Nursing is slavery Period!!!

[sonia211]

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. . .

[jeckrn, BSN, RN]

The grass is not always greener in other professions. Alot of what I hear about being overworked, being treated as waitress is of of our own doing. Until the mind set of "its for the patient" ends we will continue to allow this to happen. Once I worked at a hospital who cut out the evening/night house keeping and wanted nurses to clean rooms. I refused, stating I did not have the time, never got in trouble. Some nurses stated they needed to do it because it was "for the patients". I tried to convince them that if they are cleaning rooms they are not doing patient care related things. Some got it, others didn't. The ones that didn't were the ones who stayed over every shift to chart & got called on the carpet for it. Nursing like any job is what you make of it. I worked in a factory before nursing and have worked ICU,ED,OR, Med/surg, homehealth as a nurse. Never have I been treated like the OP. Nursing is not for everyone, just like business is not for everyone.

[RNewbie]

I understand where the OP is coming from. Some work environments are better than others, but bedside nursing is generally rough in my opinion. There are so many other things you can do with your license and degrees. I would say just try some other nursing jobs away from the bedside or in other specialties before giving up on the profession.

[NayRN]

I apologize in advance, it's long and pretty negative...

I'm experiencing a bit of burnout myself. Just the other day I found myself and three other nurses in the nurse's station discussing a career change. One with

1) less liability: let's face it, there are not many professions where the employees have to worry about losing everything because of a simple human error or a charting omission on 1 of the 9 patients you care for that day while simultaneously acting as charge nurse because at 3.5 years of experience you are the senior nurse above the other 2 nurses on the floor, both of whom are new grads less than 3 months off orientation.

2) comparable pay: where I live, the starting salary for a teacher is more than the starting salary for a nurse-AND teachers actually get paid more when they acquire more education, unlike nurses. They also have some sort of retirement plan in place. The nurse retirement plan? You all know what it is: work until you can't physically do it anymore, then try to find a less physically demanding job, and do that until your dementia is so far advanced your employer starts to notice. Then, you can sign over your 401K to the nursing home and relax there listening to the sundowners. You may even become one of the yellers yourself.

3) better hours: again, teachers get paid the same amount or more than I do while working normalized, predictable hours, which includes weekends, holidays, and summers off. Nurses on my floor even have a difficult time picking up a second job if necessary because a set schedule is not an option.

4) better health insurance: Maybe not a possibility, but last year 14% of my income went to medical expenses. No big problems, either. Just premiums, regular check ups with co-pays, a couple of routine prescriptions, 6 month dental cleanings for everyone, and my daughter had her kindergarten shots. 14%!!! Holy cow!!! Then we get to take care of all the medicaid people who use the ER whenever they want to, etc. etc...Kinda makes me sick (no pun intended. can't afford to get sick.)

So, I've been thinking about going back to school to get a teaching certificate. I am really disappointed in nursing, and while I have applied for a few different jobs, I have been unsuccessful in getting hired. There are many more experienced nurses than me out there applying for the same jobs. I was actually in a really bad mood at work the other day, and that is not like me. One of the pharmacists came through and asked if I needed anything, and I grumbled "yeah, a new job" "grumble grumble" He gave me a reproachful look and said "yeah, but you get paid." Yeah, I do, but I just don't feel adequately compensated for all that I am responsible for. Bringing home $550 a week or less almost qualifies us for food stamps, sad as that is. I've not had a whole lot of problems with my job in the almost 4 years I have been there. I like my patients. I love being a nurse in itself. I like helping and teaching the new grads and the nursing students. But when it is such a stressful environment that you really don't get a lunch or bathroom break and are there for 13 and 1/2 hours and you want to cry because the Dr has been so condescending and you don't feel like you know much at all about the patients you care for-you are just an automated pill popper and tasking machine...I'm just done. and it makes me sad. I know the grass isn't usually greener, but in this case, I think that a little bit of green grass would be better than wallowing in the mud on a daily basis. I have a couple of family members who are teachers, and they are very happy with their jobs in general. I have yet to meet a secure, satisfied nurse. And, when a teacher is sick, there are substitutes available to cover for them. And "they" wonder why there is a nursing shortage. So, whether it's teaching or something else, I think that I will soon join the ranks of former nurses who have fallen to our self-perpetuated shortage.

[merlee]

I have had the opportunity to work in a union facility and continually wonder why more places are not union based.

Beyond that, I think every nurse who isn't getting their breaks/meals should be calling their immediate supervisor to relieve them. Every shift, every time. Imagine if 20 - 30 - 40 or more nurses did this in every facility, every shift, every day. And if every nurse who missed her meal break demanded to get paid for that time. A half-hour may not be much time to one nurse, but for 40 nurses in one day it's 20 hours of overtime to the facility.

Why are we, as a group, such weenies???? Imagine this - - at 11 o'clock, you call your head nurse or supe, and say you need to take your lunch break and no one can relieve you because they are too busy. She agrees. Then, at 1130, the next nurse asks. At noon, the next, and so on. She will be either doing nothing, or running for the entire time. Or, she refuses. You ask her to mark you down as a no-lunch day, overtime will be due to you. She really doesn't want to give you overtime.....

This will only work when the majority of the staff agrees to do this. Imagine just doing this for 3 consecutive days. Every nurse will not get written up for poor time-management if every nurse sticks to their guns.

On your next day off, contact a union, and ask how to get a union rep to talk to some of you.

We need to stand up for our own health and well-being, and demand we be treated as adults who need to eat, breathe and pee while we are at work.

[canesdukegirl, BSN, RN]

Oh yeah. I totally get where you are coming from. I felt very much the same way...burned out, felt like a waitress, handmaiden, housekeeper and the responsibilities just kept piling up while administrators kept their eye on Press Ganey scores, placing the responsibility squarely on the nurses shoulders...

...until I went to Nicaragua on a surgical mission trip. The nurses there got up at 0400 to walk to each others houses so that they could walk to the hospital in a group-safety in numbers. They arrived at 0615 and started working in units that had no air conditioning, high humidity, stale air and filthy bathrooms. Only one bathroom stall per ~50 pts. You can only imagine the stench. They didn't have to change the linens on the beds because if the families of the pts didn't bring linens, the pts lay on bare mattresses. The hospital did not supply pts with toilet paper or even dishes to eat out of-the families had to bring those. I saw a man ripping the webril out from underneath his leg cast to use as tissue for his runny nose, and then stuff it back into his cast. The nurses had to bring their own washcloths and soap to give pt's bed baths. If a pt didn't have family, the nurses brought meals from their own homes to feed them. If a nurse questioned a doctor in front of patients, she was humiliated by the doctor. I witnessed a nurse asking for clarification on something the doc said during rounds (she couldn't hear him), and he called her stupid and told her to pay attention. Everything was charted on paper, if there was any paper around. If there wasn't paper to chart on, they used the empty paper packaging on kerlix wrappers or abd wrappers. I rarely saw nurses wearing gloves when they did dressing changes-the hospital didn't supply those either. I saw parents of pediatric pts begging nurses for money, or begging for toys-it was CONSTANT. When their shift was over, they all walked out together, pushing past the massive cluster of people that clogged the doors to the hospital begging for them to look at their wounds, begging to see a doctor, begging for food or money. After their exhausting shift, they went home to start cooking dinner for their families. They cooked dinner on kerosene camping grills-no body had ovens, not even the doctors.

After seeing how these nurses worked tirelessly and without complaint, I stopped belly aching about my job.

But I don't want to take away from how frustrated you feel-nursing IS frustrating. We go into this profession with visions of how we WANT to do our jobs-taking care of patients, having the time to take care of them, educate them, watch them heal, help them deal with the emotions of being sick, etc. Many of us have jobs that allow us to do just what we envisioned, but many of us feel that we have our hands tied by filling out reams of paperwork with neat little check-boxes and flow charts done with 100% accuracy or "It's the CHOPPING BLOCK!" Instead of using critical thinking skills and prioritizing our tasks, we are constantly interrupted by pt's who view us as waitresses-you know you should tend to the COPD pt who needs a neb tx, but you also know that if you don't bring Mr. X his cup of Earl Grey, your NM will hear about it and you will get pulled into the office for a lecture on service.

I don't pretend to know what the answer is to this dilemma-and I don't see it getting better anytime soon. It IS helpful however, to keep things in perspective. You ARE making a difference.

[wooh, BSN, RN]

I wouldn't say "slavery." But I can agree with just about everything else. And yes, it's better (at least to me) than road construction or working at the sewage treatment plant. But it's really gotten ridiculous. I've cut my hours since I got back into school, and it's a lot easier to deal with the ridiculousness. But there are days... And if I did not have an exit strategy in place and was still working the hours that I used to work, I wouldn't be able to cope.

[plumbtrician]

Nursing is an easier job than many. If you are just venting, I support you 100%. If you are serious, then quit.

[Sparrowhawk]

This is the main reason I'll never get my RN to work in a hospital.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

it sounds as though many of the posters on this thread are in various stages of burnout. i've been there myself and might have written a similar post. the cure for burnout is change -- change your shift, your job, your hospital, your specialty or all of the above. take care of yourself. eat right, sleep well and exercise. take some "me time" and soak in the tub with a good book, book a spa day or whatever floats your boat. we've all heard the advice for dealing with burnout.

you can treat burnout by leaving the profession, but in this economy i'm not sure how viable an option that is. unless, of course, you're relying on others to support you.

i'm hearing a lot of you say that you have no time to eat, drink or take a bathroom break. nursing is a 24/7 job. what you don't get done on your shift will be done on the next. take the time. there isn't much -- cpr being one thing -- that cannot wait for you to sit down and eat the lunch you've packed. it takes even less time to pee or get a drink.

nursing is an interesting and challenging profession, and if you're doing it right you're learning something new every day. the pay is steady, benefits are usually good (better than so many right now) and we're working inside, out of the rain and snow. yes, there are liability issues, but unlike cops, it's rare for their to be legal issues that threaten our freedom. we do get shot at on the rare occasion (and cannot shoot back) but we're not in the military or out on the streets in blue. yes, we do some heavy lifting, but many jobs require that and we don't work with machinery that can maim or kill us.

patients are less grateful these days and families are more entitled, but anyone who works with the public will tell you the same thing. the hours are "worse", i guess depending upon your perspective. i happen to love the flexibility. i've never aspired to working banker's hours, and when my husband did it nearly ruined our lives. we're much happier working nights, weekends and holidays and having time off during the week to play while everyone else is at work.

many of the unhappy people i see posting here are in their first job, and i cannot help but wonder if all the negativity is specific to nursing of it's a reaction to being in the working world for the first time. employers expect you to show up on time every day and do the work you were hired for. you can get away with less in school. i know that's not true for everyone but i'm pretty sure it's a factor for some.

[OnlybyHisgraceRN, ASN, RN]

Nursing is NOTHING like slavery. No one is forcing you to do anything against your will. I do take offense to this comment. I bet if Jews, African-americans, and indians who were slaves would agree as well.

If you cannot cope maybe you either need a new specialty or to get out of nursing.

Yes, some of us have felt this way but I would never compare it to slavery. Just my two cents.

[Altra, BSN, RN]

Thank you RubyVee, for an excellent post.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

I apologize in advance, it's long and pretty negative...

I'm experiencing a bit of burnout myself. Just the other day I found myself and three other nurses in the nurse's station discussing a career change. One with

1) less liability: let's face it, there are not many professions where the employees have to worry about losing everything because of a simple human error or a charting omission on 1 of the 9 patients you care for that day while simultaneously acting as charge nurse because at 3.5 years of experience you are the senior nurse above the other 2 nurses on the floor, both of whom are new grads less than 3 months off orientation.

2) comparable pay: where I live, the starting salary for a teacher is more than the starting salary for a nurse-AND teachers actually get paid more when they acquire more education, unlike nurses. They also have some sort of retirement plan in place. The nurse retirement plan? You all know what it is: work until you can't physically do it anymore, then try to find a less physically demanding job, and do that until your dementia is so far advanced your employer starts to notice. Then, you can sign over your 401K to the nursing home and relax there listening to the sundowners. You may even become one of the yellers yourself.

3) better hours: again, teachers get paid the same amount or more than I do while working normalized, predictable hours, which includes weekends, holidays, and summers off. Nurses on my floor even have a difficult time picking up a second job if necessary because a set schedule is not an option.

4) better health insurance: Maybe not a possibility, but last year 14% of my income went to medical expenses. No big problems, either. Just premiums, regular check ups with co-pays, a couple of routine prescriptions, 6 month dental cleanings for everyone, and my daughter had her kindergarten shots. 14%!!! Holy cow!!! Then we get to take care of all the medicaid people who use the ER whenever they want to, etc. etc...Kinda makes me sick (no pun intended. can't afford to get sick.)

So, I've been thinking about going back to school to get a teaching certificate. I am really disappointed in nursing, and while I have applied for a few different jobs, I have been unsuccessful in getting hired. There are many more experienced nurses than me out there applying for the same jobs. I was actually in a really bad mood at work the other day, and that is not like me. One of the pharmacists came through and asked if I needed anything, and I grumbled "yeah, a new job" "grumble grumble" He gave me a reproachful look and said "yeah, but you get paid." Yeah, I do, but I just don't feel adequately compensated for all that I am responsible for. Bringing home $550 a week or less almost qualifies us for food stamps, sad as that is. I've not had a whole lot of problems with my job in the almost 4 years I have been there. I like my patients. I love being a nurse in itself. I like helping and teaching the new grads and the nursing students. But when it is such a stressful environment that you really don't get a lunch or bathroom break and are there for 13 and 1/2 hours and you want to cry because the Dr has been so condescending and you don't feel like you know much at all about the patients you care for-you are just an automated pill popper and tasking machine...I'm just done. and it makes me sad. I know the grass isn't usually greener, but in this case, I think that a little bit of green grass would be better than wallowing in the mud on a daily basis. I have a couple of family members who are teachers, and they are very happy with their jobs in general. I have yet to meet a secure, satisfied nurse. And, when a teacher is sick, there are substitutes available to cover for them. And "they" wonder why there is a nursing shortage. So, whether it's teaching or something else, I think that I will soon join the ranks of former nurses who have fallen to our self-perpetuated shortage.

Teachers in my state have a master's degree. RN's can practice with ADN. Teachers are a scarcer resource and thus have it easier. When they stop cranking out nurses every 2 years and we become a scarcer resource, we'll have more of the benefits of a profession rather than viewed as tradesmen.