I want to be a voice for the other nurses who, no doubt, feel exactly as I do right now. I hope that hospitals and the general public will listen.
My hospital, which is probably like most other hospitals, has put the squeeze on us, citing “The Budget.” They can’t bill for stuff like the time it takes to ambulate post-CABG patients, turn patients every 2 hours, spend 30 minutes with Parkinson’s patients each time they need to get up to the commode, or change linens every hour for incontinent patients—but I, aide-less, nevertheless have to do all that stuff, by myself. Plus, usually, titrate vasoactive drips every 15 minutes. Sometimes for up to four patients. That alone can take up all my time.
This terrifies me.
What if I’m in the bathroom with said Parkinson’s patient (nurses know what I mean—you have to use all your willpower not to gaze longingly at your watch) for those 30 minutes, thus missing two sets of vitals on a patient on a nitro drip, and whoops—now that patient is insanely hypotensive and I have to start waking up cardiologists? Which takes up even more time so that I get behind on my other drips? And prevents me from responding to requests for pain medicine/reports of new-onset shortness of breath or chest pain/requests for the bathroom? Which makes patients mad, causes me to miss developing decompensation, and negates the entire point of putting patients in a critical care area? I had a confused patient recently, and we didn’t have the staffing for a sitter, so that night I had four critical patients and was not only a nurse, but also an aide, a waitress, a janitor, and a sitter (not a very good one, either, because with four patients I was a drive-by sitter).
I’m a good nurse. I care deeply about my patients—past, current, and future. It breaks my heart to see the care I’m forced to NOT provide for them. It scares me to see the things I have to leave out and the things I will miss because I cannot be several places at once. It angers me that I go without food or bathroom breaks and trot around endlessly for 12 hours at a time only to be yelled at by a patient who had to wait a few minutes for a pitcher of ice water.
The burnout has come from trying so hard and getting nowhere. I’ve pursued appropriate avenues of complaint, submitted literature on the perils of cutting RN staffing, and looked for alternative employment (there’s none).
The anger has come from working so hard and never getting a word of thanks or appreciation (I’m not about to tell my patients, “Sorry, but I am trying to save two lives right now, and your water pitcher was just way down on my priority list”). And that’s the patients. I have no idea where I stand with management. I don’t get many nastygrams, but I never get any positive feedback either.
The depression …ah, the depression. My hair is falling out, and I have trouble eating at all. I am listless. I hear monitor alarms in the back of my mind constantly and wake up out of dead sleeps where I was dreaming I was running down an endless hallway trying to find the patient crying “nurse! nurse!”
Yes, I’m grateful that I have a job, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth this. Adapting seems to entail becoming one of those heartless evil nurses, and I’m not sure I have that in me. I have to find a way to buck up, as advised long ago by my dean, and I can’t. I’m afraid I made a terrible, terrible mistake choosing this career, and I can’t quit because I staked everything on it and am in horrible debt from going to school. It also seems idiotic for me to NOT do something I have an obvious talent for. But now I’m rambling.
Take-home point: if you see a nurse, hug him or her and say thank you.
I want to be a voice for the other nurses who, no doubt, feel exactly as I do right now. I hope that hospitals and the general public will listen.
My hospital, which is probably like most other hospitals, has put the squeeze on us, citing “The Budget.” They can’t bill for stuff like the time it takes to ambulate post-CABG patients, turn patients every 2 hours, spend 30 minutes with Parkinson’s patients each time they need to get up to the commode, or change linens every hour for incontinent patients—but I, aide-less, nevertheless have to do all that stuff, by myself. Plus, usually, titrate vasoactive drips every 15 minutes. Sometimes for up to four patients. That alone can take up all my time.
This terrifies me.
What if I’m in the bathroom with said Parkinson’s patient (nurses know what I mean—you have to use all your willpower not to gaze longingly at your watch) for those 30 minutes, thus missing two sets of vitals on a patient on a nitro drip, and whoops—now that patient is insanely hypotensive and I have to start waking up cardiologists? Which takes up even more time so that I get behind on my other drips? And prevents me from responding to requests for pain medicine/reports of new-onset shortness of breath or chest pain/requests for the bathroom? Which makes patients mad, causes me to miss developing decompensation, and negates the entire point of putting patients in a critical care area? I had a confused patient recently, and we didn’t have the staffing for a sitter, so that night I had four critical patients and was not only a nurse, but also an aide, a waitress, a janitor, and a sitter (not a very good one, either, because with four patients I was a drive-by sitter).
I’m a good nurse. I care deeply about my patients—past, current, and future. It breaks my heart to see the care I’m forced to NOT provide for them. It scares me to see the things I have to leave out and the things I will miss because I cannot be several places at once. It angers me that I go without food or bathroom breaks and trot around endlessly for 12 hours at a time only to be yelled at by a patient who had to wait a few minutes for a pitcher of ice water.
The burnout has come from trying so hard and getting nowhere. I’ve pursued appropriate avenues of complaint, submitted literature on the perils of cutting RN staffing, and looked for alternative employment (there’s none).
The anger has come from working so hard and never getting a word of thanks or appreciation (I’m not about to tell my patients, “Sorry, but I am trying to save two lives right now, and your water pitcher was just way down on my priority list”). And that’s the patients. I have no idea where I stand with management. I don’t get many nastygrams, but I never get any positive feedback either.
The depression …ah, the depression. My hair is falling out, and I have trouble eating at all. I am listless. I hear monitor alarms in the back of my mind constantly and wake up out of dead sleeps where I was dreaming I was running down an endless hallway trying to find the patient crying “nurse! nurse!”
Yes, I’m grateful that I have a job, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth this. Adapting seems to entail becoming one of those heartless evil nurses, and I’m not sure I have that in me. I have to find a way to buck up, as advised long ago by my dean, and I can’t. I’m afraid I made a terrible, terrible mistake choosing this career, and I can’t quit because I staked everything on it and am in horrible debt from going to school. It also seems idiotic for me to NOT do something I have an obvious talent for. But now I’m rambling.
Take-home point: if you see a nurse, hug him or her and say thank you.