The Summer Experiment is Coming to an End...and I am Counting the Shifts!!!

[MotherRN]

In Summer 2012 I got my first two nursing jobs in LTC (my first jobs ever). Needless to say, after much venting here at AN, they both ended badly for numerous reasons.

Fortunately, I was able to bump along with a job in my local school district as a sub nurse. I have to say, that really restored my faith in nursing! I actually enjoyed myself!

Well, of course, that ended with the school year so I answered ads for LTC once again, hoping to get some bedside experience again, hoping things would turn out differently this time...

Well, the summer experience comes to an end here in a few shifts. I was VERY fortunate to be assigned as a permanent school nurse for the upcoming school year. I will have my own office and run my own show. I can not begin to tell you how excited I am! Since these hours will be M-F full time and I will get up at 5 am, I can no longer work my evening shifts at the LTC.

I bent over backwards to give a months notice. And to switch to PRN with the understanding I can only work 1 or 2 Saturdays a month, if needed. And I am sure I will live to regret that offer soon enough!

But, my take on the "summer experiment" is this:

1) LTC/Rehab is depressing!!! Before I knew I had the school nurse job, I was getting really down. One reason is that too many of the patients on my rehab hall are demented. They are in various stages of wandering, hollering, or lashing out. How is this a rehab hall? About 2/3rds of the patients were like this. No hip replacement-type of therapy patients, but the other kind that will most likely switch to ltc in the facility and not go home.

2) I was partnered with the most sour personality seasoned nurse who would answer questions like I was the dirt beneath her feet. That got old- REAL fast! Why do people have to bring their baggage to work and dump it on all those around them?

3) Working nights is depressing! I work a short shift that gets off around 2 am. At first I liked this. But as the summer wore on, it was depressing because when I was off I was still staying up in the work pattern, by myself, later and later, watching bad tv and thinking bad thoughts while my family slept. Then, I was sleeping in and getting nothing much done during the day. I thought at first it was great because I had lots of time before I went in to do things. But, after awhile, I started getting up later and later and lost that opportunity.

4) The facility calls you and harasses you to come in TOO much when you are off. You literally have to hide the phone!

5) Being floated to another unit, this one with twice the patient load (40+) and having to work it alone when you are largely unskilled in LTC. I don't think I seriously thought about walking off the job as much as I did when I came in a found that, against my expressed consent (I had turned down the offer when called at home before work) that I had been floated to the other unit anyway without telling me, I just found out about it when I got to work. Nevermind what that published schedule said. And, the girl they dupped into coming back in to relieve me at 2 am was madder than a wet hen and took it out on me with her big attitude!

6) The inservices are killing me!! Every time I turn around, there is another extra meeting or online course I have to complete (on my own dime on my own time!) More policy changes etc etc. Enough already!!!

7) Charting!!! Why do they have the other nurses "teach" us what to do if they haven't first ensured those nurses are doing it right themselves? How hard is it to publish a black and white list of EXACTLY what and who is to be charted on so that I don't have one nurse telling me to chart on those with a particular status code while another nurse on a different night complains when I don't do it the way she thinks it should be done (and of course it's the opposite of what I have been doing for the past two months on a different unit) only to find out that I have been doing to wrong all along but was trained that way???

I was hired short shift-no overnights- period. I have been nothing but honest from the first time I met the DON about my intentions to stay with school nursing. I thought I would only be a sub though and would do PRN at both places. I lucked out when a school slot opened up.

So, the experiment is coming to an end. I do have the PRN status and didn't quit outright with LTC. I keep hoping with only once in awhile work I will feel the value of the clinical experience more than the drawbacks. I like the elderly. But given the patient load, it's too much combined with paperwork to feel like you are doing anymore than rushing through everything. As long as I have options, I don't think I could do LTC exclusively. I would spontaneously combust one day...on the job...probably during 'that time of the month' when I am especially impatient (like right now!)