What Is This Career Choice Becoming?

Nancy1 · Jul 3, 2000

Stress levels are higher now, and yes, more nurses are needed now. I wonder how your facility figures it will keep good nurses if they do not increase your pay. Some of my staff were complaining about a 5% raise last year. I laughed and told them to check out what others got. They sheepishly came back and said most of the others were getting 3%, so that shut down that complaint.

It sounds as if you are fried, try to use some of your off time and see if things are better anywhere else in your community. If there is a nursing orgaization in your area check with them. Do not keep going until you are so burned out you crash. That is not being fair to yourself, your clients and your family (not in any particular order). NA

Mijourney · Jul 4, 2000

Hi Caseyrnbsn,

I can certainly empathize and sympathize with you. Have you thought about redirecting your nursing practice to another area besides bedside nursing? Experienced nurses are dropping from the bedside in leaps and bounds. I'm not sure if there is anything you can do about it except to start out as already suggested-take time off and get your rest. While you're on hiatus,if you're not already doing it, take a look see into other areas of work. You've got a good idea about going back for more education. I think that the latest nursing shortage has the potential of becoming a public health threat if what the experts have predicted about its impact is true. Something in the system is going to have to break. Maybe the GDP! The obsession with the bottom line has completely gone overboard. The doctors and administrators are feeling the consequences of this obsession. So is the public. They're just not interested in going through the pain of changing their personal desires or habits. They just assume that "peons" like nurses can and will carry all the burden. They can have their cake and eat what little piece we may have. I try to keep my spirits up by realizing that I chose nursing for a purpose. That's to help make someone's day a little brighter. I will respond that I have no intention of waiting until I've lost all my interest in going to work to do something about it. I don't care how much time I've invested in an employer. If the nursing shortage continues to be a problem if I reach my golden years, I don't won't to be so worn down from negative stress that I'm completely at the mercy of the medical care system.

nanjam · Jul 8, 2000

Why does it seem like the hospitals are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to the lack of job satisfaction we are expressing? Things seem to be getting worse instead of better! I suppose the pendulum hasn't swung far enough. We may be leaving the bedside sooner and in greater numbers but our bargaining position somehow has not yet tilted enough in our favor to give us more control. We can only hope that we will soon be recognized as the essential professionals we are.

bunky, BSN, RN · Jul 29, 2000

you guys, I have just done something so unbelievable for me. I took matters into my own hands. I too want away from the bedside. I am no longer willing to work under these horrendous conditions. I went to my ADON and flat out told her that I was not happy in my current job. I told her that rather than join the majority who are just up and quitting on her, I was coming to her to give her a chance to keep me, although I would not stay for much longer in my current position. Well, I just may be getting a new job out of this! If not, I am prepared to leave and she knows this.

I know that what I did doesn't lighten anyone else's load, but short of donating a couple of million dollars to the hospital to be used for staffing only, I can't change that. I can however improve my own situation. I have never just walked in and asked for something before! My idea in doing so is that the type of job I want is NOT going to just drop from the sky into my lap. No one is going to walk onto the floor and line us all up and pick me. How else will she know that I am interested in something else if I don't tell her? You know "ask and you shall receive".

We'll see what actually happens as a result of this though. I just feel so much better about myself because I at least spoke up, and rather than just quit, I have given them a chance to change it for me. Maybe it's worth trying Caseyrnbsn?

PPL, BSN, RN · Jul 29, 2000

Bunky, Bunky, Bunky; what is the job you asked for? I leave for one overnighter with my sis, and you're rufflin' feathers left and right! We're all ears!

Roach · Jul 29, 2000

Yes, do tell. What is happening now. We are all curious. Own up sister, we are all on your side and praying for you!

Love, Roach

Nurseprotect · Jul 30, 2000

For the record, Texas has been the absolute WORST state for nursing practice in my professional experience. I just left there (for a second and final time) in July 2000. It is not great for nurses anywhere that I am aware of but Texas is "real special" when it comes to horrible working conditions, pay, oppressed group behavior (yes, many Texas nurses are particularly sh*tty to each other too), and overall working conditions for nurses.

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Steven S. Lee, RN

Chief Voluntary Officer

Nurseprotect

[email protected]

normarae · Jul 30, 2000

caseyrnbsn-you are a member of so few RNS- if we all took this stand instead of trying to stab and one up the other maybe we would not be having this conversation. I think united we will stand - check other groups ie PA's, CRNFA's, Nurse Practitioners....

The problem is not with your supervisor - she is in a catch 22 - it is the CORPORATE CULTURE AND THEIR ADMINISTRATORS THE MONEY IS THE BOTTOM LINE - NOT PATIENT CARE AND YOUR HEART!!!

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PPL, BSN, RN · Jul 30, 2000

I think Steve is in sunny Arizona. Steve, please tell us about your new position.

bunky, BSN, RN · Jul 31, 2000

Well I know he's in Arizona you nut!LOL But where is he working, what area? Has he found his own little piece of heaven there?

bunky, BSN, RN · Jul 31, 2000

OK, OK, I told the ADON that I wanted off the floors. I told her that I wanted to use my brain and not my feet for a living. I said that I felt stagnated in my present job. I said that I wanted something in either risk management or utilization review that would give me some normal hours, and allow me to use my creative side as well as my interpersonal and communication skills.

There's a bit of a background as to why I am so eager to get away from my present job and why I am so anxious to leave the bedside, political manuevering in which I was basically used as a weapon, so in my opinion, they owe me something, and they know it. Also, I was hired at my present job with the idea that it was temporary until an OR training course was started, but the training course never materialized and I've been there a year.

To my utter shock the ADON told me that she knew exactly what I was saying and what I wanted. She said that she'd look around and come up with something for me. She was careful to add that she can't promise me anything but that she would do her best. She said that my supervisors speak highly of me, and that she doesn't want to lose me. Make a mental note of that people! ALWAYS get along with your supervisors if at all possible! I have actually liked the majority of mine, and don't hesitate to open my mouth and tell them the good and the bad. She asked if I'd be interested in Adult Outpatient Surgery. Hell yes!

I was so blunt with her, that it surprises even me. I told her that even fresh out of school I was in a charge nurse role, and have always been a charge nurse until I came to this job, and that it is frustrating to me to be in a position where I see what's wrong, and how to fix it yet minds were set in stone long before I got there, and right or wrong "it's the way we do it here". See, that's the way my mind works. I am always looking for a way to improve things. Rather than be stuck and complaining, I look at how it can be fixed, and that's not a welcome change to many of my older senior coworkers who don't want to change anything. I am not talking about unionization or anything radical, just ways to maximize the little staff we have. Don't get me wrong, I like my coworkers! I just know better than to try and disrupt their routines.

What's that prayer called? The serenity prayer? Lord grant me the courage to fix the things I can change, the serentiy to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the diffrence. Well, I am finally coming to understand that concept. I can't change things here, and rather than stay and accept it, I'd rather leave it!

So for "enquiring minds" I may be getting a job in AOPS, or in either risk management or utilization review. While I wasn't really specific about what I did want, I was very specific about what I no longer was willing to do. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, I have lined up an interview for another charge nurse job, one in which the charge nurse doesn't take patients, and the hours are normal. It's not quite far enough away from the bedside for my liking but it beats the hell out of what I am doing now, and it allows me a small degree of control over my own working conditions. I don't think I am power hungry, but admit to being a bit of a control freak at times. Unlike many of my coworkers, I don't just take things lying down. I am not sure how they do it or why they do it, but I am 110% sure that I can't and won't. I don't know what the difference is, why they stay for this, and why I refuse to, just that there are things which I will not accept quietly and they do.

And Steven, TELL US WHERE YOU WENT! We've been dying to hear this.