as well.

Take Care ~ ?

[DJSexton, RN]

Dear JLK33,

Thank you for the dialogue, as I did glean important perspectives and respectfully appreciate your position. I will gladly accept your invitation to ponder and I hope you take care as well ?

[2BS Nurse, BSN]

No way do I want my own kids in this profession. I want them to have a career where they can make a decent living but still have a good quality of life. It's way too hard to use PTO and schedule a vacation in nursing.

[toomuchbaloney]

1 hour ago, 2BS Nurse said:

No way do I want my own kids in this profession. I want them to have a career where they can make a decent living but still have a good quality of life. It's way too hard to use PTO and schedule a vacation in nursing.

We were a nursing family with both parents holding degrees in the sciences and licences to practice as RNs. I Left bedside nursing for medical sales and marketing when our children were young. That evolved into a very satisfying professional collaboration and work experience. My spouse stayed in the acute setting but switched to focus on team building and management. It's doable. We had work friends who were health pro couples...RT/RN, MSW/RN, that sort of thing. You make it work.

[Penandpaper, BSN]

On 4/14/2020 at 12:25 PM, juviasama said:

well, to be fair, I believe nurses in the United States are still more blessed than nurses in developing countries. Nurses in the United States get paid way more than nurses in developing countries while they are also struggling with being severely understaffed and severely underpaid. I live in Texas and from where I came, I know the nurses back in my hometown made very little money, probably USD 500- USD 600 per month with much higher living cost where the property cost as high as California and not to mention, undeniably high inflation rate. We don't have nurse's day either in my country. I am not exaggerating. I guess what I want to say is to count your blessing. I am grateful with what I have here.

However, I would still not recommend this career to my friend, my relatives, or even my own kid. It's a high stress job, and it takes a very strong person to be a nurse. I doubt I am that person.

The only thing I would like to know if in other countries, there is so much focus on patient satisfaction. The way patients are allowed to abuse staff here I doubt it done in other countries. 

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

6 hours ago, Thewomynwhowrites said:

The only thing I would like to know if in other countries, there is so much focus on patient satisfaction. The way patients are allowed to abuse staff here I doubt it done in other countries. 

Nurses aren't given the respect in other countries either. Mostly looked at as handmaidens to Dr. My cousin is a nurse in Italy. She gets paid way less. Not the same litigious society, at least. And patients don't show much respect, if at all

[Penandpaper, BSN]

47 minutes ago, Hoosier_RN said:

Nurses aren't given the respect in other countries either. Mostly looked at as handmaidens to Dr. My cousin is a nurse in Italy. She gets paid way less. Not the same litigious society, at least. And patients don't show much respect, if at all

Wow very sad. I do think it has something to do with being a female dominated profession.  I still do feel like a handmaid sometime. I am grateful that we have more professional status here and we are at least paid a decent wage. However, nursing needs an overhaul period.