STRESSED OUT! Need to vent!

[cheez1285]

These last few weeks have been hell at the hospital I work at. Our census has been high for the last couple of week and the acuity of these patients we are getting is insane. Typically, I am pretty mellow and able to handle stressful situations well, but lately it has been a mad house and it is really getting to me. I have been a nurse for about 2 years now and hate to say this but I am getting BURNT OUT! Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but sometimes these patients and families can suck the living life out of you. Poor communication between doctors and nurses also really sucks too! Sometimes I want to scream at these doctors for not updating us about what they discuss with family members. They tell the family members things but leave us in the dark about the plan of care. AHHHHH! I just need to vent! I am mentally exhausted and it is even making me anxious on my days off! I have never been like this before

[missladyrn]

I feel exactly the same way ! We have been so busy lately and they started using our floor for cardiac overflow. Except in cardiac, they have 3 or 4 patients while we get 7. I am not trained as a cardiac nurse and last night. E patient had an mi while another went into vtac. It is not safe for us to be putting these patients at risk. I am very close to walking out of there and wiping my hands of this ridiculousness.

[cheez1285]

I know! It is nuts! We get up to 6 patients on our med surg floor. Last time I worked, all 6 of my patients were confused and were on bed alarms. 5 of them were incontinent. 4 of them required blood sugars. 2 of them had feeding tubes. I think three of them were complete care and required turning every 2 hours. 3 or 4 were on isolation for flu/cdiff/mrsa. I remember at one point, three bed alarms were going off at once...no wonder why patients fall. UGH! I want to pull my hair out just thinking about it!

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

Be very sure that you are taking care of you on your days off. Do not take on extra shifts, use the time to re generate. Once you leave the hospital, you need to put all of this on the back shelf--you did what you could when you could. I am not shy about calling rapid responses,(to the cardiac overflow of the pp) going to the NM and stating that the acuity is such that it is unsafe, that perhaps some need 1:1's for safety, and asking the CNA to "go down the line" with me and I assess and we turn, reposition, pericare, etc. and tell the CNA that in 2 hours, we will do it all again. If you do not have ancillary staff, ask for some. Even if in this high acuity situation it is one CNA per one nurse. (you can always ask.....) But my most important point is that your time off is your own. Do not answer phone calls from the hospital, do not perseverate on could have should haves, do stuff you love to do to regenerate yourself. If your stress level is spilling over into your personal time, nip it in the bud before it becomes a huge issue. If it is already a huge issue, you may want to see someone professional regarding stress reduction/management. If that is not for you, think about yoga, self defense classes, something that will get rid of all that pent up negative energy. When all else fails, you may want to think about a different area of nursing. Good luck!