Nurses are the most intelligent and compassionate people in the world. Nursing is the most fulfilling and rewarding profession in the world.
Why, then, is there so much bitching going on? We're a bunch of nice people in the world’s greatest profession, yet whining often takes a prominent role in our conversations.
There may be a couple things going on. One is that we, by nature, are martyrs. The other is that we don't like change. Those two characteristics cause us to stay in jobs we don't like. After a while, our inward martyr becomes outward bitchiness. Our desire for stability makes us resentful of feeling "stuck". More bitchiness.
The truth is lots of nursing jobs out there suck. There are too few nurses, too many patients, too little budget, an over-abundance of lazy or mean supervisors, and a few narcissistic docs.
Here's the bigger truth: There are millions of nursing jobs--and most of them don't suck. Most of them are in caring environments with great staff and management.
I propose if you're reading this and are in a job you don't like, quit bitching and just quit. You'll have another job in no time. Have you not read about the nursing shortage? You're in high demand, for crying out loud. Go find a job you love.
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October 27th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
The fact is all nursing jobs suck! I’ve been an Rn 5 + years and worked in 3 different hospitals. They are all the same. NURSING SUX!!! I’m happy to be adding to the shortage. Leaving it!!
October 29th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Think this through with me, Greg. If all 3 jobs sucked and you were the common denominator…
I hold to the truth that Nursing is the greatest profession in the world, and if you stick with it, you will find a job you love. If not, leave before you become a virus and ruin it for the rest of us.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:05 am
I was in the corporate world for 11 years and held several jobs. There was only ONE JOB that I truly loved and that ended due to downsizing.
I have been an operating room nurse for two years at two different organizations. The first OR sucked – not because of my job reponsibilities – but because of the people. I am so much happier in my current job because of the support and the camaraderie of the staff.
Sure, nursing is tough, but I love what I do. There isn’t a job out there (nursing or non-nursing) that doesn’t have its challenges. At least I know that at the end of the day, I positively impacted someone’s life. I never felt that way about putting together a spreadsheet.
October 29th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
your comments hit it on the nail-head!
Often in a work enviroment and multiple changing shifts , peer relations are an important factor. Working with ‘toxic’ personalities or ‘control’ freaks, back stabbers and those that bring their nasty sides of their personality to work instead of leaving it at home , create many nurses, male or female to leave the bedside nursing positions and seek other avenues. It is not worth it to endure. I know I did. As much as I miss working in an acute care setting, I would not go back to such set ups. It is not just one or two work places out there…it festers in many of the work places but it seems to be worse in nursing for some reason. Maybe it is because they are allowed to get by with such behavior.
I remain in a different type of nursing area now.. and younger nurses tell me of the hostile work enviroments where they work (acute care & clinics )..be it with peers or management.
Those nurses telling me of their mandatory 16 hours and being on mandatory call-back..why would I ever want to step back into that, even on a PRN status. So, acute care places, nursing homes etc.. continue to replace with less and less qualified staff.
Making a profit all the past years and to remain competive in the medical business world has created much of what is facing the nursing profession now.
I work with LPN’s that do RN tasks, CNA’s that work as LPN’s ,yes they are outside of their parameters according to Nursing Board Rules.. but …. the job has to be done somehow. Interesting how this will all turn out.
October 30th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Bravo for speaking out!
I agree with what you said, Jana!
Find an environment where teamwork is valued.Units that have a alot of micromanagers usually don’t foster teamwork.
I’m very happy to be on a unit where teamwork is rewarded and plan to stay there as long as it is. I also work in a hospital where nurses are highly valued and expected to remain professional. You put professionalism and teamwork together and you have a successful combination!
October 31st, 2007 at 11:51 am
I would really be interested in strategies for creating boundaries and dealing effectively with nurses who have toxic personalities and/or control freaks,back stabbers; and nurses who bring their nasty personality to work and get away with their behavior.
October 31st, 2007 at 4:23 pm
JT I’ll tell ya man,
I’ve been a nurse for 3 1/2 yrs. and been at 4 different hospitals, and at every one, and at every unit I was associated with I have come to find that there are at least 2 nurses that LOVE negativity and “drama”. They didn’t want to see other nurses get ahead and were constantly concerned with “fairness”. I say instead of worrying about someone screwing them over with a pt load or whatever else. they need to trust the charge nurses that they have and let them work it out, if it’s not resolved take it to a higher level. Nurses can’t get ahead if we keep tearing each other down. That’s why we can’t make anymore money than we do, we don’t advocate for each other. We as a profession, can demand soooo much more if we come together like a fist!! But until we figure that out. We will always be trampled on.
October 31st, 2007 at 6:13 pm
I just started a new position on a medical surgical unit of a small community hospital.I am entitled to 6-8 weeks of orientation.The nurse whom is my preceptor is on light duty for a injury.After about 3 weeks,a particular nurse became irate due to her workload. Instead of taking her issues to a higher authority,she made everyone on the unit uncomfortable,especially me. I am getting so tired of bully nurses.Not all folks who decide to go into the profession are good,kind souls.Many are bratty,spoiled and selfish.I feel team work and fostering a sense of compassion not only to your patients but towards one another is not stressed enough by our managers.Nursing is difficult enough,one day I hope to be in the position to not tolerate bully behavior,either get along and help one another or find a new profession-please.
December 11th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
I work in a high dementia care nursing home and its full on. Mondays arvos arent good to work coz of the RN who works then. She’s an ‘old-school’ nurse, who always goes on about their training being better rah rah. And she thinks its our job to do the shitty jobs like lifting people. If there is a spill, she demands we pick it up.
One day whilst hoisting a patient to bed, we noticed he was bleeding somewhere. Found the source, went to find the RN who complained that we should do something about it. We were like ah yeah we did! We called you, and cleaned it up! I felt like swearing at her, coz we are not here to do wound care.
Monday shift, tea time, I was feeding a patient, she asked me to mind the med trolley while she went to the toliet. 30mins later, wondering where she went, coz we had to do our own work, and then i heard someone calling for help. The other RN wanted help to get the patient off the floor. THe other RN just came back, didnt say thanks for staying with the trolley, even though it was locked, and didnt bother to help us lift the patient. It took 5 nurses to lift the guy, and her help may have been appreciated.
And at the start of the shift, when allocating patients, she like muttered under her breath when I told her I have to work in the ladies end as my specialist told me to do light duties. I was like ah hello, your lucky that I bothered to show up, i shouldnt be here!
Most of the bitchy nurses that ive seen or heard of, are the middle aged ones who think they rule the roost. But like others have said, you get bitching in any job.
July 18th, 2009 at 5:11 am
General nursing sucks especially with the “old school, Florence Nightingale” nurses who like to back stab and create a negative “burnt out” culture.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Im an LPN. And I guess…..being an LPN sucks….or I guess being a floor nurse sucks. Trust a charge nurse…..How can you trust someone who permits you to run around the floor like an idiot….for people with ‘good’ health insurance….and then….bitch about having to take orders off…and how their feet hurt? F That. I have been looking for another job. I need another job….not in LTC….in coffee shop 101!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 10th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
oh….and not many are good hearted? many are bratty and bitchy…maybe it’s because the bitchy brat has to move at the speeed of sound…in order to get the work….that the previous RN ‘couldnt’ complete done. And PT and ST interupt her every 5-10 minutes…asking for a patient….where the schedule…oh thats right you dont make one so basicly they all need to be ready FIRST…and oh btw…so and so needs pain meds…and yes I know this!!!!!!!!!! Everyday I know this…thanks for sharing…..do your job and i’ll do mine…..Great now Im out of compliance for slinging pills! Perfect. Fantastic Even!
March 12th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Hey I been doin’t this for 17 yrs, hasn’t changed much over the yrs except maybe gotten worse. I have to agree with Charles’ statments, I put some somthing similar on the ” Why I left nursing ” section. If you see this Charles take a look and see what you think, and anyone else for that matter, I would like some feeback on it. These blogs could be the start of much needed communication and voice for this profession. Never know… an avalanche starts out as a tiny snowball 🙂
March 25th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Young nurses, take care of yourself and try to prevent burnout before it happens. The most caring people are the most at risk, the ones willing to stay and help after their regular time to leave, the ones who try to always go the extra mile, the ones who take a short lunch break or no lunch break because of being short staffed, the ones who try to help the doctors as much as they can because they don’t want to see the doctor stressed if they can help it, the ones who don’t take sick days or vacation often because they feel that everyone else is abusing it, and there isn’t enough help to begin with, the ones who are always trying help the charge nurse so that she won’t be overloaded, the ones who take notes home with them to call patient’s and help solve there problems, because they can’t get in touch with them during the day, the ones that have patients that cry when at the end of the weekend shift, when you have to tell them that they will have a new nurse coming in, the ones stay at the end of a shift because your patient says, “I would like to have one more good bath before I die”.
March 26th, 2010 at 9:46 am
I think this post definitely struck a cord.:)
Unfortunately you can’t blame the “witchiness with a capital B” on people like Greg above (sounds like your father-in-law Jack finally got the better of you, hey Gaylord?).
Fact remains, all work is hard. Nursing is no different and you have to have a “stick with it” attitude to succeed in it. Honestly, that’s been engrained in the profession, as well as school, for as long as I’ve been associated with it. If you don’t like to work, you really shouldn’t be doing this profession because you will have more BF’s than the average person in the profession.
What I don’t understand is why people like Greg above even go into nursing in the first place? Trust me, there were times on the floor that I HATED my job, even in my current one you STILL have those moments. There were people that drove me nuts with their attitudes, and still do. I griped and complained and BEOTCHED asunder sometimes. But here’s the thing, do you think lawyers, doctors, flight attendants, sanitation workers, coffee shop clerks, etc., etc., etc., don’t have days that they would rather slam their gonads in a car door than work at their jobs? It’s called having a career! People like Greg need to look that word up and understand it better!
Obviously they haven’t figured it out yet!
But for all the benefits and learning experiences nursing has taught me, in every capacity I have ever been in, you would have to be INSANE not to want to stay with this profession once you’ve started it. It’s great job security and will continue to be so, the atmosphere is what YOU make it more so than others, the hours may be hard and sometimes suck, but you just learn to rise above it and remember…it’s about the patients, NOT YOU!!!! And if you get tired of floor nursing, there’s always ancillary departments out there, like Nursing Informatics, Outpatient Surgery, Physician Clinics, that could be more your cup of tea. Or you could go back to school and get a Master’s degree in nursing so that perhaps you could one day be one of the big wheels in charge (and learn that everything you complained about is a lot harder to fix than it looks).
Best of luck to all those that want to meet that challenge of being a nurse everyday in any nursing career. To those that want out, do us all a favor. Go bungee jumping off the bridge in Venezuela…without the bungee cord!
April 7th, 2010 at 1:30 am
Sorry folks,
Truth is that if no one bitches nothing changes. Yep there are pluses to our job and some huge minuses. Am I willing to say that this is the BEST profession…no. Does everyone have complaints about their profession from time to time? Certianly, but the problem is that our profession really does suck. 2008 poll done by the American Nursing Association proved that approx 50% of nurses were considering leaving their profession. I really don’t think that it should be normal for approx. half of professionals in a career path want out of their profession. Something that took them a great deal of time and effort to do in the first place. An dumb butts like yourselves who continue to demand that we see what a wonderful profession this is are getting on my nerves. Mostly because it is important that one realize there is an issue before it can be fixed and with you overly optimistic, glaze over the issue, piss ants, it is hard to achieve any changes.
April 7th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Well, Allison, only 50% are considering leaving…WOW! I would have thought it would be more! Because there’s a big difference between thinking about something and doing it!
Let me give you some advise Allison:
1. Always choose up to the minute statistics to quote, rather than stats that are 2 years old and came before the economic collapse of November 2008! I’m pretty sure that in 2010, those numbers have probably changed substantially, what with the inherent economic security that nursing provides.
2. Don’t slap people in the face just because you don’t like something. For all you know I could be at the same hospital you work at, talking to your director as we speak!
3. If you hate nursing so much, please get out and leave room for those that WANT to do it. You’ve tried, others have and will succeed.
4. When someone gripes, as you say, change happens. But usually it’s only for the person doing the griping, while the rest of us have to pay for their arrogance. Not to mention the fact it creates a horrible, depressive air about the entire unit when someone acts that way, ALL THE TIME! And in order to get the change you want, Allison, you have to gripe ALL THE TIME!!
A nurse once told me that when she started her career as a nurse, there were all these problems. But 30+ years later when she retired, they still had all the same problems. So when you come up with a remedy, we’ll all be watching and waiting and we might even hold our breath, Allison. Please come to my tombstone and tell me what you accomplished.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:51 am
Wow, there is a lot of anger out there. I have also been a nurse for a long time(over 35 years) And one of the things that has kept me in the profession has been the ability to do many different kinds of nursing.ICU, MedSurg, PACU,Clinical Research, OR) And one thing I have found is that there are always people who are unhappy with their job and like to bitch about it all the time.Then there are the people who actually went in to nursing to take care of people with compassion. I have run in to more of the latter kind of nurses over the years. We are there to help people when they are ill and be their advocate when necessary.If you didn’t realize we are a helping profession and you don’t want to help, do something else.
April 16th, 2010 at 2:35 am
I BEEN a nurse for 7 years and i dont like it either, it sucks!!!! we get very little respect and we have way too much responsibility, nursing is completely miss managed.
and its not about patient care i love that, its about all the tings you have to be after to get your job done correctly, if the blood wasnt drawn is the RNs fault if the xray wasnt done its the RNs fault, if the pharmacist didnt put in an order guess whos fault it is the RNs fault!!
these other jobs have degrees too i feel they should be held accountable for not doing their job correctly, not the nurse!!!
and administration is horrid too, maybe its because i work in south florida. i hear its great in california, maybe i should move huh lol
hateing nursing, loving people
RN – soon to be realtor
lets see if that works out any better lol
April 22nd, 2010 at 5:53 pm
I have been a nurse for 3 years and I am finding that I have hated it since day one. WAY too much responsibility and not enough respect. I work for the federal government as a nurse and it’s worse than the other civilian hospital. An RN is treated like a CNA + the RN workload. Before it gets too bad, I am getting a new job. I knew I should have been a social worker!
July 17th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
I quit nursing and anything to do with healthcare last year after being an RN for 11 very terrible years,and it was the BEST thing I ever did.
WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
September 24th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Nursing is more complex than all generalizations. The pressures on a compassionate invisible discriminated nurses in a business, dominating environment is far from hard. It is hard to endure. The horizontal violence between nurses is natural when the pressures come from their own association, employer, population, media, other professionals, and regulatory body that forgets the shift to shift overwork ethical loaded physical and mental work. Lets face it most LPN are not trained to go into relational and ethical issues of caring. Nurses should not be in power …..the client is. Nurses are train to assist the client to heal. If RCA or LPN only see hierarchy behaviour it is because they are in that box. Face it Nursing is the closet to honoring living thus nursing should not be in hospitals but in a position on it’s own for promoting health. Could it be nurses have outgrown the hierarchy of health care business model where less educated staff is okay to help us heal and live. We cant see beyond commerialism and convience. We fear suffering and death by putting it behind all our fantasy living. Those that knock down nurses and tell them to suck it up are probably the one that live in a world that hides suffering. Much like the discrimination of police officers. Please have respect for those that face humantistic issues.
Demand that your country respect life.
October 2nd, 2010 at 7:44 pm
WOW!! As nurses we really do eat our young don’t we?! I have been an RN for 36 yrs and I’m still standing,hard to believe.I grew up reading Sue Barton and Cherry Aimes,I still fondly recall an advertisment when I was a student nurse…”Be something special..be a nurse”,nursing is a CALLING not just a decent salaried job out of school,4 weeks vacation,job security,you go into nursing to care for others,to bring something to the table not to remain steadfastly focused on what you can get out of it.Nurses are BORN,I believe,not made at least the good 1’s anyway,you know the 1 you would want taking care of your loved one!I stay focused on my patients and funny how patients are NEVER the problem it’s always the “moles,hero’s and know-it-alls,Oh my”I remember reading a long time ago an interesting article saying 90% of nurses come from alcoholic [or similarly dysfunctional]famalies and or are addicted[all types including the 1’s addicted to drama and control]themselves.Then in the workplace these dysfunctional family roles get played out over and over,same drama,same chaos,different day.I thought long and hard about that 1 while reviewing the many places I had worked and 100’s of nurses I’ve known and found this pretty accurate.I agree nurse managers and we ourselves seem to enable,encourage and reward these crazy making dynamics but only if you agree to participate in the drama.I chose not to and I make that very choice consciously,everyday.I resist the urge to gossip about another and when 1 of those “hot mess”back stabbing,troubling making,complaining,have no life nightmares starts in around me,I say nothing…no audience,no performance,they go bother someone else.Nursing is hard,demanding work,often with no respect or gratitude but you’ve got to take care of each other. If you have been blessed like I have then you know what I mean when I say it is my fellow nurses who I so enjoy working TOGETHER with that have kept me coming back all these years often to the most difficult jobs in the most undesirable of places.I love the people I work with and you can too,I wouldn’t have it any other way.
November 13th, 2010 at 2:12 am
I believe that most nurses did not go to this profession for the money. However, I do get tired of hearing about how nurses are suppose to be ‘special’ or ‘do their jobs because they care’. Hello?! We all have to make a salary to survive. With our hours, education, and responsibility we should be making more and having better working conditions. What I find is that we tend to gripe about the short commings or exonerate those nurses who martyr themselves for the profession. Well people it’s as simple as politics, no one likes a crazy left wing democrat and no one likes a crazy right wing republican. The majority of us tend to want something in the middle. WE want adiquate compensation for missing our children’s lives, our families, our meals, and the restroom! We are a public service profession, but we don’t get pensions and city perks. Doctors have the same issue. I want to be a lobbist, because this issue drives me nuts. I like my profession, but as someone else posted: “I will be a nurse that only works 2-3 years to pay off my debt because the pay sucks, the hours are worse, and the wear and tear on my body is significant.”
July 4th, 2011 at 3:30 am
When management is nasty and unfair to the nurses, they take it out on each other. You really learn how to become passive-agressive. The hospital chains are making it worse because you fear getting blackballed for not kissing butt.
July 12th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Hm…It’s my thought that part of the problem with working in nursing is all the women that you have to work with. All of them PMS’ing at all different times. No wonder people want to gripe about their work. But, that thought aside…my other thought is that people now seem to think that they are ‘entitled’ to a cushy job and that they shouldn’t have to put up with all of the annoyances that make a job what it is…WORK! That’s why we get paid to be there…to WORK! And by the way…if someone is holding a gun to your head to make you work in a position you don’t like…go tell a police officer and quit your bitchin at work.
September 30th, 2011 at 5:50 pm
I’ve been nursing for over 22 years and have grown to hate it….It has gotten much worse over the years….been praying for a different job such as medical management or case manager that does not involve direct patient care. I’m very depressed and wish there were better working conditions for nurses. The hours are horrible as well as the pay and benefits. Ready for a change!!
October 4th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Nursing, yes it is awful. It saddens me that I don’t have the staff to take care of the 30 residents as we should. As nurses, we are supposed to take time to chat with the residents, physically assess them, talk to their families, feed them, assist them with toileting, take them to activities, make their doctor’s appointments, get their meds refilled, do care plans, call MD’s, take off orders, get them ready for PT/OT/ST, make sure they get weighed, give them their pills, check their blood sugars, change their bandages, fill out incident reports etc., etc., etc., in an 8 hr. shift!!! It’s like a bad horror movie, except guess what? IT’S FOR REAL!!!
If we really valued human beings like we claim we do, we would have 4 nurses instead of 1 for those 30 residents. But I guess we’d have to charge $200,000 a year for each resident to support that kind of staffing ratio.
November 2nd, 2011 at 6:30 pm
I want a GD job. Every time a site starts asking questions, they go too far or miss the purpose completely. Indeed.com is the best to date. Am I just bitchin and moanin or do others feel an extreme waste of time.
April 22nd, 2012 at 8:02 am
Im a new nurse, and I’m already sick of it. Of course, I’ll stick with it and keep my gripes to myself like I have been, but seriously, this sucks. Don’t get me wrong; I love taking care of people, but the hours suck. I can’t get hired anywhere decent because I don’t have enough experience. I get thrown to the wolves and cannot be trusted because I’m still wet behind the ears so to speak. I constantly have to prove myself and work harder and faster than anyone on the floor in order to get some sort of respect, or, at the very least, to be left alone to do my job competently and on time. I’m sick of it. I’ll stick with it and simply wait until I have enough experience to not be stuck with a night shift job on a shitty floor working the schedule that no one wants.
I started school loving nursing. I got into it because I truly loved caring for others and had been a CNA for 8 years prior. But at this point, I just need a steady job with somewhat decent pay and benefits that don’t completely garnish my check and hours where I can get some semblance of sleep in order to remain functional. So much for being a calling.
April 25th, 2012 at 7:50 pm
I have been an RN since 1993 and have been disgusted by it since. The mistreatment of nursing from physicians, administration, head nurses down to family members is deplorable. I am so ready to change careers–hopefully to an artist and jeweler. I am hoping my home sells and I can decrease my hours to the point of having very little time on the floor. Very sorry I chose this profession and would like a “do over.” In the novel “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe” said it best that “nursing should be paid Pro Ball Salaries”—yeah, when greedy physicians are denied their Christmas Bonuses……Very sick and sorry I ever stayed in nursing and should have gotten out before I “got stuck” in it.
April 30th, 2012 at 8:22 pm
Been a nurse for 10yrs. I hate it. For one being a blk n a nurse confuses people because we still arent smart enoughh to be one. You are suppose to not speak up because you are just there to do! No thinking please, n if u do then not out loud! Thank you..the patients are always right no matter if your license is at risk. I just say no! As usually the only blk nurse you get the worse patients, looks from them, left out if the loop of everything even when u try to fit in by changing who you are. I find nurses fight n bicker because you are tired of not being treated the way we have to treat the patients..as people with rights…what about our rughts as nurses..arent we people too?
May 2nd, 2012 at 9:12 am
Guys like Jason above are the problem with nursing. His ONLY response is to GET OUT if you don’t like it. I see that as the only answer anyone ever offers up. Please don’t try to change things because as Jason puts it “there are plenty of people waiting in the wings” so any time you have a gripe just stifle yourself, suck it up again, but for heavens sake don’t try to change things becasue this is how it works. Nusring needs to be unionized plain and simple. Unions equal: better pay, better benefits, better staffing and a whole host of other things that we desreve, but as a nurse IT’S NEVER ABOUT YOU, IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT THE PATIENT.News flash if we dont have what we need then guess what…..the patient suffers so it’s not always just about them. Jason if you aren’t in management already I’d be surprised, because you have the attitude of a manager already and you would fit right in as a “company” man. Pleae don’t stick up for your co-workers because obviously they mean nothing to you………..
August 19th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Try working in Penna. or Delaware. They are more organized and the State Boards are easier to deal with.
September 23rd, 2012 at 10:20 pm
I have been a nurse in Florida for 5 years ( LPN) I hate it. I have worked in many facilities here. They are all abusive. 32 -40 patients to one nurse. Low pay. For 32-40 You must do: Med pass. You pass about 300 meds per shift, Wound care, admissions,discharges,charting, and so much more. Are they serious?? How could one person do all this work all the time and not hate it? Most nurses work through dinner and never sit down until time to chart. Corporations want to save money, I guess so their CEO can buy another house. Feels like slavery to me. Add to this we get blamed for everything, get no respect,and a hostile, abusive working environment. Fl is a right to work state on top of this. I know one nurse who got fired for forgetting to record the fridge temp! Finding a much humane career choice ASAP.
September 23rd, 2013 at 5:51 pm
I can’t tell you the joy at getting out of nursing. What a truly dreadful job. A total waste of 17 years of my life. I could have had a decent job. Your nothing but garbage as a nurse. I have drawn a line under the whole thing. I made damned sure none of my daughter went anywhere near nursing.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:41 pm
Some day nurses will organize nationwide just like the teachers had to and no one will be kicking sand in our faces anymore.
May 1st, 2014 at 2:52 pm
This Forum displays the very things wrong with nursing, the attitudes and snide remarks.
Who needs it?
15 years as a nurse and I am DONE!
October 30th, 2014 at 5:39 pm
“Some day nurses will organize nationwide…”
Sadly, we tried that back in the 90s with a “Million Nurse March” on DC. Many RNs were threatened with their jobs if they dared go to that march or dared attempt unionizing at all. While it helped some things, we’ve taken a gigantic leap backwards since then. Hospitals are no longer independent entities. They’re owned by massive corporations. In the last 10 yrs, I’ve watched individual hospitals merged with other hospitals, all owned by one or two huge corporations. HCA is a perfect example. That stands for Hospital Corporation of America. They own hospitals across the country. Notorious for short staffing and treating us (nurses) like crap. Nursing shortage? I call BS. Not when hospitals are cutting staff. Not when a RN with 20 yrs experience can’t get a job for a year. Job security, my butt. And no. You can’t just go from critical care to clinic to OR to OBG…once you’re in a specialty, you’re stuck. They LIE to you in nursing school. Oh, almost forgot the best part…if you have an AASN, you’re no longer good enough. Because apparently BSNs know how to think critically better and are more professional. More like hospitals all want “magnet status” and are required to have 50% or more BSNs to obtain it. So what happens to all the AASNs? We can’t get jobs. Even when some of us are better at the job.
June 9th, 2015 at 6:17 pm
Nurses are not allowed to meet their basic human needs, which is why the job sucks and the turnover is high.
Because my shifts start at 330am, I can not sleep in the same bed as my husband 3-4 nights/week. This is a big problem.
Accidental needlesticks from combative patients with multi-substance abuse (and any other multitude of biohazardous exposure). This not only endangers me, but also my family. Additionally, the first thing your hospital will do is perform a drug test on YOU. If you come up hot for marijuana (which you could have smoked a month ago) they don’t have to pay you worker’s comp…And they will definitely work that angle.
I cannot eat, shit or piss on my own schedule.
Some days I NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY. I don’t even get to look out a window.
Mandatory OT.
Because nurses are not able to meet their basic human needs hostility ensues. This creates the “eat your young” phenomenon and lateral violence.
There is no reward for loyalty in this profession. The minute your years of experience make you too expensive to employ, leadership wants to get rid of you…and your younger peers hate you if you cannot keep up.
Ageism. As a bedside nurse you are considered washed up in your 40’s. A worker’s comp liability. Unable to keep the pace with the youngsters running around jumping to every whim of management. You also have opinions…that you are able to vocalize…that are probably correct.
High risk of injury. You WILL hurt yourself. It is only a matter of time. One injury could leave you incapacitated, and unable to support your family for the rest of your life.
Doctor egos. Nurses are second class citizens to many doctors practicing today. The funny thing is, I catch doctors screwing up every day. Attendings, who should know better-none of them want to hear it (even if it is in the patient’s best interest). Everyone pays lip service to supporting nurses, and wanting them to feel like a valued member of the team. “Your opinion counts.” LIES. Doctors do not want you to question them. They want you to FOLLOW ORDERS.
Male administrators/Chiefs/physicians will dictate to you how much maternity leave you will get, that you will have to work mandatory OT, or that you are not allowed to go down to part time for child care reasons…all the while…their wives are stay at home mothers, or they have nannies to care for their children. What kind of fu*ked up sh*t is that??
DO NOT believe the hype:
“You can always take a job away from the bedside if you want to focus more on your family”
-This just isn’t true. Well, maybe if you want to work in administration…which is crazy. Those jobs are even worse than bedside. NP? CRNA? To me that sounds like more physician oppression and hostility, more medical/legal responsibility, and not enough pay.
“Nurses have flexible schedules”
-Not true. 2 weekends/month. Rotating nights. Calling in sick causes your teammates to hate you because you have now doubled there work load. If your manager has to staff to cover your absence you are really screwed.
“There are so many opportunities”
There are no opportunities, other than leadership or advanced practice. Which, are the worst fu*king jobs of all. Those people hate their lives. The ones who are happy are deluded or psychotic.
“The pay is great”
Given the risk of injury, and the impact on your quality of life, the pay is sh*t.
ADMINISTRATORS LISTEN UP: The only thing that is attractive about being an RN is the flexibility of schedule. No one wants to put this job before their family. If they do they have PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS.
I have 14 years of experience. I had high hopes at first. I was fast tracking and doing big things. I never thought I would say this, but I would never recommend this job to anyone.
Get a business degree people. You will still have your challenges, but you can use the bathroom when you need to. And eat lunch at your desk if its a really bad day (but most days you will get an hour lunch, and you can go outside if you want to). And sleep with your spouse at night. And maybe work from home. Holidays and weekends off. The pay may be less out the gate, but you will surpass me BY FAR in 5-10 years.
The juice is not worth the squeeze people.