RNAsh

I'm glad to see that we're all in the same sinking boat at St. Mary's. I love the "our partner is mother nature" billboards. Does mother nature give chest compressions on one of my patients in the ER while my other patient bleeds out? Because as things stand right now, I'm only able to give minimal, borderline horrible (not by choice) care. The hospital is SO BAD that they refuse to close to ambulances -$$$-even when we are boarding critical ICU patient in the ER, sending elderly people with CVA s/sx to triage, and 20+ deep in triage at all times. It's so sad that St Mary's used to be a fantastic place to work. I've worked in quite a few ERs in WI. I would recommend Froedtert, ProHealth, selective Aurora, and AVOID WHEATON like the plague. I'm planning on travel nursing again in January just to get away from the nightmare for awhile. lol

Basically my issue is a moral one. I graduated in April and since then I have been working in a poor, inner-city hospital. This hospital desperately needs good nurses, but I am miserable there. I am overworked, I have WAY too high a patient:nurse ratio. I feel like an unsafe practitioner, and my patients are miserable, ungrateful, impoverished people, who are more often than not verbally abusive towards me because they are recieveing inadequate care....due to the fact that I have too many patients, and not enough resources. I believe in serving all populations, and I'm not new to the innercity population, but I am become physically and emotionally drained. This hospital has put many hours into my training, and I feel incredibly guilty at the thought of leaving them for the hospital I previously worked at (Which I really liked, but they didn't hire new grads). My nurse manager is supportive and always gives me positive feedback, but it still doesn't balance out the abusive patients, and unsafe conditions. Should I feel guilty? Should I stick it out? Does anyone have any ideas? Thoughts?