Nursing is slavery Period!!!

Anna Flaxis, BSN, RN · Jun 5, 2012

I was also waiting for when someone was going to sling out the word "compassion"!
Now, that is always an enormous slap in the face for nurses and aides who have, literally, destroyed their bodies giving years of physically hard work and dealt with the mental/emotional drain.
We all have our personal reasons for joining nursing, but I'm sure we all share a degree of compassion...
We are just secure enough in our motives that we do not need to advertise it.
Even in a negative post about a very unhappy person, compassion is assumed and lends to part of the writer's feelings of hopelessness.
I have to wonder about people, who are so distrustful... and tend to think the worst in people, in that they will assume people are lacking in compassion.
Most people possess this trait (that is bandied about here like a exclusive holy badge of honor) and to smugly attack others-- for presumed lack of it-- radiates a few personality issues we aren't even going into.
Bottom line, the compassion is there...
but it's not put to much use when you are stuck doing all the stupid stuff...
that keeps you away from the patients you thought you were going to be caring for in the first place.

Yes, yes, yes! No matter the actual reasons a person chose nursing as a career path, most people do possess compassion and the ability to empathize. These traits are developed in early childhood, and very few people actually lack them. Thus, odds are, the person writing the original post is a compassionate and empathetic person, and perhaps, just perhaps, these qualities are a factor in why the person feels the way they do about their work.

I went into nursing never wanting to be task oriented, but rather, to be relationship oriented in my practice with my patients. But the nature of the job, in some facilities, due to a variety of factors such as cuts in the labor pool, make relationship based care darn near impossible, and you become a tasker, because you are spread so thin that you just don't have time for anything but the bare minimum. There are always going to be "those shifts", where you get through by the seat of your pants, and you're just glad your patients are still alive at the end, but when that is the rule rather than the exception, I think there is something wrong with that.

To me, being okay with this makes me question how much a nurse cares about patients.

Sparrowhawk · Jun 5, 2012

Let's just have Naked Day and go swimming. That will make us all feel better then we'll have chocolate brownies.

fit4life · Jun 5, 2012

I am probably going to offend some of you and I apologize in advance for that.
However I really need a safe place to vent my frustrations about nursing and
this is the place.
A little background:
I have a Bachelors in Business. I worked in that field for just under 8 years. I liked it but it was starting to get boring and I felt I needed a challenge. I got my BSN and started working as a nurse for a big hospital. I didn't expect it to be all roses however I have to say what I have found in this profession has quickly turned me negative. I have been in this profession for over 2 years now and while I know that isn't long I have to be HONEST and say that I don't feel that I can honestly make it in this job.
Here is what I have noticed about the roles a nurse plays:
to administration: cogs (yet they don't want to pay the price required to keep us
so they keep increasing our task list, Responsibilites, documentation requirements,
etc while not increasing our pay)
to Dr: waitress/slave
to families: waitress/slave
Every job I have done went by satisfactory meaning I have never been written up or even had a verbal warning given. In this job people get written up for stupid stuff and no one thinks to give verbal warnings. The amount of demoralization that takes place on new grads is profound and now I understand why the smiles on new grad faces quickly turn sour. Every Dr I have s/w told me the same thing which is "get out of nursing or go higher fast . . . but do not stay in it"
Thus the message is clear that this profession needs a Major rehaul. Policies change on a daily basis (No Joke) and there is no effective means of getting the information across to all employees such that NO ONE has any idea what is the proper way of doing anything anymore. Everyone I've asked has a different idea and the new policy is not always on the intranet. The more nurses I talk to the more I realize they are not leaving this profession only because they do not have another option. The ones that do take it QUICK!
I keep hearing people tell me that nurses make such great money at the bedside but I have to say Nurses earn every single $ they make NO JOKE. We are expected to work tirelessly without taking bathroom breaks, lunches, etc. There is no regard for our healthy while all focus is given to patient safety. Now I know why nurses burn out at the rate that they do.
And after all is said and done the amount of responsibility and liability that a nurse carries is starting to increase. We live in such an age of Entitlement where people want the best care and they do NOT understand the stressors that are forged upon nurses such that if you don't bring them their cup of tea on time they get upset with you. I thought about pursuing my MSN in the clinical arena however after much deliberation I realized despite the fact that my desire to help people is strong I don't want the amount of liability that comes with it. I am working on getting out of it. Although I do feel like a failure because I will always remember that I wasn't able to make it in nursing.
I have spoken to other new grads about this and they feel the same way in fact a lot of them didn't even finish 1 year bedside nursing before they turned around and enrolled themselves in NP programs to get out of this dreary profession.
Please feel free to comment on this post. . .

Hi,

I am writing to this post since I have a masters in business administration and that has not worked out very well for me.Being from Asia and having practised alternative medicine for 7 years, I came to the US and graduated with a masters in 2009. I have not had a paid job since but have been volunteering in the marketing field for a non-profit.

I know my heart is not in what I am doing right now. i will be happy to serve people and help them. But not sure what route to take. CNA OR MA. I want to be a physician assistant someday. I am in my mid 30's already and dnt know where and how to start. I live in the WA state.

fit4life · Jun 5, 2012

[h=3]Hi,

I am writing to this post since I have a masters in business administration and that has not worked out very well for me.Being from Asia and having practised alternative medicine for 7 years, I came to the US and graduated with a masters in 2009. I have not had a paid job since but have been volunteering in the marketing field for a non-profit.

I know my heart is not in what I am doing right now. i will be happy to serve people and help them. But not sure what route to take. CNA OR MA. I want to be a physician assistant someday. I am in my mid 30's already and dnt know where and how to start. I live in the WA state.[/h]

Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN · Jun 5, 2012

Let's just have Naked Day and go swimming. That will make us all feel better then we'll have chocolate brownies.

I feel like I just stumbled onto the LUV thread...and I like it!

wooh, BSN, RN · Jun 5, 2012

Someone at work keeps turning up the thermostats on my floor. This is Georgia. It makes it hot, like the vidalia onion fields. Nursing is migrant farm working Period!!! (Ok, except that I don't bend over nearly as much, and there are at least thermostats that I can eventually turn down. But there was one shift where I was definitely sweating like a migrant farm worker would.

Merlyn · Jun 5, 2012

Nursing has gotten worst and worst in the 41 years that I have been in the business. The strain that is put on us is back braking . Some of us get out, Some of us take it and end up at the bottom of a bottle or the end of a needle. There are the majority of us just do it. To the OP it is only going to get harder for you. If you have a chance, get out. I have to go back to nursing because of the money. But if there was another way for me. I would leave in a New York Minute and never look back.

TheNurseExperts · Jun 6, 2012

Hi Sonia,

I read your post and realized I went through the exact same situation 17+ years ago. Nursing for some reason is not as compassionate and respectful to one another even though we proclaim this is a profession and not a vocation.

It is not like this at all places. I do not know where you work or how active you are with the ANA. June 13th, 2012 is the virtual lobbying for decreasing patient/nurse ratio and amongst other nursing discipline issues we are facing. 2030 a shortage in 18 years is expected to be around 22-30% shortage.

No regrets at being a nurse; I regret not standing up for myself and knowing my rights. Nurses have rights as the patients have their own rights. Love the profession, but you hate the job.

TheNurseExperts · Jun 6, 2012

We need a RCA (root cause analysis) Stat. We are having a mass exodus of older nursing retiring, not enough schools to enter into, lack of professors, lack of professionalism, lack of GN programs that are purely academic to reinforce the little we did learn in our BSN programs, the shut off valve on our ADN programs (Ontario now does not allow ADN's to practice RN work in acute care), Magnet designated hospitals requiring bridge or leave policy, and amongst others. I have consulted in 46 out of 50 States. 250+ facilities and the sentiment is the same. Not enough resources. It is not the job but the resources. The fix resources that are fixed into a cost center.

Moral is low and some people need to leave. Infected Hospitals. Read peer review journals on infected hospitals where the staff actually corrupts an entire organization. It could be Mother Theresa as the CNO and the infected person would kill the organization. Isolate the individual and do a RCA or escort them to a non-contact position. Billing and coding, phone triage, Director of Sterile Supplies, etc. Do not terminate but reinvent this infected person. We need to cure the person not give them a death sentence. Retain, retain, retain!

klone, MSN, RN · Jun 6, 2012

I'm interested in research but I thought you had to have a MSN or PhD to do research?

I'm just here but I wanted to address this (my apologies if someone already addressed it) but no, you don't have to have an MSN or Ph.D. to do research, you just have to have an inquisitive mind. You would need to have a Ph.D. to lead a research TEAM (and be taken seriously) or be in charge of a lab or be the PI. I have simply a little ol' ADN (but am working on my BSN, which I will get in December, however) and I work in perinatal research. My title is simply "research nurse" but in the field, it would be comparable to CRC (clinical research coordinator).

klone, MSN, RN · Jun 6, 2012

I dunno...I know some people who come from indigenous tribes who think the term Native American is politically incorrect. Since they were hear before the continent was even called America. Complicated matters.

First Nations. Better?

klone, MSN, RN · Jun 6, 2012

#1 Nursing is a calling

Oh, rubbish! Maybe for you, but not for everyone, and one can be a perfectly excellent nurse without it being a calling (cue angels singing)

People who say that are also the people who believe that the only good nurses are martyrs who shouldn't dare choose nursing because they might want a goodish paycheck.