Why Nursing Sucks...

[pixiern15]

When I was 12, I decided I wanted to help people”, so I worked really hard to get into a nursing program. I, by no means, thought it would be easy, I just thought it'd be more rewarding.

I graduated last year, and started at a hospital. I trained for 6 weeks (as a new grad!) and was thrown into it. The people who are buddies with the Charge get the better assignments. One day, I got 6 starting pts (everyone else got 4-5), 3 discharges, and 2 admits, while a nurse left and went to The Dollar Store. Yep, you read that right. When another RN, who was precepting, spoke up about my assignment, my charge came over and dryly said, If it gets too much, let me know,” and walked off. That's more or less what every day has been like.

Things you probably don't learn in school:

- Doctors are a******s. You will get screamed at if you page about a slightly increased temp, and screamed at again if you don't page about the same temp later.

- Veteran nurses are awful to new nurses (but you will continue to bear the scowls and ask questions, because your patient's safety is more important than the rumor that you're an idiot). Oh yeah, nurses gossip a lot.

- Nursing is mostly robotic- hang IVs, medicate, document, rinse, repeat (unless you're in critical care/ED). If you get 5 mins to sit with a patient, the CNA will probably call you.

- Then, there are days where you see John Doe, who came in near-comatose, get up and walk, and it fills your heart with joy. But rewarding moments are few and far between. (You're mostly being screamed at because Dr. Awesome decided to taper their narcs, and neglected to tell them, or because dietary forgot their cookie).

- BTW, forget the term break”. You'll be lucky if you get a whole 30 mins for lunch.

I suppose it depends on where you work, what your team is like, and how resilient you are. I have cried a lot, put on my big-girl pants, and return every day. But if I were 12 again…

Now that I've blown off steam, I cannot commend RNs enough for what you do on a daily basis. You are all super-freaking-heroes in my eyes. And, no, I don't hate doctors, I dislike the rude, condescending ones, like the one who told me, I don't make mistakes!” and slammed the phone down when he ordered a med the patient was allergic to. WELCOME TO NURSING!

[db2xs]

'm counting down to leaving acute care. I can't take it anymore.

Compounded with all the administrative crap? I will be skipping and screaming with joy when I leave acute care

[catsmeow1972, BSN, RN]

I don't think that it's Nursing in and of itself that sucks. It's the environment that has evolved related to a combination of "customer satisfaction," insurance profit issues, facility profit issues, the seemingly quintessentially American mindset of "I want what I want and i want it now!" i don't know much if anything about the healthcare environment of countries overseas, but I have the impression that it isn't quite so profit driven and there seems to be some recourse to the sacrifice of human decency for money. For profit medicine has always left me feeling a little dirty.

As far as the nurses that "eat their young" I wonder if they are merely parroting the way they were treated when they were baby nurses. Sort of like a person that beats their children, because they were beaten and they know no other way? I am just musing here. Until the worship of the almighty dollar is taken out of healthcare, I don't foresee things getting much better. I apologize if I come across like a Bernie Sanders fan.....Not intentional, it's just the way I think. Nobody has all the answers and I would be suspect of anyone who think they do.

[JoseQuinones]

For me, one of the hardest parts of nursing is listening to nurses yak on about how tough they have it and what heroes we all are for showing up to work at all. We sound like public school teachers and cops that way. Maybe we all buy our own union rhetoric.

Every person with a job has to deal with what we deal with. In this days of increasing automation, rising costs, stagnant pay, everyone out there deals with our issues. We can't even claim a saintly mantle for working odd hours anymore - so does the cashier at the increasingly common 24/7 Walgreens and the fry cook at the 24/7 McDonald's.

Sheesh, people.

[catsmeow1972, BSN, RN]

The part I suppose that beats down nurses is the fact that we cannot please everyone all the time. We are not dealing with hamburgers and candy bars here. If I go to McDonalds and my burger comes with ketchup when i ordered it without, I can get all pissy or I can be polite the way my mother raised me. Either way, at the end, i get a new burger with no ketchup. But if I am the McDonalds employee it is not my responsibility to tell the customer that eating this stuff is bad for you. As a nurse, part of my job is to educate my patients and do the best i can to restore them to as much of a state of decent health as i can. So part of my job is to educate them that 6 mgs of IV Dilaudid with a side of Benedryl and/or Phenergan is likely not good for you. For that effort, i get yelled at by patients, family, physicians and upper management all for a variety of reasons, along with a side of threat of a lawsuit and ruination of my career.

The point is we have a responsibility to our patients and profession that the McDonalds worker, or Walgreens cashier does not. This is why we ARE NOT a "service industry."

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

For me, one of the hardest parts of nursing is listening to nurses yak on about how tough they have it and what heroes we all are for showing up to work at all.

Every person with a job has to deal with what we deal with.

Sheesh, people.

I couldn't agree with these statements more. That's part of why there are issues with the public's perception of nurses. I got a tote for nurses week this year that said 'Superhero in Scrubs' and could only think, 'No, human who attempts to help others against the backlash of bad habits by said others!' I know this isn't going to be a popular comment, but so tired of some that want nurses to be viewed as superheroes that can do it all with little effort when we are in fact only human. When we start getting that attitude, we are no better than the MDs that we accuse of having a God complex.

[catsmeow1972, BSN, RN]

I do understand about the "hero complex". It it conceivable that the Hero worship thing perpetuates itself. The more I am told how fabulous I am, the more I begin to think it. When it comes to things like Nurse's week, etc., I don't need another tote bag or pen or cookie. I need better, safer staffing ratios and to really be able to take CARE of my patients. I read somewhere that of nurses that changed jobs in the last year, for something like 2/3 of them, it had nothing to do with money. Just some food for thought.

[Libby1987]

Too many nurses dependent on keeping a job they resent due to their debt and creating COL's maxing out their wage potential.

Allegedly the ratios are bad, the managers are stupid, NETY and the patients are brats. Actually the patients are a whole lot worse detestable things going by the regular pile ons here. Yet people are still begging to get into nursing school, still begging to get those jobs.

I guess but for the grace of all that I am still endeared to nursing and the patients we care for.

[pixiern15]

For me, one of the hardest parts of nursing is listening to nurses yak on about how tough they have it and what heroes we all are for showing up to work at all. We sound like public school teachers and cops that way. Maybe we all buy our own union rhetoric.

Every person with a job has to deal with what we deal with. In this days of increasing automation, rising costs, stagnant pay, everyone out there deals with our issues. We can't even claim a saintly mantle for working odd hours anymore - so does the cashier at the increasingly common 24/7 Walgreens and the fry cook at the 24/7 McDonald's.

Sheesh, people.

Agreed, everyone has their own challenges, but the fry cook at McDonalds and the cashier at Walgreens isn't the difference between someone's life or death on a daily basis. If they calculate wrong, easy fix. If we calculate wrong (while having to juggle 4-5 other pts), people die. So yeah, it's a high stress job, while being understaffed, and throw in "customer service" (that's the only way we are like cashiers and fry cooks). If you think it's comparable to every other job out there, you massively underestimate our scope.

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

Let me attempt to illuminate the issue.

Patients who are pre-op cannot eat or drink. Patients who are scheduled for surgery have been exposed to attempts to communicate this fact along with the very valid reasons for it. Patients who cannot eat or drink often find themselves hungry or thirsty and sometimes they are very stupid and demand that the nurse give them something to eat or drink. If the nurse tells them no, they are dissatisfied customers. If they get something and eat or drink it, their surgery is cancelled or postponed and they are dissatisfied customers. If they have the surgery anyway (because anesthesia wasn't aware of their non-NPO status before intubating) and have a bad outcome, they are dissatisfied customers.

A dissatisfied customer who was kept strictly NPO and had a successful surgery with a good outcome is still unhappy about being kept NPO. Their healthcare was good, safe health care and their outcome was good. But they're unhappy because they weren't given what they wanted when they wanted it. That is why "customer satisfaction" tied to reimbursement is ludicrous. That is also why good outcomes tied to reimbursement won't work. Someone whose outcome is poor because of their own actions is going to be a dissatisfied customer, and the fact that you snuck in a bucket of fried chicken and ate it between checks by the pre-op nurse does not mean that the health care provided was inadequate.

With all due respect, in my experience truly difficult patients are quite rare. Yes there are some completely unreasonable people but in my practice I find that smiling , meeting requests or explaining why certain requests cannot be met with a smile and good humor go a long way toward keeping everyone including nurses happy.

I have always worked with very tough demographics ID/IDH, Psych, Gero-psych, and LTC. In the past 10 years I have never had less that 16 but usually somewhere between 20-30 patients to care for on a shift. True it's a different type of difficult but try giving routine care to people who are aggressive and throwing any number of body fluids/solids at you. People you can't medicate because it's not a crime to be crazy in America and folks have a right to be treated in the least restrictive environment possible. To say that these populations come with family members who can be difficult would be an understatement. Where I currently work there's a large sign plastered at the nurses station that say we answer all call bells within Five minutes and we run all shift long. We also have a ***** Medicare rating for customer satisfaction.

I did not mean that being a nurse was akin to waitressing - but rather that patients and their families perceive that they are paying for a service when it comes to healthcare. On average most people spend several thousand dollars a year on health insurance premiums and reasonable or not expect to get the most out of their dollars when they go to the hospital or have an outpatient procedure.

I have no problem setting strong boundaries with any patient, family member or fellow staff so I rarely have problems with even the most difficult patient. But that's just my style, Smile, be upbeat, leave my bad day or attitude at the door, be kind and patient. I actually sing at work and you'd be surprised how many patients sing back.

Hppy

[db2xs]

This could all be said about any job. Bedside nursing, even non bedside nursing has its moments......as does just about any occupation.

As a second-career nurse, I would agree that all jobs have their "moments," but there is some special BS that only comes with nursing that is definitely worse than my previous career. I can't say the same if I reversed that statement.

One of the best things OP that you could do for you is to continue to keep a cool head. If you practice being calm. cool, and collected under fire, then it makes up your nursing character. And that takes you a long way in the long run.

I definitely agree with you on this one! Breathe deeply, and remember to smile

[NurseDiane]

I Until the worship of the almighty dollar is taken out of healthcare, I don't foresee things getting much better.

This is the statement that sums it all up, and that has created the horrible environment that is now healthcare.

I laugh when I hear people talk about the Canadian healthcare system, or any other single payer system. They tell stories about how people had to wait 6 months for an MRI of their knee, or 3 months to have an elective surgery, and decided to come to the U.S. to have it done. They came to the U.S. because they couldn't wait, even though their problem was not urgent. What you never hear about is how people with ACUTE illnesses get treated. The difference with a system like that & what we have is that a single payer system teaches people what emergencies are & what are not emergencies, and what can wait. A clicking knee is not an emergency, neither are most of the elective surgeries that are done. If someone needs a knee replacement for DJD, it is planned well in advance, and it gets done. They're not going to die if they don't get it done tomorrow. If a person has chest pain, shortness of breath, if their face is sagging on one side & they can't move their arm on that side or speak without slurring, if they get into a horrific car crash with trauma injuries, if they have acute abdominal pain, if they have an obvious fracture-----these are EMERGENCIES and are treated as such. If our health care system quit treating every stupid little thing as an emergency, our healthcare costs would go WAY DOWN. Nobody with a REAL emergency is told to wait 6 months in a single payer system. I have a friend who lives in Switzerland, where they have a national health system. Their taxes are high, but they NEVER have to worry about getting sick. Her husband ended up in the ER when they came to visit the U.S. with an acute kidney stone attack, got the bill, submitted it to their national health plan of Switzerland & never heard another word about it. The entire bill was paid. Also, far more attention is paid toward preventative healthcare in other countries. The U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world, but is not the best health care system in the world. This is mainly because people don't take care of themselves----they're fat, don't exercise, eat junk & treat their bodies like crap. In other countries, people walk everywhere, go to the market every morning to get fresh vegetables & fruits & fish, make their own meals with those fresh ingredients & don't live on fast food. They take breaks during the work day. They have mandatory vacations---some countries mandate 10 weeks per year for every full time employee----and don't work themselves to death. They're happier. They're less stressed. In the U.S., people are always chasing the almighty dollar & stretch themselves to the limit to get it. People in other countries know how to live with less, and be happy with less. And, in turn, they're healthier.

I won't get into my own thoughts and beliefs about our government, the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry and our food supply, and how that contributes to widespread illness in this country. Allowing GMO food to be grown and sold without labeling, not allowing any long-term studies to be done with GMO foods----you can't tell me that any food that is not completely natural, and that has been genetically modified, is good for anyone. Same goes for our commercial meat supply and dairy supply. But, that's whole other topic for a whole other thread.

[catsmeow1972, BSN, RN]

Oh yes. I could not agree more. Working in the ICU, I had a patient that was acutely ill, something viral that morphed into multi system organ failure, etc. He was intubated, sedated, complete with fentanyl drip and continuous dialysis, etc. A very sick man, indeed. He was also a Canadian citizen. As soon as he stabilized enough to be transported, his Canadian health plan sent a medical transport to fly him home for further care. All of this was arramged and paid for by his Canadian insurance. You can bet he didn't get saddled with a 6 figure bill from us either.

I have often wondered what it would take to immigrate to a country with a national health plan. I think I could take better care of my patients and myself....and nursing probably wouldn't suck so much.......