the thing is… i don’t hate my job. I’m just not sure, if I had to do it all over again, if I would still choose it again.
I love taking care of my patients.
I love being able to advocate for them, getting them the meds or therapies or treatments that they need.
I love getting to talk with them, learn about their lives and help them feel more relaxed and secure in what can be a very overwhelming environment.
I love when I catch. I don’t want anything to be wrong, but I love when my nurse senses start tingling and I just know that something’s not right and we can fix it.
I love teaching patients about their diagnosis, medications, teaching them the things they need so they can go home and they don’t need me any more.
I love taking my patients for a walk in the halls. It sounds dumb, but when I can get them up and moving I feel really accomplished.
I love precepting new grads and student nurses. I love seeing their eyes light up when they grasp a new concept, or when the puzzle pieces of diagnoses start clicking together.
I love being a charge nurse. I love when I can help my coworkers out and help pass meds or start an IV or get a patient settled.
I love my coworkers. They keep me sane. They’re the reason I keep coming back everyday.
Today they are the only thing that is keeping me from resigning
I hate that I’m continually having to ask my coworkers to do more and more and more with few resources, less help, and that they have to stay over shift or stay for an extra shift.
I hate being charge. I hate having to tell my nurses who are already busting ass and caring for more patients than they should be that they do actually have to take one more admission.
I hate that when I say we cannot safely take another patient I’m told “you have to” even though we haven’t finished settling the trainwreck that just arrived and I and my nurses are maxed out and there isn’t a nurse to take anything else. “you have to take that admission.” As if I’m just arbitrarily saying no. As if I’m sitting on my bum twiddling my thumbs and not taking care of patients who are actively trying to die on me.
I hate that I’m assigned to precept a student nurse and I know I won’t have time to show them anything. I hate for that baby nursling to see the stress and the tears and my arguments with management and with the ED. To see that no one cares about you if you’re a nurse. It doesn’t matter if the charge nurse has 5 patients and everyone else has 6 and you’re giving blood and have a CBI wide open and an active CIWA and a fresh stroke and a fresh post-op, there’s one empty bed and you’re going to need to take it.
I hate that my post op patient had to wait for 90 minutes for me to get her up walking in the hallway because I was in the middle of 2 rapids and a fresh stroke and arguing with management for more help. I hate that I walked in and she (one of the sweetest patients I’ve had in a long time) started yelling at me, and all I could do was apologize because I can’t tell her about other patients (HIPAA) and even though she asked if we were short, per management I have to lie and say no, so it just looks like I’m a lazy bum who doesn’t care about her.
I hate that with everyone maxed out we aren’t getting to really do the education with patients and their families that they really need and deserve so even if they do discharge, they’ll be back. And our HCAP surveys will be in the toilet because we didn’t talk to them about medication side effects “always.”
I hate that I don’t have time to really learn about my patients. My hospital has a mission statement about compassion and serving and my compassion went out the window months ago.
I hate that the docs are as overwhelmed as we are and I’m fairly certain aren’t actually seeing all their patients, and sure aren’t answering the questions of the patients and families and now they’ve stopped returning pages.
I hate that I walk out the door every night feeling like a shit nurse. I hate feeling like we dropped the ball and could have done better, when I know that I went without eating, drinking and peeing for 12 hours and stayed for 2 hours after my shift trying to get stuff done, and I really couldn’t have done any better, not with the way things are going.
The thing is I don’t hate my job, but I still contemplate driving off a bridge every morning when I drive into work.