sjyRN

Hi I'm a nurse with 1 year of ICU experience (Started right as COVID was starting up) with a ICU internship before graduating. ( So been in the same ICU since Aug. 2019) I work Night Shift in a cardiac/ COVID ICU and I applied for an Evening Shift PACU position WAY closure to my apartment (5 min drive vs 40 min drive). If anyone saw my last post back in July or so you would know that I hate working in the ICU. Not sure if it's just my ICU or all ICUs in general. I like critical care, I don't like the poor unsafe staffing, all the poop, night shift, and keeping a body alive for days. After doing research and debating just leaving nursing all together I applied for a PACU position. I have an interview coming up and what I have read about PACU is you still keep that critical care monitoring aspect but don't seem to have the other things I don't like about ICU. The main issue I'm having is when I read "PACU is where ICU nurses go to die." I just feel like I'm making a mistake, like I should suck it up and stay in the ICU even though I truly just hate my life. I think I should stick it out for 2 years but recently I've just been driving home crying from exhausting and I have no energy to do anything outside work because I just think about work and feel sick. It is taking a physical and mental toll. I thought about going to another hospital or travel but the things I don't like about ICU are going to be everywhere and at least where I am now I like the people I work with. Also I'm in a 2 year contract so I'm trying to just move in the company I'm at. I just want a job where there isn't so much suffering. Everyone said wait a year so I did and it still sucks. Now they say wait 2 years and I don't think I can make it that far. I feel like a horrible person for wanting to leave the ICU. Everyone I work with is like "Super Nurse" and I'm just not getting the same enjoyment. I feel like a failure but I'm just so tired of it all. I will probably stay PRN at my facility ICU since COVID is still so big and they need the help. I just cant do it all the time. I guess the reason I post this is to hear from others who have flipped specialties and how was it for you. Am I wrong for going to PACU? I'll try anything so if anyone wants to share their experience!

No I don't, but I do feel like a burden by being new. Like everyone is helpful and nice but I feel like I'm too dependent on them. I worry if I leave and go to a new unit or hospital the staff will be upset that I have almost a year experience and still don't know what I'm doing. I feel the same about night shift making you feel "off" and I always double check and triple check everything and am very verbal about my concerns and talking it out with more experienced nurses to make sure I'm thinking about things the right way. But then even though they listen and talk about it I still worry I'm bothering them too much.

Thanks guys! I keep researching other jobs, mostly away from bedside. I keep reminding myself I'm not trapped even though I feel like it. I just feel so incompetent that I can't see myself transferring to another unit and embarrassing myself all over again to a new set of people. I've talked with resource nurses I work with and they tell me of all the hospitals and units they have worked in like a few years and I'm like WOW! you are so brave LOL. I think about going to days too. I keep thinking it will be worse because the doctors are there and procedures are happening. I just don't feel confident anymore in my nursing abilities and I used to be so excited and ready to learn everything. Now the stress is so high I just feel like I'm just trying to survive the shift, not lose my license and go home. I think I will speak with my director soon, I know its bad timing with the pandemic and all but I don't want to put my patients safety at risk which is what it feels like every shift.

I graduated in December 2019, passed my NCLEX in January 2020 and started working the week after passing. Got 2 weeks of orientation and here I am in my 7th month of Nightshift ICU nursing. I hate it. I'm depressed. I'm exhausted. I feel like an idiot. Since starting I am tripled every night. Since I'm in Texas we just got our huge COVID wave and I have started being assigned COVID ICU patients (TRIPLED) so managing 2 intubated COVID patients plus one on high flow and a non-rebreather is DRAINING. (Don't get me started on how we have NO PCAs/Techs to help) I have reached out to my assigned mentor and one of my charge nurses and they have been encouraging and kind saying I'm on the right track and I'm doing well. But I come home and cry all the time. I can't see anyone or go anywhere because of COVID so my only interaction is with my patients and co-workers who are also burned out and busy. I want to give up. I want to leave the ICU. Sometimes I just want to leave nursing. I feel like I made a mistake and I have no idea what to do now. I am in a 2 year contract so my options are transferring to a different unit in the healthcare system I am in, going back to school (Public Health? FNP? Education?), or powering through the 2 years. Or just changing career paths entirely but even then I just feel so beaten down.