peachysweetness78

this is similar to many posts. but what i have found is that many people say they cry themsleves to sleep, they are taking medications for anxiety, i've had health problems because of stress. is this an acceptable result for a profession? where does it end and is it only going to get worse did nurses 20-30 years ago have the same problems?? i am very unhappy with nursing. i have just over a year of experience. i began working in the icu right out of school. i stayed there for six months then went to hospice. i graduated as one of the top of my class. i am finding that nursing is nothing like they teach us in school. there isn't enough time to do the holistic type of nursing we expect when we graduate. i had to leave icu because i was scared to go to work every day. i couldn't handle the fact that i could do something that could cause harm to someone else. the life of a person is a huge responsibility. i didn't make any big mistakes and i did pretty well but i was becoming obsessive about checking and double checking everything because of the fear that i could make a mistake. so, i left icu and became a hospice nurse. in hospice there were a whole different set of problems. i saw how patients are treated and neglected in nursing homes and how they are treated at home with their families. i feel responsible for every little aspect of the patients life. this is definately not a job i can leave at work. i carry everything with me. i don't know what to do. i thought about getting into med-surg but then i will run the problem of having to double check and triple check everything that i do again. i am very analytical and i think i am a fairly good nurse based on my patients and supervisors. it just bothers me that i take everything i do very seriously when another nurse might cut corners and do things to save time, and they may not be doing a good job but i look silly because it takes me twice as long to do everything because i try to do it the right way. anyway, i've left hospice because i became very sick, the doctors were unable to diagnose me. i am starting to feel better but only after i did some serious rearranging of my life. it is amazing what stress can do to a person. i asked the physicians every time i visited if stress could cause my symptoms and they all said no, but the minute i started changing things in my life i started feeling better. anyway, i just wanted you to know that there are others that think they have made a mistake in choosing nursing as a career. it is sad, because i think i am a good nurse but i don't think i can keep doing it. one of my supervisors told me i am trying to be "too good of a nurse" i didn't think that was possible. it makes me very sad because i love my patients and if i could just be a nurse and not worry about all the other responsibilities of nursing, hours of charting in icu, concerns about other caregivers providing good care, medication aids giving the wrong medications, etc, i would be happy. i spoke to a nurse who has been in the profession for 30 years about why there is such a turn around for new nurses but other nurses have been in the profession for so long. he said it is because when he began nursing he was allowed to just be a nurse. why can't we be allowed to just be nurses?