old nurse worries

[ERERER]

been a nurse for 30+ years. I went to school when people chose nursing out of a love for people, instead of a way to make decent $$ quickly. When nursing schools taught us to "nurse" rather than to pass state boards. enough said, i am constantly discouraged at the state of health care today. You walk onto a unit and where are all the nurses??? bent over the piles and piles of paperwork that admin has forced down their throats to avoid a jcaho slap on the wrist. when your only patient contact is to shoot some IV med that your lpn cannot, or witness a consent. it breaks my heart to see what has become of nursing because of bucks. I just came off a 14 (supposed to be 12) hour shift, no break, in charge and take full assignment due to staffing to face admin wanting to know why a patient's outcome was bad (due to poor surgical technique, by the way), a patient that i had never even seen. Nurses get the blame because admin is afraid to confront the docs, who bring in the business.

I could go on and on, but i need a cry break. The nursing career that i have loved for most of my life is becoming unbearable. I hate the idea of a family member or friend of mine being admitted to a hospital without someone sitting at their bedside watching over them.

anyone else worried? anyone have any good news? anyone?

[mom23RN]

I was only a nurse for about 5 years before I left to stay home with my kids (doesn't pay well, but the benefits are fantastic!!!! ). I have said from the time I started doing it that we could really give such great patient care if we didn't have all the paperwork to do.

Now, in defense of the industry I think that the litigous patients certainly have some part in this. They are a part of the reason that costs are skyrocketing and we can't do a SINGLE thing without charting it.

Anyway you look at it it sucks. Part of the reason I'm not doing it now. It saddens me to think how much time I put into my education and I'm not even using it.

[sanctuary, BSN, MSN, RN]

Here's another old nurse who worries about the state of the "art" of mursing. Remember when a back rub preceeded any sleeper, and followed all bed baths?

[ERERER]

Here's another old nurse who worries about the state of the "art" of mursing. Remember when a back rub preceeded any sleeper, and followed all bed baths?

and, you never even remotely thought of a back rub being "inappropriate touch". couple of times i've seen running tape recorders in a patient's room, what do they expect??? patient attitudes that smack of "I'll call my lawyer", etc. a mom who brought her toddler to the ER for "invisible" burns to her fingertips from McDonald's fries. holding ICU patients in the ER when you still have a full ER load to work up. usually it's the icu pt that gets lost in the chaos.

both sides of the coin have gotten out of control. I would really hate to end up leaving nursing all together, god knows we need nurses. but how much can one person take----both from patients and from admin???

[sanctuary, BSN, MSN, RN]

Well, I'm not staying here to watch the entire practice get corrupted by the mony-mongers. Managed care my patootee, It's managed cost, and the heck with the care.

[snowfreeze, BSN, RN]

I don't know if I am considered an old or new nurse at 14 years of experience but I certainly have found it challenging to find positions in which I can actually do the job I intended to do when I entered nursing school.

I am also concerned about the time nurses have for actual direct patient care. One of the reasons I recently switched jobs was due to that frustration. It is hard to teach a patient anything when they are only in the hospital for 3 days (medicare picks up payment for LTC after 72 hours of hospital stay). The stress of the first day or the anesthesia makes you not very receptive to learning. The second day you focus on pain and grieving of the new medical diagnosis or the missing body part. The third day if you are lucky enough to escape without an infection, you are thinking how you will function at home again with all this pain and not being able to lift/climb stairs/drive/work..etc until you are released by your doctor. How can a nurse bond with a patient when they only have a few minutes every couple hours to be in their room? You do have to do some type of bonding for the patient to be receptive to your teaching. The patient needs to know you, then trust you, then listen to you, then give you feedback of what you taught. Many times they also need the confirmation of a family member that you are OK.

I saw how this effects many patients and their families perception of what is really going on and what can be done in the manner of curing, prolonging life, managing pain and loss of ability to care for ones self once they leave the hospital.

After 5 years in sub-acute/rehab/LTC/dementia I have returned to hospital nursing. I hope to make more of a difference this time around.