So Happy To Be Out Of Nursing

[Emergent, RN]

Reasons why:

• Useless, tedious online education modules 
• Chaos from COVID
• Lack of adequate staffing 
• Hammering nurses with meaningless requirements
• Gaslighting by management 
• Masks never going away 
• Ridiculous accreditation efforts by ignorant regulators and management 
• Mind numbing charting 
• Neglect and disregard of wellbeing of frontline workers
• Escalation of above since Covid

FYI, I have died and gone to job Heaven and will be starting my new job at the farm store in October. I have been promised no stress, and will not be required to wear a mask! Not only that, I'll get an employee discount!

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Enjoy! I to am glad to be out of nursing. It is a brutal profession.

[Davey Do]

Isn't it great to still be alive and in heaven, Emergent? I do art all day long, take breaks to TCB and work out, and have never been happier.

To add to your list of so happy to be out of nursing is all the time & energy it took to wind down, wind up, prepare for the shift, change my sleeping schedule, do inservices and online crap, and the drives to & from work.

I know of a couple of nurses, both about seventy, who are still working because they'd otherwise be bored. One of them said to me before I was fired & retired, "You don't have to worry about being bored when you retire because you have lots of interests".

That nurse was right, because there are a lot of hours in the day once the newness of not having to work wears off. If I get bored and uninspired to do art, I just go for a bicycle ride or work out, and then something will come to mind and I'm back into the groove.

It is so good that you will continue to work in an area that interests you and is relatively low stress. I sense you feel a need to continue to feel productive while you contribute your services. After working in ER all those years, you would otherwise miss the stimulation and need to become a Drama Queen in order to stir up Schlitz in your neighborhood.

Good for you, Emergent, and hey- don't be a stranger!

[Davey Do]

On 9/26/2021 at 10:28 PM, Emergent said:

 I... will be starting my new job at the farm store in October. 

Emergent! Stat!

 

[Davey Do]

Those of us who believe that nursing is/was our calling, it takes some time before we stop thinking of ourselves as nurses.

For me, the realization came to me just the other day.

I submit my comics & art to no fewer than four websites and have a tendency to draw my character in green scrubs. I poised a question to some other artists, asking them if I should not draw my comic character dressed in scrubs now that I'm no longer working as a nurse.

The consensus was to continue my character as before, since that's how they know me. Sort of like Charlie Brown in his jagged striped shirt.

But now, I no longer feel like I'm a nurse and my cartoon character told me so:

 

 

So, henceforth, Davey Do will only wear scrubs in nursing flashback comics.

It probably doesn't mean much to you, but it does to me because "Kleidung macht den mann"!

[Davey Do]

Emergent's thread title keeps resounding in my head. "So happy to be out of nursing".

Rather bittersweet.

I was proud to be a nurse and always relatively pleased with my performance. As I am relatively sure Emergent and other nurses/past nurses are or were pleased with their performances.

I am pleased to be out of nursing, but I will not forget my years as a nurse. Unless, of course, I come down with some mental ailment. Even after a year and a half of not working as a nurse, I still regularly have nurse dreams. Most are just TCB, or some minor irritation like having to take a test.

Nursing will always, as long as I'm cognizant, be a big part of my life, in the background, as shows in a corner of my art desk:

 

[Squidpdx, CNA, LPN]

Davey Do, I just want to tell you that you are a delight to read. You inspire me everyday, as a fellow self-described artist to try to remember to nurture my creative spark, even though I am often exhausted by my nursing job. Thank you!

And thank you, Emergent, for reminding me that there is hope for moving on when needed. 

[Davey Do]

Thank you for the kind words, Squipdx!

About nurturing your creativity, I can say that art has buoyed me through some troubled waters, both personally and professionally.

If I could speak to temporal ancestor, I would strongly advise him to record and channel all that energy from the anxiety of working as a nurse into his art.

Primarily, back in the '80's, my journals are narrative in nature, and I'm no Dave Barry, so the entries are generally a bore to read; a lot of cathartic rants. What drawings there are are much more entertaining, albeit primitive. I would tell my younger self to focus upon that art, as I began to do in the late 90's.

By the early 'aughts, my journals read like a graphic novel, of frustrating and irritating situations with patients, co-workers, and administration. They were a great catharsis, are entertaining to read now, and nobody or no places' real name was used.

I went through some of my old journals to find a good example and found this image done on May 15, 2005:

 

 

The article is about forecasts in the nursing shortage predicting 2010 and 2020. The character is of a house supervisor,

 "Breena", a house supervisor, actually said what's in the word balloon. I really liked and respected her. She passed away some years ago.

[2BS Nurse, BSN]

"After working in ER all those years, you would otherwise miss the stimulation and need to become a Drama Queen in order to stir up Schlitz in your neighborhood". 

Davey, you are describing the quintessential nurses station here!!

Emergent: keep a daily count of that ivermectin!

[elikat02, ADN, LPN]

I've been a CNA for many years and a nurse for 6. Between the continued abuse from my nurse manager, the turmoil from the pandemic, short staffing, lack of equipment and no support from my employer, I can honestly say I've had enough. I've been on interviews for different jobs that interest me (that I'm qualified for) recently and will have no remorse when it's time to give my notice. I'm done.

[Davey Do]

My medical nurse wife Belinda and I were out shopping for fun and stopped to have lunch at a nice restaurant. I told Belinda about my allnurses friend @Emergent's recent decision to give up nursing, new job, etc.

Belinda voiced her commiseration and went over some things that would cause her make the decision to give up nursing. As I mentioned in another thread, this whole Covid thing has taken its toll on her. And not so much of dealing with the patients and illness, which has been stressful, but the administrators smucky handling of staff and resources.

Belinda says she's burned out and I have noticed a decease in stoicism and an increase in impatience. I do what I can to be supportive, listen to her tales of woe, and try to make her transitions to & from work as comfortable & easy as possible but I fear it's like peeing on an inferno.

 Belinda said she understands Emergent's decision for leaving, especially in ER. She says that at least on the floor she knows the patients she's dealing with, "but in ER you don't know what's going to come in through the door".

And so. My real life wife is supportive of my allnurses wife.

[Emergent, RN]

@Davey Do 

Say hi to Belinda!

Now that I am close to finishing up my processing of my nursing career, I am fully embracing my nursing free life. I can't tell you how freeing it is to be rid of it. 

I start at my new, low-stress job, at the farm store in about a week. I'm also doing my creative endeavors and promoting them. I'm spending more time in real life socializing with friends.

There's a lot more to my story that I'm not going to share here but it is totally amazing what is happening in my life right now, and I thank God and all the people who have helped me through this time.