rachel100639
has 30 years experience and specializes in Psych, case-management, geriatrics, peds.
After many years on and off in nursing, I left the field. I worked in just about every discipline except ER and CCU including: Inpatient psych and PTSD units at a VA with young combat vets, pediatrics, geriatrics, adolescents (psych), lots of home care, case-management, post-op plastic surgery, developmentally disabled, severely mentally ill/dual diagnosis, offenders, weight loss clinics, alcohol and drug abuse, many nursing agencies, triage, rehabilitation, transitional units, acute care, detox, and more. My background is predominantly in psych.
I also have 12 years' background as a medical writer/editor; two years as a Licensed Elementary Teacher; two years as a case-manager and counselor. Presently, I run an online business.
Other degrees: Bachelor's in Psychology (I marked BSN above because there was no choice for BA), completing a dual master's degree in Industrial & Organizational Psychology/Licensed Professional Counselor.
I left nursing because the system is extremely dysfunctional. It's a ridiculously hierchical, dated system whereby nurses are at the bottom of the ladder. They are treated with incredible disrespect and contempt (almost like paid slaves) by just about everyone; e.g., management, families, patients, the state boards, etc. Most disturbing, though, is how nurses treat each other. I am talking about RNs and those below them who do direct patient care. Those with advanced degrees (NPs) rarely seem to treat one another Badly.
Numerous studies now show that anytime there is a top-down, rank-and-file system, as is medicine (and the military), the people at the bottom often feel helpless to change their circumstances - and this is generally true. So, they become angry and miserable, taking out their frustration on other nurses in the form of bullying, hostility and sometimes downright viciousness. They tolerate (and think it's normal!), 12-hour shifts with often no meal or bathroom breaks, crappy pay relative to the responsibilities they're expected to take on, dangerously high nurse/patient ratios, verbal abuse from management, Nazi-like State Boards that have ruined the lives of many excellent nurses, etc.
Latest Activity
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Sounds like she would do well in research.
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That's because no one wants to be a floor nurse any longer than they can help it.
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Why would someone stay in acute care when they are treated so badly?
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Hmmm...you must live in an area that doesn't pay very much.
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I think in the next 10 years, the typical nursing home will be obsolete. More and more places that are home-like environments are popping up. Baby Boomers will not tolerate the kind of "care" patients now get in a nursing home.
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Your last couple sentences are not guaranteed. Either you might be too incapacitated to oversee/manage your own or your family members' care or, you could be deceased before anyone in your family needs care.
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Why won't you state how much? It's not a secret!
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"Persevered" not "preserved."
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I cannot help but put my thoughts and experiences in here. I have a couple different careers: 1) Nursing 2) Writer/Editor 3) Teacher ONLY in nursing have I not only witnessed other nurses, but have experienced it myself countless times, being treated...
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You are 28 years old - still very young. You are smart to get out of this field that treats nurses like indentured servants. It does get worse as each year passes. I have 2 other entirely different careers besides nursing and only in nursing do I not...
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Who ever thought for a minute they were Gods?
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Steilacoom? Isn't that the hideous facility that Francis Farmer was committed?
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Good for her! Why should she spend a dime on getting the cake professionally done? If more nurses did things like this, maybe administrators would get the message that they can't treat their employees like crap.
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This is treating nurses as professionals?!? Hope absurd. In no other profession would an employee be expected to work while they were deathly ill - only in nursing. Until nurses stop allowing themselves to be treated like doormats, this abuse will co...
