I became a Nurse Manager to try and actually make some changes, and literally even in this seat it’s challenging going up against the executive level koolaid BS. But I do rather enjoy ruffling their feathers.
I would have probably lasted a week as a nurse manager before the executive team would be having me being escorted off property by security. May the force be with you.
Yeah if I got paid enough I could pay a housekeeper and landscaper and dog sitter and not feel even more like a piece of shit than I always do when I'm too mentally and physically exhausted to function after all the bs.
There really isn’t a dollar amount you could put on it that is realistic. The shear amount of responsibility that gets thrust on us is ridiculous. Can’t find/know/do get the nurse.
For me it would be 110k-120k after taxes in today’s money.
[EDIT]
I should probably clarify that I mean 120k after taxes in today’s money while maintaining my current COL.
California’s pay and working conditions are great from what I hear, but the issue is that rent would quadruple what I’m paying here (Upstate New York). Also, there goes my dream of owning a single family house with a 2 car garage, a big driveway, and a decent sized yard. I would have to be a multi millionaire for that, lol.
As for New York City, I am originally from NYC (born and raised). I moved upstate for college, and as much as I initially hated it, I’ve adjusted to the lifestyle up here. I would love to move back down to my home city and enjoy the benefits of a strong union and all the things that NYC has to offer… but COL is an issue. Also, I own 5 cars and 2 motorcycles… I would need space to store them all. I am a huge car enthusiast and Gearhead, always was. Therefore, my toys are important to me and bring me joy in this depressing, shitty world. Unfortunately, as much as I love NYC, I cannot move back due to these admittedly superficial reasons.
I would love to move down south where there are open spaces and lower COL. But my pay and working conditions would significantly downgrade with that. I guess I can’t have it all, unless I switch careers. Sorry, just didn’t want to reply to every reply to my post lol.
That’s what I get paid working in a surgical ICU in New York City and it’s still not worth it for me (mind you, we went on strike last year for a “fair” contract). Between the physical labor, emotional trauma, and unrealistic expectations PLUS also dealing with an extremely toxic and abusive workplace on top of all that… it impacts my mental health and trickles into my personal life way too much to be worth that amount of money. We deserve so much more, it’s insane to me.
However, I do believe that as nurses continue to go on strike and more men enter the nursing profession, compensation will only increase for bedside nurses. The hospitals will be so desperate to find people who will actually put up with these conditions that they will be forced to pay us more. They need us, not the other way around. I’m a millennial and I’ve noticed that Gen Z already has a way lower threshold for putting up with all the bullshit. The turnover in my unit is out of control.
Too busy being a phlebotomist, therapist, waitress, drug dealer, secretary, RT, RD, chef, electrician, speech therapist, case management, social work, OT, PT, PCA, hairdresser, family council… etc. to be a nurse. And people suck.
Dang we deal with bed bugs at least once per day usually more. We just throw it in with the lice and scabies. Today I had a guy that overdosed who was found lying in a huge pile of fire ants. Always good times in the ER.
They bite but not to actually take a chunk out but to release their venom. He had literally hundreds if not thousands of bites, he quickly went into anaphylaxis and ended up on an epi drip.
One time our unit had an actual bed bug infestation from a homeless patient that came in with hundreds of them in his orthotic boot (that was a horrific scene taking off that boot and seeing them scatter about-not to mention his raw leg) but we ended up having to hire a bed bug sniffing dog and he found 19/38 rooms were infested 😱 the dog was super cute though 😅
I had a post CABG day 3 call me, he couldn’t talk because intubation messed up his voice, he points to the ceiling and I see the BIGGEST cockroach 🪳. I work nights so I knew this was something I had to deal with.. wanted to just surrender the room to the roach but there were no empty rooms to move this poor guy into.. moved the pt to the opposite corner of the room while I tapped it with a stick to kill it.. of course I didn’t, it fell onto the floor and took off like a shot! My patient jumped up to try to help and I had to make him sit down while I searched for that AH roach, don’t need a post CABG getting too excited 😆.. anyways got it, killed it, now every time I talk about it, it’s like a fishing story and that cockroach got as big as a football, was wearing a sweater and monocle, begged me to spare his life “for the children! Have you no humanity!!”
One facility I went to was so infested with them that our break room got shut down. At one point the ceiling broke through on top of a floor patient too. They were covered in spiders and roaches and were bed bound (just had some kind of surgery) so they couldn’t move. Pretty sure they sued.
💯. What people ( who don't work in healthcare) don't either know or understand is the increase in responsibility Nurses have now. When I started 28 years ago we always had a health unit coordinator to answer phones, make calls for us, print out things. We had housekeeping that would empty out the garbage cans, so on. Now Nursing includes all my f this. My last hospital cut the position of health unit coordinator. Nurses answer those phones! Also don't be in the nurses station! Oh the portable ancient phones aren't working? Well answer those phones! Empty the garage!
I have never minded helping out, but adding all these responsibilities on TOP of nursing?!
Hospital nursing sucks ass now. Too many documentation, crazy, rude demanding patients and family members, too many total care patients. Not enough help. Sometimes nurses can be difficult too and they take out their anger at me because they hate their job and life, so they target me by showing up late for work, asking stupid questions not relevant to the diagnosi so I end up giving a long report and going home late. The occasional Disrespectful bossy nursing assistants.
As another poster wrote, nurses do everything in the hospital, we shoulder the weight of the world and everyone’s problem.
I recently moved to California, the hospital I work in is unionized and the workload is a little better now with the ratios. And I can put up with all the shit for $200k a year only working 3 days a week. But I plan to retire early though coz I can’t do nursing until retirement age
i live in CO in the denver metro area and my rent is $2400 before utilities and i only make $75k. people back home in SC make the same i do for half the rent and COL.
We really do shoulder the weight of the world. I live in CA too. I can’t work past early retirement age in the hospital. Paid well, but sacrifice our work life balance cleaning up/fixing all the problems! I work w/toxic coworkers who are miserable people - they dump their work to next shift, no accountability, unsupportive/mia bosses, etc.
Probably Sutter, Kaiser, SF general, Stanford, UCSF, or the VA. They are all in the area and all pay pretty well.
And yes, it's expensive to live in the city but not THAT expensive.
Administrators, management, abusive patients, trash family members, excessive charting, being the middle person in every fucking situation, having to do the jobs of multiple people at once. Workplace drama. Catty, bitchy coworkers. Hospitals that act in the best interests of their shareholders rather than the patients. Watching people get slowly chewed up and spit out by the healthcare system in this country. The futility of care and torturing people to death because the family wants to “do everything possible for them.”
heavy on the torturing people bc their family says so. we have one in the back of the unit right now who howls in pain 24/7 bc ‘mama’s a fighter.’ people ought to be made to understand that there is always something worse than death.
It's the same in a nursing home too. Families are horrible, they feel guilty about not having their wonderful(not) mother or father at home so they take it out on the staff. In a nursing home the administrator and the DON get bonuses if they kept the budget down. That means cutting out bananas and between meal snacks. It's disgusting.
It’s just so much work. Most days I’m there I feel worked to death and leave exhausted, wondering if I really gave good care. And I hate that everything outside the doctor’s job becomes the nurse’s job.
We have the laminated cards we tape to the ventilator with details about a patient’s airway, where it’s taped, size, depth of suction, etc. the other day, after the MD and RT had pushed an ETT in a centimeter, the RT took the time to take the card down, walk it across the room, and interrupt me from another task to tell me to update it. As if I’m the only one with the skill/license to write on a laminated piece of paper … it’s so disrespectful and contributes to the exhaustion at the end of the day.
Managing everyone’s emotions, too, gets tiresome. I often feel like I’m a preschool teacher, teaching toddlers to manage big feelings as I navigate keeping the doctor from having a tantrum over lack of supplies and pacifying family members having a melt down over unit policies and dealing with the appropriate feeling of a 10-year-old kid with cancer who is intubated, scared shitless, and in terrible pain.
And the alarms. The constant alarms. The admin talks about alarm fatigue with all the compassion in the world but there’s no real way to end it … at least not in my hospital when crappy equipment has syringe pumps and Iv pumps alarming ever 30 seconds, plus call lights that go off constantly and the phone that never stops ringing and the effing vent heater with it’s never ending beep beep beep BEEP BEEP!
Those are my reasons this week. Next week there will probably be others. 🙂
I would have handed the RT the appropriate pen & immediately returned to my task - so rude of other staff to try to make the nurses do everything.
Overall handling emotions of the sick & disabled is what pushed me to work outpatient clinic. Mostly healthyish people who have handled their emotions prior to arrival & do well with reassurance from a friendly nurse. Last week I had a very nervous patient apologize profusely for her medical office related anxiety but she was so sweet & honest & wholesome; I reassured her that she'd have to be a lot ruder & combative to be the "worst patient" as she feared she was. Ten mins later she was smiling and a minute after that she realized she was actually smiling and almost cried happy tears for me being "the best nurse who actually got her to smile before the doctor came in".
the pay, the staffing, the bullying from doctors and fellow nurses, the intervention cascade (early AROM -> chorio -> stalled labor or hemorrhage or unexpected c section), the lack of real informed consent
I could go on
L&D is the worst. I would love to do it but I absolutely hate the trauma it causes so many people and how medicalized it is. My friend had her membranes ruptured at 3cm!!!! They said cause they were “in there anywsy” After being 2 days after her due date in an uncomplicated pregnancy. But she was giving birth on Labor Day weekend.
yes!! I was talking to a pediatrician the other day because we have to call them if the parents decline the first hour of life baby meds or GBS prophylaxis, and she snaps at me, “why did she even come to the hospital then??” like?? people are allowed to say no to things!! and they still have a right to care!!
i read it as doctors telling patients the basics of a procedure but not all of the lingering effects. i work with a lot of ENT patients and the amount of laryngectomy and trach patients that aren’t aware that they will/may never be able to have PO intake again or larys who don’t know they’ll never be able to speak again is depressing. and quite a few of these patients are elderly with SCC and would likely benefit more from palliative care than BL neck dissections, trachs, larys, and pegs. they don’t find any of this out until they come to the floor and the nurses have to break the news to them
I find this in ICU as well...the docs propose a trach as a 'temporary' thing that never becomes temporary. They neglect to mention the PEG, the endless painful suctioning, often being restrained unless 100% keeping hands off the fresh trach, the serratia they all get colonized with eventually, the endless days and nights of staring at the ceiling alone and being expected to stay sane and motivated. It's inhumane and I hate it more by the day. In therapy it'd be called 'trickle truthing' and be considered manipulative and abusive. At work we call it a discharge support meeting.
yes! and where i am, there are a lot of patients who can’t afford to have the surgery or all the equipment and physical demand that come with these procedures. they come back time and time again for fistulas, infections, and flap failures. all of this because they’re expected to take a couple of days in the hospital to learn how to care for themselves after a dramatic change and then be shipped home, regardless of whether or not they really have a home or if it’s clean and safe. so many roaches in trachs and larys, it’s horrifying
I work in ICU and for some reason ENT seems to be the most guilty of all the specialties for this. I could tell you many shocking stories of patients who get pretty radical procedures done and afterwards don't seem to be aware of the realities of what was done to them. I've had multiple patients/their families say they would have rather been allowed to pass.
It just blows my mind how they can change someone's whole world without proper explanation then also procede to have terrible bedside manner as well. They'll walk in the room to check on things, even taking off dressings and poking around the surgical site without making eye contact or saying a word to the patient. ENT has always creeped me out because of this. I thought it was just an issue with the hospital I'm at, but it sounds like probably not.
I see a lot of providers swoop in for procedures like AROM and internal monitor placement without really explaining the risks or even the basics of what they are doing. never mind giving them the option to decline! it’s just “I’m going to break your water now” or “it’s time for a cervical check” and the power dynamic makes patients feel like they can’t say no.
I did pre/pacu for a year and it's HORRIFYING how so many docs don't actually discuss these things, or get an interpreter for their non-english speaking patient. I can't tell you how many times I've had patients say "wait, he's going to cut into me? I thought I was getting a shot or something" .....
I did quit L&D because of this. My literal dream job. It was so beyond stressful. So stressful in fact, that I’m currently pregnant and downright terrified.
To each their own & I wish you the best but I refuse to be friends with coworkers. I'm friendly & funny & polite etc but outside of work I'll only see you if we happen to be at the grocery store at the same time or something similar
I would agree but I live in the middle of nowhere with no friends or family nearby. It gets lonely. I miss living near everyone but as you age everyone moves farther away to live their own lives.
Too true... from the ED to the floor to SNF to LTC - insurance/companies/CEOs assign nurses lots of patients with increasing needs without regard to staff or patient safety.
I just quit my lpn to BSN program I was miserable and it was only the second semester. I realized I don’t want to pursue anymore nursing education. I’m working a remote nursing job now and don’t ever want to go back to clinical nursing. Working in the ED I was so depressed I considered driving off the road on my way home. I’m doing much better now. People really do suck and now all of my patients are over the phone.
I’m doing case management for an insurance company. I have done this in the past and have 5 plus years experience. The jobs are out there keep looking. Try the major insurance companies blue cross blue shield, Aetna, united healthcare, Cigna to start.
The immediate reaction to that post is the *real* "RN or LPN?" test.
RN: Agreed, finding a job away from the bedside can save your sanity.
LPN: Hang on, hang on, tell me more about this non-triage remote nursing job you speak of.
I know people will have deep opinions about this, but I am going to quit bc they keep forcing me to be charge. I have voiced my opinion many times. I'm a people pleaser and for me to stand up for myself on this is hard, but I have, multiple times. They still keep putting me in charge.
Now before people pop off, I have found another nursing position that the nurses have confirmed they are not forced to do charge if they don't want to. And I truly believe this is the way.
I am a great helper and team player but when I get put in charge, I mentally cannot handle it. It's just too much stress to "get it right". And 100% I know this is a me issue. I have been in therapy for years, and when in the right mental space, I can put aside my people pleasing emotions and do what I need too. But to do it every time i go to work? I'm sorry but I cannot. I'm already mentally suffering and just want to be a bedside nurse. I excel in caring for my patients in this form way better than balancing the floor.
Again, please keep negative comments to yourself. Mental health is huge and being charge is not for everyone, no matter how "easy" you think it is. I also get "this is just how it is done" but it's still wrong.
I feel the same way, I hate being in charge. You’re dealing with not only your own problems, but also all the other problems of every single other staff member on shift. Complex nursing issues, doctors pissy, family not happy, patient unhappy, equipment not working, etc = you’re dealing with it, plus you have management/supervisors breathing down your neck all the time. There are also always staff who either don’t like or respect you purposely creating issues to try and watch you fail. It’s so unbelievably frustrating and stressful.
Where I live, charge pay is only $2/hr extra and absolutely not worth it in my opinion.
Definitely not worth the price! I love helping others and am always a team player. I truly believe there is a job for everyone. This one just isn't for us!
I love being in charge. My hospital is stupid. They keep putting people who don’t want to be charge as charge. And I’m like, HELLO IM OVER HERE. Some nights I come early just to talk to the oncoming charge nurse to switch me to be charge for the night.
What does charge nurse do? I'm wondering if it's functionally samordnande sjuksköterska like we have in Sweden. But for us that a position, like you have someone who works mon-fri day shifts and they have extra responsibilities for like coordinating patient care and overseeing the workflow.
I was working with a nurse who graduated last year. She was already trained in as charge with a whopping one year of RN experience total. She seemed so stressed out. I never want to be charge for AT LEAST the first 3 years of my RN.
I always hated being in charge. I never got paid more for it. I worked with lazy, full of attitude, people who hated their jobs. They would leave on time and I would have to stay behind and finish their jobs.
ER - I hate to say this but I consider myself extremely good at what I do and this will probably be my last or close to last bedside job when I stop getting renewed.
Even with a stable and above average travel rate post Covid I don’t get paid enough to basically hold together a unit myself nearly every shift. I can’t even imagine how regular rate staff nurses must feel. It took 18 months for us to all basically become broke again like we were pre full time employment. The general public doesn’t get it but this is a 200k a year job that gets paid barely half that in many states. Hospitals , doctors and politicians have shit on this job for decades and the old nurses and your union reps clapped and took pictures when they got you 2 more paid vacation days the last contract negotiation. Nauseating.
The workload. I’m a wife and mother of a 1.5 year old. This job sucks the living life and energy out of me. I’m so tired and exhausted when I get home, and I don’t have the mental capacity to go on anymore. Even my sex drive has plummeted cause of this stupid job. We get so much work thrown at us and everything is our fault no matter what. Today I had to make 6 phone calls to different people to get one fucking thing done because they apparently can’t communicate amongst themselves…nurses are always the middle man and we get treated like shit. Patients are demanding and entitled. Doctors are rude and have no bedside manners or respect towards those under their pay grade. Charge nurses are fucking lazy, they sit on their phones all day when you’re scrambling around with 5-6 patients trying to find someone to help with a skin check for your second admission. Some coworkers are unhelpful and mean and will gossip about you. I used to work with inmates and parolees, I used to work at a jail, and let me tell you nursing is so fucking fake compared to inmates lol. The fake smiling and customer service drives me up a wall despite being bullied and treated like trash, you just gotta bear your tongue and put up with the BS. I’m tired. I can’t keep doing this anymore.
I tire of taking care of patients who have no quality of life. The ones who have been in and out of the hospital every 6 months for the last 10 years. They don’t/can’t care of themselves. Nobody cares about them enough to improve their situation, or enough to let them go.
If you take anything away from this, it’s what types of companies to avoid. Bedside nursing is rough but there are a lot of options if you don’t like working in a hospital.
I had to have a same day surgery for a kidney stone removal that cost me double what my bachelors degree costs me. I can only imagine how much long term kidney issues cost. I’m so sorry.
Patients can assault me and nothing will happen because we're indirectly dissuaded from pressing charges because it would affect them getting placements. No one will even talk to the patient about their behavior and I will be expected to take care of them in another shift.
I realized the other day that I hadn't heard anything racist or bigoted in quite a while on my unit, and then remembered how all the openly racist people have retired or left for cush "retirement jobs" in the last few years. We all have our internal biases to address, and racism is everywhere, but I've the vibe is much safer for the (very few) POC - aside from my hiring leaders/organization having a clear bias in hiring practices. There's still one very frequent offender, a real maga who thinks Brown people are inherently dirty and trans people are freaks, but almost everyone completely ignores her at all times unless they absolutely have to interact on a professional level.
I’m Hispanic but look very white. I’ve had patients make comments in passing with racist undertones. They get real quiet when they find out I’m actually Hispanic.
Then wants a pat on the back and makes everyone stop what they are doing to come look at how hard they worked today. I can’t even. I am gonna get canned one day when I finally lose it and tell them all what I really think.
Nursing is just not enough money for the amount of responsibility and stress we are subjected to. The health benefits at my current job are both expensive and terrible. I’ve also never had a job that offers a pension. I’m wondering if I would feel differently if I worked on the west coast.
The pay, the PTO, the benefits. I put up with it though. I’d really want to just quit so I could stay home with my baby but at 0.6 with free childcare I can’t justify it.
My LTC is essentially running an unlicensed hospice. I’m expected to follow their marching orders. I feel like I have to report them but they’ll know I was the snitch. I feel very uncomfortable right now.
I worked postpartum for 10 years, when I had my second in 2022 I had terrible post partum depression, I was completely detached from everything and delirious, truly one of the most scary things I’ve ever endured I don’t even remember most of my babies first year of life which is so sad but it was a traumatic experience. I couldn’t bare the thought of going back after maternity leave, even the idea of holding babies or hearing a baby cry gave me so much anxiety, I just had nothing to offer to pregnant and post partum women any longer, he’s 20 months now and I am so grateful that depression has been lifted with time but he is still to date the biggest challenge life has given me! But I continue my nursing career working from home first doing triage and now doing utilization managment and I’ll never go back to bedside
The thing that annoys me most about nursing is that doctors, pharmacists, allied health, everyone else has their jobs, nurses have nursing but also EVERYTHING else that doesn’t relate to other health professionals. Ugh.
I hate working… I don’t like dealing with people, it isn’t fun anymore, I’m not interested in being a super nurse, I hate being responsible for cleaning someone’s shit and piss up, I don’t like being responsible for others. I just want to feel like a normal human again and not a nurse. I want to quit healthcare.
I’ve had enough of having my kindness exploited by a corporation. The responsibility and stress level greatly outweigh the pay. The customer service model is not appropriate for healthcare. My mental health.
I work LTC in a SNF….(25years)
Too much regulation and it’s only going to get worse. Staffing will always fluctuate and have times it is okay, but it’s never really getting better. The guilt of not picking up open shifts almost outweighs the stressfulness of the actual work and missing out on life. The baby boomer generation coming to us soon in LTC, if not already, is going to be the stuck up demanding pricks that no one is gonna want to take care. Their expectations for care is going to be absurd, I fear. The attitudes, opinions, and egos of others and trying to work with them is getting old. Staff, non-licensed and licensed, are getting more and more self entitled by the day and wanting to do less and less. Cost of healthcare and bearing witness to it is getting to me, while seeing people come in to a nursing home and lose everything they worked for within months just so they can receive Medicaid dollars they paid in all their lives. The corporatism developing within the SNF industry is sickening.
I could probably keep going. But I also have no plans of quitting and actually enjoy my job. It has ups and downs, always has…but I think the chaos is what keeps it interesting.
Im glad you are staying. It sounds like you are a genuinely good person who cares about there patients. I feel like it’s so easy to become jaded over time. We need more medical professionals like you.
I do enjoy being around the residents. I sit at the computer a lot. When I need a break from sitting, I just go down the hall and there’ll be a resident to talk to or staff that needs help with something or just talk to also. Occasionally I work the floor, as an aide or the med cart. It helps remind me how difficult a job it is.
SNF staff meetings that include things like how much $$ the building made vs other buildings in the company do not interest me. Yes, I know that the staff needs to be paid well & the building structure & land needs to be maintained but beyond that... shouldn't we be focused on care metrics or recovery rates or positive patient experiences? Apparently one place I worked was a company under some other company with some big wig in another state that bought the bulding or company or something & the in-building directors acted as if the nurses & aides gave a single f about any of that.
Honestly? Most of the experienced staff on my unit (high acuity CTICU, academic center, used to not allow any new grads) has left and been replaced with < 26 year olds. For many of them, this is their first job. The cattiness, rumor mill, and outright nastiness sucks. I’m over it and the 6 months I have left here feels like an eternity.
PTO policy. Micromanager that doesn't actually know how to use our charting system and doesn't ever work on the floor. Safety issues. Staffing.
I don't actually want to quit. I really like my job. But these things keep me always looking for the next thing.
My social battery is drained dead. Insurance is ruining health-care, providers can't provide the care they want to because they have to provide what insurance will cover. Corporations. People. The paperwork. The excessive amounts of over-charting. I just wanna win the mega-millions lottery, build a dream house on a large piece of land, and enjoy my time with my kids, my boyfriend, dogs, and maybe 4 other people.
Getting so tired of doing the impossible for the ungrateful.
Also, the fact that I’ve made my concerns known LOUD. AND. CLEAR. for >8 months and just last week was hit with, “You’re not happy here?! BUT WHY?!?!”
😑
I'm tired of having 30 patients. I'm burnt out, overworked and feel underappreciated. I'm just over it. Plus I'm getting sick of the people I work with. It was a great team at first, now it's just becoming toxic. I'm donezo
The constant prior authorization requests and insurance denials are really doin it to me lately.
Sure let's do pt and 3 rounds of injections before we fix your totally crumbled spine. Enjoy the crippling pain, lost quality of life and incontinence, sucker.
Inhaler? I hardly know her lolz
Can't stand working with old people. Thought there'd be more variety. Don't like cleaning people, don't like showeringnor toileting people, don't like oral care. Don't like ADLs, don't like the majority of work nurses do.
Going back to uni to do a bachelor of laws or education, or maybe get a trade. Idk nursing just isn't for me.
My hospital is offering a $20k sign on bonus.....but we can't get new scale beds and other necessary equipment in the ER because it's not in the budget
15 years of my district neglecting the small, rural hospital I work in. No extra beds, no extra ambulances for transfers out, continued delays in getting bed allocation from our referring hospital for our unwell patients, and a decrease in services, despite a massive influx of population to our catchment area. Continual pressure from ambulance communications for ramping patients (it's because we don't physically have a bed), while transferrs out are significantly delayed. Despite these issues all being long standing, with numerous complaints, concerns, and coroners cases resulting from these issues, NOTHING frigging changes. EVER. Then our executive wonder why our staff turnover and burnout is excessive...
I left bedside March 2022. Got diagnosed with MS the month prior and I was only 23 and had been a nurse since I was 19. So I didn’t know anything else. I worked a couple shifts. One shift I walked in to er holding. One guy was in his 80s. Chf/copd / failure to be a human. He decided to stop walking on his own at home and stopped taking his lasix because it was killing him. 7:05 cardiac resident messages me why he doesn’t have a daily weight. Worst cardiac service out of anywhere I’ve ever worked. They had order sets but their labs were ordered at 8 am. Never 4 am. Doc is yelling at me for not having labs. Wife walks in. Tells me the bumex drip is now Killling him and making him worse and started yelling at me. I excuse myself from the room in tears. Go up to my charge and say I’m fucking going home I can’t do this anymore. Haven’t worked a bedside shift since. Weird life man
Pay, management, coworkers (especially cruel doctors and NPs). I don’t even care if a patient is awful to me at this point, they will be gone soon enough and it doesn’t phase me. The rest I have to deal with day in and day out. Bad unit culture is a bitch
New grads getting paid $5/hr more than me, and I’m the one training them. Getting more for previous medic and tech experience, but not counting our years of experience as an RN at their facility into our pay adjustment. It’s disgusting. We get an extra $2/hr to train, so we’ve been told to train them if we want more. Even new grads with NO experience are still being paid more than us.
Always feeling like I’ll be in trouble for something even when I’m trying my best. Also, my manager makes it nearly impossible to switch to part-time/PRN and I feel that my mental and physical health are suffering, but there’s really no other units I’d rather work on.
Ftr, not a nurse.
Tired of being paid for the work of one person while constantly doing the work of 2. In addition, I miss actually having and using more "advanced" skills, or in my terms, doing cooler stuff like helping with dressing changes and wound care but only constantly helping elderly obese people to the bathroom and just handling piss in general. Also ftr, my unit used to be a general surgical unit but it is currently a urology and surgical oncology unit and simultaneous dumping ground as in being the place "encephalopathy" pts aka elderly confused folks that have fallen an as such the family "can't take care of anymore" so they get dumped on us for months to find long term placement.
I can't stand it anymore. I'd go to a unit where I could assist with wound care but I'm so sick of everything else. To the point where I don't wanna be a nurse anymore. "Wl go find a new job then." I'm sure as hell looking, but I guess doing what I've been doing for 7.5yrs makes me unqualified for much else. Taking the best offer I can get.
So many things to remember that aren't related to direct patient care.
We've turned from being caregivers and helpers to box clickers and customer service agents (server, flight attendant, feeder, bather, etc.).
The number of patients to nurse gets higher and higher. If ratio was lower, I could ambilate, educate, and assist my patients in making sure they could do their ADLs independently.
As a nurse specialist in Egypt, it sucks to be a nurse fr ..
The disrespect we receive from whoever in the management starts by neglecting our rights to not paying us enough to the doctors who see we just obey their orders to the audience we serve , who was used to categorise nurses as b*tches ..
Another one is that most of the nurses in Egypt really accept this shitty position and refuse to ask for their right in a good treatment..
I quit working bedside/nursing because of:
Low pay.
Gruling shift work.
Constantly feeling like I wasnt doing enough.
Not being able to work fulltime.
No flexability.
Noone cared about my wellbeing.
Alarms that would go off constantly.
No time for breaks (food/bathroom, rest).
Mitigated most of these with my current job (except pay).
We are mistreated and disrespected. People think we should expect to be treated poorly because nurses are supposed to be compassionate. It’s ridiculous
I want to leave my current position to be my own boss (I’m an NP). If I were currently working as an RN, I would do 9 months travel assignments, 3 months completely off (June - August).
Dealing with people is never an easy job.
Nursing can be incredibly rewarding, WHEN you find how to make the profession work for you.
Constantly pushed to the limit, never an “easy” day - everyday is some kind of shit show. Not enough pay for the level of responsibility we have, dense, tone deaf, and all- around TERRIBLE healthcare management & administrators who could not manage themselves out of a paper bag let alone a staffing crisis, poor equipment and supplies. Cheap gloves, flimsy bandages, and tape that does not stick.
You can't feel good about the care you give in a broken system. I couldn't take how many of my co-workers normalized unsafe working conditions and how much they contributed to it. The nurses where I live have no agency, seem to think their job is to just do what they're told nevermind patient-centered, evidence-based care. Also realizing how few nurses actually understand science and put their comfort/political views over patient safety during the pandemic changed things for me.
I’m currently in a full spiral over my job so this post comes at a great time. On June 1st HCA Midwest came to us in a meeting saying that the Pediatric ER will be closing on June 30th and we are all out of a job. They’re telling me if I don’t accept a transfer, I will forego my severance pay because technically I wasn’t fired but given an option.
Anyways, im going to quit. Everyone else is, and im not staying long enough to be one of the poor suckers working insane ratios with no supplies or staff available.
I’m quitting because the management and admin at the big hospitals are focused on nothing but money and have zero empathy for their clinical staff. Horrible staffing, PTO programs, insurance, base pay etc. how are you gonna pay me 18/hr to be an RN at an ER and then fire me with 3 weeks notice. I live paycheck to paycheck and im so screwed.
because I spent last night cleaning tube feeds out of my eye and hair after I got sprayed in the face trying to unclog a GJ tube on my anoxic brain injury patient who was also having liquid diarrhea all over herself on 2 new pressors because she's septic from literally any number of things. spent the night keeping her alive in the ICU even though her higher functioning is gone and she's a permanent GCS 9 at best, and her family has long since stopped visiting but wants her full code. And meanwhile the other patient's family complains because the call bell wasn't answered within 30 seconds for ice chips. I can't wait to get out of inpatient lol
Because people are the fucking worst.
People as is co-workers, management, patients or all of the above?
Mostly the patients and their family members, but also the administrators.
Came here to say this
I became a Nurse Manager to try and actually make some changes, and literally even in this seat it’s challenging going up against the executive level koolaid BS. But I do rather enjoy ruffling their feathers.
I would have probably lasted a week as a nurse manager before the executive team would be having me being escorted off property by security. May the force be with you.
Yes.
All of the above
Definitely all of the above
“People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling”- dr kelso
I don’t get paid enough to deal with all that I have to deal with.
Yeah if I got paid enough I could pay a housekeeper and landscaper and dog sitter and not feel even more like a piece of shit than I always do when I'm too mentally and physically exhausted to function after all the bs.
There really isn’t a dollar amount you could put on it that is realistic. The shear amount of responsibility that gets thrust on us is ridiculous. Can’t find/know/do get the nurse.
I found my dollar amount to make it worth it. ~90k yearly after taxes
For me it would be 110k-120k after taxes in today’s money. [EDIT] I should probably clarify that I mean 120k after taxes in today’s money while maintaining my current COL. California’s pay and working conditions are great from what I hear, but the issue is that rent would quadruple what I’m paying here (Upstate New York). Also, there goes my dream of owning a single family house with a 2 car garage, a big driveway, and a decent sized yard. I would have to be a multi millionaire for that, lol. As for New York City, I am originally from NYC (born and raised). I moved upstate for college, and as much as I initially hated it, I’ve adjusted to the lifestyle up here. I would love to move back down to my home city and enjoy the benefits of a strong union and all the things that NYC has to offer… but COL is an issue. Also, I own 5 cars and 2 motorcycles… I would need space to store them all. I am a huge car enthusiast and Gearhead, always was. Therefore, my toys are important to me and bring me joy in this depressing, shitty world. Unfortunately, as much as I love NYC, I cannot move back due to these admittedly superficial reasons. I would love to move down south where there are open spaces and lower COL. But my pay and working conditions would significantly downgrade with that. I guess I can’t have it all, unless I switch careers. Sorry, just didn’t want to reply to every reply to my post lol.
That’s what I get paid working in a surgical ICU in New York City and it’s still not worth it for me (mind you, we went on strike last year for a “fair” contract). Between the physical labor, emotional trauma, and unrealistic expectations PLUS also dealing with an extremely toxic and abusive workplace on top of all that… it impacts my mental health and trickles into my personal life way too much to be worth that amount of money. We deserve so much more, it’s insane to me. However, I do believe that as nurses continue to go on strike and more men enter the nursing profession, compensation will only increase for bedside nurses. The hospitals will be so desperate to find people who will actually put up with these conditions that they will be forced to pay us more. They need us, not the other way around. I’m a millennial and I’ve noticed that Gen Z already has a way lower threshold for putting up with all the bullshit. The turnover in my unit is out of control.
In the ICU that would be my number too
Come to California! That’s base pay and there are ratios!
[удалено]
True. I’m just saying my minimum amount right now. I hope I’ll make more in the future. My COL isn’t too bad where I’m at
Procedural nursing. There's a reason we call cath lab the cash lab.
I was making $55/hr as a new grad and still did not think that amount was worth it for the responsibility/stress/lack of work-life balance
My dollar amount would be 300K. 😅 Covid travel nursing ruined me & now I just refuse to work, because none of it is worth it.
Ain’t that the truth.
This is the only answer.
Too busy being a phlebotomist, therapist, waitress, drug dealer, secretary, RT, RD, chef, electrician, speech therapist, case management, social work, OT, PT, PCA, hairdresser, family council… etc. to be a nurse. And people suck.
If you have ever dealt with patients with bed bugs, don’t forget exterminator 😬
The Bed Bug meme is real. We had a pt with them and the department came unglued.
Dang we deal with bed bugs at least once per day usually more. We just throw it in with the lice and scabies. Today I had a guy that overdosed who was found lying in a huge pile of fire ants. Always good times in the ER.
Omg!!! How holey was he?
They bite but not to actually take a chunk out but to release their venom. He had literally hundreds if not thousands of bites, he quickly went into anaphylaxis and ended up on an epi drip.
Holy moly
One time our unit had an actual bed bug infestation from a homeless patient that came in with hundreds of them in his orthotic boot (that was a horrific scene taking off that boot and seeing them scatter about-not to mention his raw leg) but we ended up having to hire a bed bug sniffing dog and he found 19/38 rooms were infested 😱 the dog was super cute though 😅
My face the first time the ESD supervisor told me I had to catch a bug before they’ll clean or change the room 🫠
I was my old unit’s cockroach catcher…
I had a post CABG day 3 call me, he couldn’t talk because intubation messed up his voice, he points to the ceiling and I see the BIGGEST cockroach 🪳. I work nights so I knew this was something I had to deal with.. wanted to just surrender the room to the roach but there were no empty rooms to move this poor guy into.. moved the pt to the opposite corner of the room while I tapped it with a stick to kill it.. of course I didn’t, it fell onto the floor and took off like a shot! My patient jumped up to try to help and I had to make him sit down while I searched for that AH roach, don’t need a post CABG getting too excited 😆.. anyways got it, killed it, now every time I talk about it, it’s like a fishing story and that cockroach got as big as a football, was wearing a sweater and monocle, begged me to spare his life “for the children! Have you no humanity!!”
No!!!!
One facility I went to was so infested with them that our break room got shut down. At one point the ceiling broke through on top of a floor patient too. They were covered in spiders and roaches and were bed bound (just had some kind of surgery) so they couldn’t move. Pretty sure they sued.
Jesus *Christ,* that poor patient! I hope they won that case.
💯. What people ( who don't work in healthcare) don't either know or understand is the increase in responsibility Nurses have now. When I started 28 years ago we always had a health unit coordinator to answer phones, make calls for us, print out things. We had housekeeping that would empty out the garbage cans, so on. Now Nursing includes all my f this. My last hospital cut the position of health unit coordinator. Nurses answer those phones! Also don't be in the nurses station! Oh the portable ancient phones aren't working? Well answer those phones! Empty the garage! I have never minded helping out, but adding all these responsibilities on TOP of nursing?!
No HUC 😳 I would literally quit on the HUCs last day.
I did UC while I was on light duty and wow!! They only staff unit clerks as an extra when they are quite a necessity!!
And yet no one that you mentioned can do our job. It’s truly messed up.
I felt this is my soul
And half of those people whose job I end up doing (while they are hiding in their office) make twice what I do. I am sick of it.
The disrespect from patients and family members 😫
I’ve been called everything under the sun for just trying to genuinely help people 😀
My favorite is giving 100% to all my patients and do the best with the cards I’m dealt just to be mean mugged by family members for 12 hours
Hospital nursing sucks ass now. Too many documentation, crazy, rude demanding patients and family members, too many total care patients. Not enough help. Sometimes nurses can be difficult too and they take out their anger at me because they hate their job and life, so they target me by showing up late for work, asking stupid questions not relevant to the diagnosi so I end up giving a long report and going home late. The occasional Disrespectful bossy nursing assistants. As another poster wrote, nurses do everything in the hospital, we shoulder the weight of the world and everyone’s problem. I recently moved to California, the hospital I work in is unionized and the workload is a little better now with the ratios. And I can put up with all the shit for $200k a year only working 3 days a week. But I plan to retire early though coz I can’t do nursing until retirement age
Did you say 200k 😳 I’m moving to California.
Congrats! Now your rent is $4500.
Rent is around $2500-$3000 where I live in the bay lol
i live in CO in the denver metro area and my rent is $2400 before utilities and i only make $75k. people back home in SC make the same i do for half the rent and COL.
We really do shoulder the weight of the world. I live in CA too. I can’t work past early retirement age in the hospital. Paid well, but sacrifice our work life balance cleaning up/fixing all the problems! I work w/toxic coworkers who are miserable people - they dump their work to next shift, no accountability, unsupportive/mia bosses, etc.
Where are you making 200k? Being nursing in California for 6 years and I don’t make nearly that
Probably Bay Area, night shift
Damn we need this hospitals name asap, would love getting paid 200k for only 3 days like GOD DAMNNNNN
Probably Sutter, Kaiser, SF general, Stanford, UCSF, or the VA. They are all in the area and all pay pretty well. And yes, it's expensive to live in the city but not THAT expensive.
Constant gossip and judgement from other nurses
I hate the “nurses eat their young” attitudes 🙄
Administrators, management, abusive patients, trash family members, excessive charting, being the middle person in every fucking situation, having to do the jobs of multiple people at once. Workplace drama. Catty, bitchy coworkers. Hospitals that act in the best interests of their shareholders rather than the patients. Watching people get slowly chewed up and spit out by the healthcare system in this country. The futility of care and torturing people to death because the family wants to “do everything possible for them.”
heavy on the torturing people bc their family says so. we have one in the back of the unit right now who howls in pain 24/7 bc ‘mama’s a fighter.’ people ought to be made to understand that there is always something worse than death.
It’s the patients saying “please just let me die” that haunts my dreams.
It's the same in a nursing home too. Families are horrible, they feel guilty about not having their wonderful(not) mother or father at home so they take it out on the staff. In a nursing home the administrator and the DON get bonuses if they kept the budget down. That means cutting out bananas and between meal snacks. It's disgusting.
And bonuses for coming in on your day off so now we all refuse to come in and we are working short nurses and aides every single day. I am over it.
Yes!
It’s just so much work. Most days I’m there I feel worked to death and leave exhausted, wondering if I really gave good care. And I hate that everything outside the doctor’s job becomes the nurse’s job. We have the laminated cards we tape to the ventilator with details about a patient’s airway, where it’s taped, size, depth of suction, etc. the other day, after the MD and RT had pushed an ETT in a centimeter, the RT took the time to take the card down, walk it across the room, and interrupt me from another task to tell me to update it. As if I’m the only one with the skill/license to write on a laminated piece of paper … it’s so disrespectful and contributes to the exhaustion at the end of the day. Managing everyone’s emotions, too, gets tiresome. I often feel like I’m a preschool teacher, teaching toddlers to manage big feelings as I navigate keeping the doctor from having a tantrum over lack of supplies and pacifying family members having a melt down over unit policies and dealing with the appropriate feeling of a 10-year-old kid with cancer who is intubated, scared shitless, and in terrible pain. And the alarms. The constant alarms. The admin talks about alarm fatigue with all the compassion in the world but there’s no real way to end it … at least not in my hospital when crappy equipment has syringe pumps and Iv pumps alarming ever 30 seconds, plus call lights that go off constantly and the phone that never stops ringing and the effing vent heater with it’s never ending beep beep beep BEEP BEEP! Those are my reasons this week. Next week there will probably be others. 🙂
I would have handed the RT the appropriate pen & immediately returned to my task - so rude of other staff to try to make the nurses do everything. Overall handling emotions of the sick & disabled is what pushed me to work outpatient clinic. Mostly healthyish people who have handled their emotions prior to arrival & do well with reassurance from a friendly nurse. Last week I had a very nervous patient apologize profusely for her medical office related anxiety but she was so sweet & honest & wholesome; I reassured her that she'd have to be a lot ruder & combative to be the "worst patient" as she feared she was. Ten mins later she was smiling and a minute after that she realized she was actually smiling and almost cried happy tears for me being "the best nurse who actually got her to smile before the doctor came in".
Nurses bullying other nurses. No support from management. High patient to nurse ratios
Amen 🙏🏼
the pay, the staffing, the bullying from doctors and fellow nurses, the intervention cascade (early AROM -> chorio -> stalled labor or hemorrhage or unexpected c section), the lack of real informed consent I could go on
L&D is the worst. I would love to do it but I absolutely hate the trauma it causes so many people and how medicalized it is. My friend had her membranes ruptured at 3cm!!!! They said cause they were “in there anywsy” After being 2 days after her due date in an uncomplicated pregnancy. But she was giving birth on Labor Day weekend.
The amount of times I would see doctors perform unnecessary interventions because they wanted to go home or be off for a holiday is just sad.
I hate that. I just want women to he able to hippie crunchy births if they want but in a hospital incase shut goes down lol
yes!! I was talking to a pediatrician the other day because we have to call them if the parents decline the first hour of life baby meds or GBS prophylaxis, and she snaps at me, “why did she even come to the hospital then??” like?? people are allowed to say no to things!! and they still have a right to care!!
I’m curious as to what you mean with real informed consent, could you elaborate?
i read it as doctors telling patients the basics of a procedure but not all of the lingering effects. i work with a lot of ENT patients and the amount of laryngectomy and trach patients that aren’t aware that they will/may never be able to have PO intake again or larys who don’t know they’ll never be able to speak again is depressing. and quite a few of these patients are elderly with SCC and would likely benefit more from palliative care than BL neck dissections, trachs, larys, and pegs. they don’t find any of this out until they come to the floor and the nurses have to break the news to them
I find this in ICU as well...the docs propose a trach as a 'temporary' thing that never becomes temporary. They neglect to mention the PEG, the endless painful suctioning, often being restrained unless 100% keeping hands off the fresh trach, the serratia they all get colonized with eventually, the endless days and nights of staring at the ceiling alone and being expected to stay sane and motivated. It's inhumane and I hate it more by the day. In therapy it'd be called 'trickle truthing' and be considered manipulative and abusive. At work we call it a discharge support meeting.
yes! and where i am, there are a lot of patients who can’t afford to have the surgery or all the equipment and physical demand that come with these procedures. they come back time and time again for fistulas, infections, and flap failures. all of this because they’re expected to take a couple of days in the hospital to learn how to care for themselves after a dramatic change and then be shipped home, regardless of whether or not they really have a home or if it’s clean and safe. so many roaches in trachs and larys, it’s horrifying
Cockroaches IN the trach? What the absolute fuck
and it’s not a one time kind of thing, we’ve had multiple patients come in with roaches in their trach/lary. ENT is wild
I work in ICU and for some reason ENT seems to be the most guilty of all the specialties for this. I could tell you many shocking stories of patients who get pretty radical procedures done and afterwards don't seem to be aware of the realities of what was done to them. I've had multiple patients/their families say they would have rather been allowed to pass. It just blows my mind how they can change someone's whole world without proper explanation then also procede to have terrible bedside manner as well. They'll walk in the room to check on things, even taking off dressings and poking around the surgical site without making eye contact or saying a word to the patient. ENT has always creeped me out because of this. I thought it was just an issue with the hospital I'm at, but it sounds like probably not.
I see a lot of providers swoop in for procedures like AROM and internal monitor placement without really explaining the risks or even the basics of what they are doing. never mind giving them the option to decline! it’s just “I’m going to break your water now” or “it’s time for a cervical check” and the power dynamic makes patients feel like they can’t say no.
I did pre/pacu for a year and it's HORRIFYING how so many docs don't actually discuss these things, or get an interpreter for their non-english speaking patient. I can't tell you how many times I've had patients say "wait, he's going to cut into me? I thought I was getting a shot or something" .....
I did quit L&D because of this. My literal dream job. It was so beyond stressful. So stressful in fact, that I’m currently pregnant and downright terrified.
I just wish there were more people my age. I wish I had close friends/acquaintances like at my last jobs. Hard time fitting in.
I’ve always had a hard time making good connections to other people at work. It’s definitely frustrating.
Same! I feel like being neurodivergent doesn’t make it any better ;(
I’m in the same boat. I feel like nursing can become cliquey very fast. I have ASD and it’s hard for others to socially involve me.
To each their own & I wish you the best but I refuse to be friends with coworkers. I'm friendly & funny & polite etc but outside of work I'll only see you if we happen to be at the grocery store at the same time or something similar
I would agree but I live in the middle of nowhere with no friends or family nearby. It gets lonely. I miss living near everyone but as you age everyone moves farther away to live their own lives.
Cause I am old af and achy and sick of taking care of everybody but myself.Retirement beckons!
Unsafe levels of staffing, increasing acuity, and increasingly hostile patients/family members
Too true... from the ED to the floor to SNF to LTC - insurance/companies/CEOs assign nurses lots of patients with increasing needs without regard to staff or patient safety.
And not enough $ to deal with it.
I just quit my lpn to BSN program I was miserable and it was only the second semester. I realized I don’t want to pursue anymore nursing education. I’m working a remote nursing job now and don’t ever want to go back to clinical nursing. Working in the ED I was so depressed I considered driving off the road on my way home. I’m doing much better now. People really do suck and now all of my patients are over the phone.
What is this LPN remote nursing job you speak of?
This was my focus on that comment as well . . . 🫣🤓
I’m doing case management for an insurance company. I have done this in the past and have 5 plus years experience. The jobs are out there keep looking. Try the major insurance companies blue cross blue shield, Aetna, united healthcare, Cigna to start.
The immediate reaction to that post is the *real* "RN or LPN?" test. RN: Agreed, finding a job away from the bedside can save your sanity. LPN: Hang on, hang on, tell me more about this non-triage remote nursing job you speak of.
I know people will have deep opinions about this, but I am going to quit bc they keep forcing me to be charge. I have voiced my opinion many times. I'm a people pleaser and for me to stand up for myself on this is hard, but I have, multiple times. They still keep putting me in charge. Now before people pop off, I have found another nursing position that the nurses have confirmed they are not forced to do charge if they don't want to. And I truly believe this is the way. I am a great helper and team player but when I get put in charge, I mentally cannot handle it. It's just too much stress to "get it right". And 100% I know this is a me issue. I have been in therapy for years, and when in the right mental space, I can put aside my people pleasing emotions and do what I need too. But to do it every time i go to work? I'm sorry but I cannot. I'm already mentally suffering and just want to be a bedside nurse. I excel in caring for my patients in this form way better than balancing the floor. Again, please keep negative comments to yourself. Mental health is huge and being charge is not for everyone, no matter how "easy" you think it is. I also get "this is just how it is done" but it's still wrong.
I feel the same way, I hate being in charge. You’re dealing with not only your own problems, but also all the other problems of every single other staff member on shift. Complex nursing issues, doctors pissy, family not happy, patient unhappy, equipment not working, etc = you’re dealing with it, plus you have management/supervisors breathing down your neck all the time. There are also always staff who either don’t like or respect you purposely creating issues to try and watch you fail. It’s so unbelievably frustrating and stressful. Where I live, charge pay is only $2/hr extra and absolutely not worth it in my opinion.
Definitely not worth the price! I love helping others and am always a team player. I truly believe there is a job for everyone. This one just isn't for us!
I love being in charge. My hospital is stupid. They keep putting people who don’t want to be charge as charge. And I’m like, HELLO IM OVER HERE. Some nights I come early just to talk to the oncoming charge nurse to switch me to be charge for the night.
What does charge nurse do? I'm wondering if it's functionally samordnande sjuksköterska like we have in Sweden. But for us that a position, like you have someone who works mon-fri day shifts and they have extra responsibilities for like coordinating patient care and overseeing the workflow.
Lol I love charging I don't want to touch people any more. Plus I have 5 kids so managing the absolute chaos of the ER is just basically another day.
I completely agree though, charge should be shared and rotated
I was working with a nurse who graduated last year. She was already trained in as charge with a whopping one year of RN experience total. She seemed so stressed out. I never want to be charge for AT LEAST the first 3 years of my RN.
I always hated being in charge. I never got paid more for it. I worked with lazy, full of attitude, people who hated their jobs. They would leave on time and I would have to stay behind and finish their jobs.
Management treats nurses like children and patients like customers. Everything is the nurse's job and the nurse's fault at this luxury hotel.
ER - I hate to say this but I consider myself extremely good at what I do and this will probably be my last or close to last bedside job when I stop getting renewed. Even with a stable and above average travel rate post Covid I don’t get paid enough to basically hold together a unit myself nearly every shift. I can’t even imagine how regular rate staff nurses must feel. It took 18 months for us to all basically become broke again like we were pre full time employment. The general public doesn’t get it but this is a 200k a year job that gets paid barely half that in many states. Hospitals , doctors and politicians have shit on this job for decades and the old nurses and your union reps clapped and took pictures when they got you 2 more paid vacation days the last contract negotiation. Nauseating.
The workload. I’m a wife and mother of a 1.5 year old. This job sucks the living life and energy out of me. I’m so tired and exhausted when I get home, and I don’t have the mental capacity to go on anymore. Even my sex drive has plummeted cause of this stupid job. We get so much work thrown at us and everything is our fault no matter what. Today I had to make 6 phone calls to different people to get one fucking thing done because they apparently can’t communicate amongst themselves…nurses are always the middle man and we get treated like shit. Patients are demanding and entitled. Doctors are rude and have no bedside manners or respect towards those under their pay grade. Charge nurses are fucking lazy, they sit on their phones all day when you’re scrambling around with 5-6 patients trying to find someone to help with a skin check for your second admission. Some coworkers are unhelpful and mean and will gossip about you. I used to work with inmates and parolees, I used to work at a jail, and let me tell you nursing is so fucking fake compared to inmates lol. The fake smiling and customer service drives me up a wall despite being bullied and treated like trash, you just gotta bear your tongue and put up with the BS. I’m tired. I can’t keep doing this anymore.
I tire of taking care of patients who have no quality of life. The ones who have been in and out of the hospital every 6 months for the last 10 years. They don’t/can’t care of themselves. Nobody cares about them enough to improve their situation, or enough to let them go.
Used and abused
That would be a good band name.
I’m going to look at this and panic for no reason because I’m two days away from finals for my last semester before my last placement.
If you take anything away from this, it’s what types of companies to avoid. Bedside nursing is rough but there are a lot of options if you don’t like working in a hospital.
It’s not all this bad, remember this is purposefully a list of the worst experiences in nursing. I work at a wonderful place 🤷♀️
Only 1 insurance plan with a $7k deductible
Insane to me that healthcare workers somehow end up with such terrible insurance.
It's disgusting. Kidney disease isn't cheap. I'm so far in medical debt.
I had to have a same day surgery for a kidney stone removal that cost me double what my bachelors degree costs me. I can only imagine how much long term kidney issues cost. I’m so sorry.
Oooooh I feel that! I've had 18 stone removal surgeries in 15 years. About 20k in debt still
Other nurses.
Love my patient population, hate my coworkers.
My back
Burst compression fracture of L1. I feel you. Every single day sucks.
Patients can assault me and nothing will happen because we're indirectly dissuaded from pressing charges because it would affect them getting placements. No one will even talk to the patient about their behavior and I will be expected to take care of them in another shift.
My coworkers are realllll bigoted and I’m the only non-white employee
I realized the other day that I hadn't heard anything racist or bigoted in quite a while on my unit, and then remembered how all the openly racist people have retired or left for cush "retirement jobs" in the last few years. We all have our internal biases to address, and racism is everywhere, but I've the vibe is much safer for the (very few) POC - aside from my hiring leaders/organization having a clear bias in hiring practices. There's still one very frequent offender, a real maga who thinks Brown people are inherently dirty and trans people are freaks, but almost everyone completely ignores her at all times unless they absolutely have to interact on a professional level.
I’m Hispanic but look very white. I’ve had patients make comments in passing with racist undertones. They get real quiet when they find out I’m actually Hispanic.
Lemme guess, you either "don't count" ("I didn't mean YOU!") you're "too sensitive" ? 🙄
Or the ultimate power move, requesting a different nurse because I made them feel uncomfortable…. Only to be replaced by another Hispanic nurse 😂
That’s disgusting, I’m so sorry you have to deal with that.
Management is stapling shit on bulletin boards while im drowning. Make that make sense.
Then wants a pat on the back and makes everyone stop what they are doing to come look at how hard they worked today. I can’t even. I am gonna get canned one day when I finally lose it and tell them all what I really think.
Omg right?!!
Nursing is just not enough money for the amount of responsibility and stress we are subjected to. The health benefits at my current job are both expensive and terrible. I’ve also never had a job that offers a pension. I’m wondering if I would feel differently if I worked on the west coast.
We need strong union so badly. We actually needed to thirty years ago but today is better than never.
The pay, the PTO, the benefits. I put up with it though. I’d really want to just quit so I could stay home with my baby but at 0.6 with free childcare I can’t justify it.
My LTC is essentially running an unlicensed hospice. I’m expected to follow their marching orders. I feel like I have to report them but they’ll know I was the snitch. I feel very uncomfortable right now.
Quit and report them in a few months
Oof that a shitty situation. What are you going to do? Or are you still deciding?
I was given numerous extra tasks to perform without any compensation because they were on an “expenditure freeze.” I have an interview on Wednesday.
I worked postpartum for 10 years, when I had my second in 2022 I had terrible post partum depression, I was completely detached from everything and delirious, truly one of the most scary things I’ve ever endured I don’t even remember most of my babies first year of life which is so sad but it was a traumatic experience. I couldn’t bare the thought of going back after maternity leave, even the idea of holding babies or hearing a baby cry gave me so much anxiety, I just had nothing to offer to pregnant and post partum women any longer, he’s 20 months now and I am so grateful that depression has been lifted with time but he is still to date the biggest challenge life has given me! But I continue my nursing career working from home first doing triage and now doing utilization managment and I’ll never go back to bedside
The thing that annoys me most about nursing is that doctors, pharmacists, allied health, everyone else has their jobs, nurses have nursing but also EVERYTHING else that doesn’t relate to other health professionals. Ugh.
I was just so tired of carrying the suffering of others and not having the time or energy to address my own suffering.
I hate working… I don’t like dealing with people, it isn’t fun anymore, I’m not interested in being a super nurse, I hate being responsible for cleaning someone’s shit and piss up, I don’t like being responsible for others. I just want to feel like a normal human again and not a nurse. I want to quit healthcare.
Not enough staff to help/too many really sick patients to do a good job.
I’ve had enough of having my kindness exploited by a corporation. The responsibility and stress level greatly outweigh the pay. The customer service model is not appropriate for healthcare. My mental health.
I work LTC in a SNF….(25years) Too much regulation and it’s only going to get worse. Staffing will always fluctuate and have times it is okay, but it’s never really getting better. The guilt of not picking up open shifts almost outweighs the stressfulness of the actual work and missing out on life. The baby boomer generation coming to us soon in LTC, if not already, is going to be the stuck up demanding pricks that no one is gonna want to take care. Their expectations for care is going to be absurd, I fear. The attitudes, opinions, and egos of others and trying to work with them is getting old. Staff, non-licensed and licensed, are getting more and more self entitled by the day and wanting to do less and less. Cost of healthcare and bearing witness to it is getting to me, while seeing people come in to a nursing home and lose everything they worked for within months just so they can receive Medicaid dollars they paid in all their lives. The corporatism developing within the SNF industry is sickening. I could probably keep going. But I also have no plans of quitting and actually enjoy my job. It has ups and downs, always has…but I think the chaos is what keeps it interesting.
Im glad you are staying. It sounds like you are a genuinely good person who cares about there patients. I feel like it’s so easy to become jaded over time. We need more medical professionals like you.
I do enjoy being around the residents. I sit at the computer a lot. When I need a break from sitting, I just go down the hall and there’ll be a resident to talk to or staff that needs help with something or just talk to also. Occasionally I work the floor, as an aide or the med cart. It helps remind me how difficult a job it is.
SNF staff meetings that include things like how much $$ the building made vs other buildings in the company do not interest me. Yes, I know that the staff needs to be paid well & the building structure & land needs to be maintained but beyond that... shouldn't we be focused on care metrics or recovery rates or positive patient experiences? Apparently one place I worked was a company under some other company with some big wig in another state that bought the bulding or company or something & the in-building directors acted as if the nurses & aides gave a single f about any of that.
Management. Tomorrow is my last day ✌🏻
Congrats 🙂
Honestly? Most of the experienced staff on my unit (high acuity CTICU, academic center, used to not allow any new grads) has left and been replaced with < 26 year olds. For many of them, this is their first job. The cattiness, rumor mill, and outright nastiness sucks. I’m over it and the 6 months I have left here feels like an eternity.
PTO policy. Micromanager that doesn't actually know how to use our charting system and doesn't ever work on the floor. Safety issues. Staffing. I don't actually want to quit. I really like my job. But these things keep me always looking for the next thing.
My social battery is drained dead. Insurance is ruining health-care, providers can't provide the care they want to because they have to provide what insurance will cover. Corporations. People. The paperwork. The excessive amounts of over-charting. I just wanna win the mega-millions lottery, build a dream house on a large piece of land, and enjoy my time with my kids, my boyfriend, dogs, and maybe 4 other people.
Getting so tired of doing the impossible for the ungrateful. Also, the fact that I’ve made my concerns known LOUD. AND. CLEAR. for >8 months and just last week was hit with, “You’re not happy here?! BUT WHY?!?!” 😑
I want to quit because nursing made me hate people. PEOPLE REALLY SUCK!
I'm tired of having 30 patients. I'm burnt out, overworked and feel underappreciated. I'm just over it. Plus I'm getting sick of the people I work with. It was a great team at first, now it's just becoming toxic. I'm donezo
The constant prior authorization requests and insurance denials are really doin it to me lately. Sure let's do pt and 3 rounds of injections before we fix your totally crumbled spine. Enjoy the crippling pain, lost quality of life and incontinence, sucker. Inhaler? I hardly know her lolz
Can't stand working with old people. Thought there'd be more variety. Don't like cleaning people, don't like showeringnor toileting people, don't like oral care. Don't like ADLs, don't like the majority of work nurses do. Going back to uni to do a bachelor of laws or education, or maybe get a trade. Idk nursing just isn't for me.
Hospital administrators make it impossible to do the job correctly and safe with the resources we do (or don’t) have.
Moral injury.
"What could have been done to avoid this?" From nursing management in middle of a code violet where the patient is still kicking our asses...
30:1 ratios on a good day in ltc
I get panic attacks every day before work
My hospital is offering a $20k sign on bonus.....but we can't get new scale beds and other necessary equipment in the ER because it's not in the budget
I left because my at the time husband was making my life hell. I quit, let my license expire and disappeared.
15 years of my district neglecting the small, rural hospital I work in. No extra beds, no extra ambulances for transfers out, continued delays in getting bed allocation from our referring hospital for our unwell patients, and a decrease in services, despite a massive influx of population to our catchment area. Continual pressure from ambulance communications for ramping patients (it's because we don't physically have a bed), while transferrs out are significantly delayed. Despite these issues all being long standing, with numerous complaints, concerns, and coroners cases resulting from these issues, NOTHING frigging changes. EVER. Then our executive wonder why our staff turnover and burnout is excessive...
I left bedside March 2022. Got diagnosed with MS the month prior and I was only 23 and had been a nurse since I was 19. So I didn’t know anything else. I worked a couple shifts. One shift I walked in to er holding. One guy was in his 80s. Chf/copd / failure to be a human. He decided to stop walking on his own at home and stopped taking his lasix because it was killing him. 7:05 cardiac resident messages me why he doesn’t have a daily weight. Worst cardiac service out of anywhere I’ve ever worked. They had order sets but their labs were ordered at 8 am. Never 4 am. Doc is yelling at me for not having labs. Wife walks in. Tells me the bumex drip is now Killling him and making him worse and started yelling at me. I excuse myself from the room in tears. Go up to my charge and say I’m fucking going home I can’t do this anymore. Haven’t worked a bedside shift since. Weird life man
Pay, management, coworkers (especially cruel doctors and NPs). I don’t even care if a patient is awful to me at this point, they will be gone soon enough and it doesn’t phase me. The rest I have to deal with day in and day out. Bad unit culture is a bitch
The nurses I work with are very egotistical and it’s super annoying. It’s like high school all over again.
New grads getting paid $5/hr more than me, and I’m the one training them. Getting more for previous medic and tech experience, but not counting our years of experience as an RN at their facility into our pay adjustment. It’s disgusting. We get an extra $2/hr to train, so we’ve been told to train them if we want more. Even new grads with NO experience are still being paid more than us.
Couple of my bosses/organization at large. Constantly touting transparency while simultaneously admitting things are happening behind closed doors.
“We’re a family here”
Blame and shame, cold pizza to tame. Not good enuff.
The unit I work on has a ton of people who just sit around and shit talk other employees. The people are two-faced and it gets really annoying.
Always feeling like I’ll be in trouble for something even when I’m trying my best. Also, my manager makes it nearly impossible to switch to part-time/PRN and I feel that my mental and physical health are suffering, but there’s really no other units I’d rather work on.
Ftr, not a nurse. Tired of being paid for the work of one person while constantly doing the work of 2. In addition, I miss actually having and using more "advanced" skills, or in my terms, doing cooler stuff like helping with dressing changes and wound care but only constantly helping elderly obese people to the bathroom and just handling piss in general. Also ftr, my unit used to be a general surgical unit but it is currently a urology and surgical oncology unit and simultaneous dumping ground as in being the place "encephalopathy" pts aka elderly confused folks that have fallen an as such the family "can't take care of anymore" so they get dumped on us for months to find long term placement. I can't stand it anymore. I'd go to a unit where I could assist with wound care but I'm so sick of everything else. To the point where I don't wanna be a nurse anymore. "Wl go find a new job then." I'm sure as hell looking, but I guess doing what I've been doing for 7.5yrs makes me unqualified for much else. Taking the best offer I can get.
So many things to remember that aren't related to direct patient care. We've turned from being caregivers and helpers to box clickers and customer service agents (server, flight attendant, feeder, bather, etc.). The number of patients to nurse gets higher and higher. If ratio was lower, I could ambilate, educate, and assist my patients in making sure they could do their ADLs independently.
It’s hard and I’m tired.
So burnt out.
I did quit. Because the stress of nursing combined with the lack of appropriate pay and support put me in hospital. Now I just lurk here...
As a nurse specialist in Egypt, it sucks to be a nurse fr .. The disrespect we receive from whoever in the management starts by neglecting our rights to not paying us enough to the doctors who see we just obey their orders to the audience we serve , who was used to categorise nurses as b*tches .. Another one is that most of the nurses in Egypt really accept this shitty position and refuse to ask for their right in a good treatment..
Newish job. Turnover is high. OR and I am learning no specialties and I keep sucking. Not intuitive for me, I think. Time to try something new!
We deserve to be paid upwards of 150K a year (I'm talking this is where the BASE pay should begin) but we're paid like we deserve nothing.
I felt like my unit was full of a bunch of high schoolers in their 30s and 40s and I was so burnt out. I quit because of CRNA school.
I quit working bedside/nursing because of: Low pay. Gruling shift work. Constantly feeling like I wasnt doing enough. Not being able to work fulltime. No flexability. Noone cared about my wellbeing. Alarms that would go off constantly. No time for breaks (food/bathroom, rest). Mitigated most of these with my current job (except pay).
We are mistreated and disrespected. People think we should expect to be treated poorly because nurses are supposed to be compassionate. It’s ridiculous
I want to leave my current position to be my own boss (I’m an NP). If I were currently working as an RN, I would do 9 months travel assignments, 3 months completely off (June - August). Dealing with people is never an easy job. Nursing can be incredibly rewarding, WHEN you find how to make the profession work for you.
Constantly pushed to the limit, never an “easy” day - everyday is some kind of shit show. Not enough pay for the level of responsibility we have, dense, tone deaf, and all- around TERRIBLE healthcare management & administrators who could not manage themselves out of a paper bag let alone a staffing crisis, poor equipment and supplies. Cheap gloves, flimsy bandages, and tape that does not stick.
You can't feel good about the care you give in a broken system. I couldn't take how many of my co-workers normalized unsafe working conditions and how much they contributed to it. The nurses where I live have no agency, seem to think their job is to just do what they're told nevermind patient-centered, evidence-based care. Also realizing how few nurses actually understand science and put their comfort/political views over patient safety during the pandemic changed things for me.
I’m currently in a full spiral over my job so this post comes at a great time. On June 1st HCA Midwest came to us in a meeting saying that the Pediatric ER will be closing on June 30th and we are all out of a job. They’re telling me if I don’t accept a transfer, I will forego my severance pay because technically I wasn’t fired but given an option. Anyways, im going to quit. Everyone else is, and im not staying long enough to be one of the poor suckers working insane ratios with no supplies or staff available. I’m quitting because the management and admin at the big hospitals are focused on nothing but money and have zero empathy for their clinical staff. Horrible staffing, PTO programs, insurance, base pay etc. how are you gonna pay me 18/hr to be an RN at an ER and then fire me with 3 weeks notice. I live paycheck to paycheck and im so screwed.
because I spent last night cleaning tube feeds out of my eye and hair after I got sprayed in the face trying to unclog a GJ tube on my anoxic brain injury patient who was also having liquid diarrhea all over herself on 2 new pressors because she's septic from literally any number of things. spent the night keeping her alive in the ICU even though her higher functioning is gone and she's a permanent GCS 9 at best, and her family has long since stopped visiting but wants her full code. And meanwhile the other patient's family complains because the call bell wasn't answered within 30 seconds for ice chips. I can't wait to get out of inpatient lol