scott47

Hey folks, I landed a job in a busy city ER immediately after graduating nursing school (no previous medical experience other than 1-1/2 year as PRN float pool PCT during nursing school). I underwent 2 months of classroom training as well as 5 certifications. Afterward, I went into preceptorship for 8-12 weeks and each week I took on one more patient until reaching 5. I have been on my own for about 6 months, and I have throughout the day between 4 and 7 patients (more often than not, it leans toward the larger number of patients). The location of the hospital is close to downtown and is in a large, "under-privileged" neighborhood. Therefore, many patients that come in are frequent fliers seeking drugs, and it seems that most have an agenda to come in and give staff a hard time during their entire stay. The pace is so fast, that I feel I am not learning much as I hardly have time to review lab and imaging results and interpreting them to the patients and their families. I also feel that, due to the consistent frequency of difficult to deal with patients, I have become very stern (and far from compassionate) with all patients that come in under my care. I perform my duties with a bundle of AMA papers in my scrubs pocket, and honestly, would rather patients to leave than stay most of the time. One room is a patient with complications of an abortion, regretful of her decision and crying, the next room is an uncontrollable HTN from a dialysis patient that is in that condition because they "didn't feel like going to dialysis" and is going on cardene drip, the next room is a drunk patient seizing, the next room is a sickle cell "crisis" yelling at me for dilaudid (which we do not carry), and the last room is telling me what meds they want as if they are ordering from a menu. I come in hitting the ground running, I leave running (and when I hit the parking lot, it's like a sprint). I dread coming to work, I am getting depressed at home, and want to quit so bad. My wife makes plenty money for me to pay back my contract of which I am only obligated for another 15 months or so. However, as a man, I am having an internal battle of maintaining my word to obligate myself for the 2 year contract and not quitting just because it is extremely demanding or just quitting since the pay-back is not an issue. I am a combat veteran and getting shot at in Afghanistan was far easier than working in this super-fast paced ER that treats an ungrateful community while maintaining professionalism (the compassionate care part is long gone at this point).