BeachNurse321

I left ICU in a FL hospital in May 2015 after over 5 years there. I have been a nurse for 15 years and I went back and forth from wanting the clinical bedside interaction to having to leave bedside and do other things like education and now Nurse Navigator because the treatment at bedside is just not right! Our 6:45 shift started with a break room huddle where we basically got reamed for anything that went wrong in our ICU. Patient gets an infection? Your fault. UTI? Your fault. Confused patient takes out NG, ETT, anything? Your fault. Here's one of their brilliant ideas..."Let's give ICU nurses 3 patients (and put a couple nurses on call)" and then they wonder why the patient satisfaction scores went down? It is always "do more with less, you're a wimp if you can't handle 3 ICU patients, go to MRI with your patient for 3 hours and get totally behind, why are you here so late?, this is your fault, why didn't you take a lunch break?, don't come to work sick, but really you should or you'll be written up and given a guilt trip". It's a very strange healthcare environment. I felt like I was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when I first left and started doing my Acute Care NP clinicals prior to starting my current job. People are actually nice to me, I can go to the restroom when I need to, lunch is a given (and often provided), people value me and my experience. The things that have made a huge difference to me and have decreased my level of anxiety, depression, and self doubt have been leaving my previous facility and furthering my education. I LOVE the critically ill patients but no bedside nurse should be treated so poorly when patients lives hang in the balance. My friends in western states seem to have it best at bedside with staffing ratios and relief nurses to ensure breaks so keep that in mind too if you're not ready to give up ICU bedside nursing.