I have spent 11 years as a nurse. I have had the experience of floor nursing, tele, cardiac step down, emergency, travel, infusion, and now home health. I wish I could tell you I felt my $47,000 dollars for a BSN were worth it, but I don’t. I, after 11 years as a nurse, would tell you to change your degree or take a lower paying job in any other career field job at $10 an hour to start. In the long run you probably will be happier and end up with greater income potential. In 2008 when I started as a tele floor RN, I made 20.47/hr which was a dollar an hour more than anyone who can to the position never being a nurse aid prior to their first RN
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job. I now make $29.71 an hour as a home health nurse. (I do not get mileage as they give me a car and while I spend 40 hours a week at a job that I agreed to be spending 24 a week at, I do not get to charge the additional hours because I have been told that it is expected that I can do 40 hours of work in 24 hours.) So while I would say my salary is not minimum wage, it does not even come close to covering a solid middle class income as I expected it should for as much as I paid to obtain it. And that is without calculating my ‘real wage’ which is all the hours of charting without pay. I do not ever feel like I have any time with my family. Now, because I’m charting or doing case management during the time I should have been off to see my family, in the past, because I was exhausted for at least a day after a 12hour shift (and if I was working nights the exhaustion was longer). Not to mention the most disappointing part of medicine: realizing it is a business. If you actually care about other people and it eats at your soul to make a choice between leaving someone in their own feces for an hour or go to the side of an unresponsive patient, then nursing isn’t for you. If listening to your boss ? at you from across the table as to how you should have remembered to ask someone to check your other patients while you were to overwhelmed to think while dealing with an unresponsive patient, seems in reasonable, that is minor compared to the worse things you will experience with a long term career in this field.
Yes, I LOVE my patients. The thought of failing them and the crappy world of medicine I would be leaving them with is a large reason I stay. But that reason is starting to fade. The realization that the only people I can rely on is my family and I cannot continue to let my oath to my patients continue to impede that. It is not worth it. If you cannot be a salesman for medicine or think of people as dollar signs, then do not go into medicine. If you think you will make a decent living and that the school debt is worth it, it may be, but only if you start with an associates degree or plan to go into management 2 years after you get your BSN.
I wish I could advise you differently. I wish I could tell you that all the sacrifices you made to get where you are were meaningful and will lead you to great things, but I can’t. For most of you it won’t. The idea that nursing is a ‘calling’ is a subtle way to keep us under paid and permanent scapegoat for the field of medicine, don’t be one of the dunces that fell for it like I did.
I discourage others because I honestly feel the healthcare system is not effective and a lie. I discourage others because there is no REASON anyone in this field should be suffering from experiences like this. I am not a fatalist. I am a realist. Realistically I feel nurses are more likely to be punished for a no right answer situation today than they have been in the past, all for the sake of the almighty dollar. I don’t feel that risk is one that should be undertaken for the shell of a profession. I wish I had known when I decided to be a nurse that I wasn’t going to be helping people, that I was mostly going to be a scapegoat for money hungry business practices. And I feel this way about nursing, doctors, teaching, policing, and EMS.
Just because something is not perfect does not mean it should be abandoned. Would things be better or worse if we left?
Long ago a mentor told me to stay sane you need to start and end your shift by restating your purpose. Before the shift state how you are going to help a patient and when you end your shift recount how you did help your patients.
If you are not helping your patients in some way...you are doing something wrong.
I no longer work bedside but I still think about how my work impacts healthcare and patients.
Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.
2 hours ago, KalipsoRed21 said:
I discourage others because I honestly feel the healthcare system is not effective and a lie. I discourage others because there is no REASON anyone in this field should be suffering from experiences like this. I am not a fatalist. I am a realist. Realistically I feel nurses are more likely to be punished for a no right answer situation today than they have been in the past, all for the sake of the almighty dollar. I don’t feel that risk is one that should be undertaken for the shell of a profession. I wish I had known when I decided to be a nurse that I wasn’t going to be helping people, that I was mostly going to be a scapegoat for money hungry business practices. And I feel this way about nursing, doctors, teaching, policing, and EMS.
I think that is an exceptionally narrow view to hold. There is, without argument, tons of problems that come from being a country that lets big corporations make tons of money off the health woes of others. There is also a lot of us out there advocating for patients and our professions. I love my job and I feel great about what I do, pretty much every. single. day. I love nursing. Your viewpoint is so bitter that I can't even get rankled by it. Its just....sad.
Perhaps if you did some of that you would feel better, but I am thinking likely not. Based on this and your other posts, please get out of nursing. You deserve to be happy. You really, really aren't and it shows. I hurt for you.
You sound really burnt-out. Any way you can take some time off and pursue a hobby, or just get away from healthcare for a bit? Maybe you just need a break to sharpen your perspective.
Asystole RN
2,352 Posts
Just because something is not perfect does not mean it should be abandoned. Would things be better or worse if we left?
Long ago a mentor told me to stay sane you need to start and end your shift by restating your purpose. Before the shift state how you are going to help a patient and when you end your shift recount how you did help your patients.
If you are not helping your patients in some way...you are doing something wrong.
I no longer work bedside but I still think about how my work impacts healthcare and patients.