Please dont judge me as I am already judging myself hard enough for paying all this money for a degree I hate. I KNEW nursing wasn't for me 1st semester of nursing school. I am not a people person and found myself annoyed with the patients very quickly. My parents and friends told me this wasnt a field for me and my personality, but I for some reason stuck with it. I was 17 and figured "I'm in too deep now may as well finish because nursing credits won't transfer anywhere". So I graduated and got 3 years of ED experience. Hated every minute of it. The patients were often abusive and unappreciative. I felt like a maid who passed out pills between GSWs.
I took advice from this forum and tried outpatient. I enjoyed that environment and schedule more but hated one thing: The patients. In my outpatient role I literally put IVs in all day and gave IV contrast. I had the patients for 15 mins max, but had to ask them several questions to determine the reason for the study/safety of IV contrast. I found myself ANNOYED asking them the questions!! Having to repeat myself because they're on their phone, asking them to "take their shirt and bra off and put the gown on with the opening in the back" and returning to find them with the gown over their shirt, bra, and coat. ANNOYED at patients talking down on me.
I'm so defeated and depressed. I paid all this money and worked so hard for this degree. I just cant stand the patients. My coworkers seem to like me and I'm a good nurse. I'm just not happy. I've tried multiple hospitals and a different setting, but the underlying annoyance is the patients it seems. Are there any nursing fields I may be better suited to?
I have my bachelors degree in nursing. I was halfway through NP school before I realized becoming and NP won't solve my problem.
What do you *like* about nursing? That will help some.
I've definitely felt the way you do ... and I was an ER nurse too. I tell people all the time that the ER sucked the compassion right out of me. Which may or may not be the case for you ... but I feel you.
I can tell you that I'd absolutely hate both pharmaceutical sales (I'm too much of an introvert) and U R (I hate doing chart reviews). I think I'd be good as a scrub and/or circulating nurse but until recently I didn't live close enough to a hospital to take call so I never explored that option.
I've worked with research nurses, the amount of patient contact they had depended on the study but overall wasn't the majority of the day -- they had plenty of office time where they got a break from patients. And the CRAs that came to monitor their/our work didn't have any patient contact at all.
I currently do a mix of informatics and bedside in peds, and it is a nice mix for me. I like my pediatric patients (parents ... not always so much) and I really enjoy the informatics part of my job -- which in itself has zero patient contact. Informatics requires a lot of problem solving and hand holding. You send out emails telling people things are going to change. You post signs telling people things are going to change. You make announcements at shift change that things are going to change .... and then when things change people flag you down to ask why they weren't told that things were going to change. Kind of like your patients who won't get off the phone.
What is your position? Or do you work 2 different positions? Curious since you mention a mix of informatics and bedside peds?
Specializes in ER, ICU, Infusion, peds, informatics.
On 6/27/2020 at 4:42 AM, nursing9462 said:
What is your position? Or do you work 2 different positions? Curious since you mention a mix of informatics and bedside peds?
I do work 2 different positions but the 2nd job (casual, different employer) is in infusion therapy.
My FT job is split between bedside peds (12 hrs/wk), charge (12 hrs/wk) and informatics (16 hrs/wk) and I like it that way.
I truly think that to do a really good job with informatics you either need to still work occasionally at the bedside or be very close to those who do. Even back when it wasn't part of my job structure (currently my job is set up to split my time this way) I worked at least 8 hrs/wk in the ER because that is the only way you understand what it is like to ... deal with the decisions that we in informatics make. If that makes sense. It makes me better at the informatics portion of my job.
If I'm trying to decide how to structure something, I can sit down in the nursing station and take a quick informal poll of those who have to live with my decisions. Works well.
I would say the same is true for charge vs. bedside -- it is super helpful if your charge nurses have to take an assignment at least once a week.
lily chen
5 Posts
You can be a teacher in a nursing school.