I sat up the other night until almost three in the morning talking to my husband, and I’m not going to say I talked about work the entire time, but it did encompass a large part of the conversation. After all, work is a part of your life, many times a large portion, and in nursing especially it can seep out from the confines of the hospital walls and into the nooks and crannies of your home.
God bless that man, he sat there and listened to me vent for some time, and he even interjected appropriately as if on cue, “well yeah, that would make me mad too.” He nodded sympathetically as I poured out my heart, reciting a list of things I found unfair about the field of nursing, and I didn’t stop until I came to a point where my own words halted me. Or rather haunted me.
“I just hate it.” I said.
But then I paused.
I continued, “I don’t mean I hate nursing. I love being a nurse. I really do.”
And the fact was I wasn’t trying to convince myself of this statement. I really did love being a nurse, but sometimes I hated how hard it was to be a good one anymore.
My rant to my spouse had come on the tail end of some new training, and that seemed to be something that came around often. And I got that. The field was ever-changing, ever-growing. Technology advanced by leaps and bounds. You had to keep up. Fine. Change is good and whatnot, but that didn’t make it any easier.
New computer programs, upgrades, and enhanced operating systems with which we could capture our required documentation. These newer, better ways were meant to make life easier, but it didn’t always feel that way. Sometimes it felt like it made things harder. Sometimes it made it seem like there was less and less time caring for your patient, and more and more time documenting that you had. And I hated that.
I didn’t hate nursing, per se, but I hated how hard it was to nurse well.
Healthcare was a business. As much as I just wanted the heart of it, the fact remained that reimbursement was required, it was getting harder to obtain, and our hands were in it whether we wanted them to be or not. And I guess I hated that.
As it stood the odds were not in our favor. The patient population outnumbered us by a long shot, and each year that went by tipped the scales from our favor. It was just like they had warned us about more than a decade ago, and I was just living to see the beginning of the real nursing shortage and ailing baby boomers.
Working short-staffed was becoming the field’s norm, and we didn’t dare divert dollar signs (ahem, I mean patients) away. We were instead encouraged to suck it up, put on our big girl (or boy) undies, and nurse on. Safe staffing was a term toted on nursing forums that meant little in real life until the word lawsuit got thrown around.
I hated it. I love nursing, but I hated not having the time to nurse well.
New nurses were fleeing the bedside in record numbers, and a part of me didn’t blame them one bit. They hated it too. They didn’t want to, but they did.
We served a new population, one of instant gratification, that held stock in things like the term “customer” being used increasingly more over that of “patient.” We all strived for five, no doubt, but the bar was being set a bit unrealistically high by Generation X & Y.
I loved being a nurse, but I hated that the expectations on me were often unobtainable.
But the saddest part to me about it all was that the hate was there. My heart was nursing. My blood pumped with the rhythm of healthcare, and my profession was a calling more than anything else. I wanted to love every single thing about the field. I didn’t want to vent my frustrations to my spouse. I wanted to be happy in a job that the thought of made me smile, but that the reality of often fell short. And the fact that dissatisfaction was common among my peers made it even worse. It was getting easier and easier to complain, and harder and harder to enjoy. That was the worst part. How something you loved could give you such grief really ached at my soul.
The patients (not customers, mind you) kept me going. The sense of duty spurred me on. The pride in the profession gave me wings, and the love of healthcare carried me. But sometimes, some aspects of nursing I really hated, and that was the saddest part to me.
Cheryl says
You wrote it so well, how did this work that so fulfilled me become something I hated to go into? I worked from 1979 to 2011 when I went out on disability. So many things changed including coworkers that for me made it impossible to function effectively. That and the allergies and stress that shut down my hearing and thought processes, breathing and other things. The last year I hated it so, I found myself praying for an earthquake, Car accident ot something, ANYTHING blocking the road so I couldn’t be expected to get into work.
I still find myself avoiding interaction with others but am gradually coming to care somewhat more then I was.
Shelly Dermody says
Brie, I am no longer certain how I actually found your blog about a month ago but I am so glad I did. Thank you for sharing your heart for people, your family, & for your faith. You have said so many things that have been so blatantly timely that it can only be a God thing. Your Apr 30th post about when your heart has left nursing came on the eve of my resignation date of May 1st after ongoing health issues, a health leave without further answers or answers, and a big side of burn out. I am too young to retire & unable to qualify for disability (I am at peace with that; post-viral idiopathic tachycardia & burn out: kind of hard to prove & kind of hard to manage successfully with today’s demands). I laughed through the 15 weird things nurses do and had to share it with my friends & co-workers, because it was all true AND we all need to laugh even more in this new age of nursing. Laughter is often the best medicine even when it seems warped to others.
I have enjoyed reading the many other posts as well and then THIS post…. Oh this post… I, too, am married to a man who has patiently sat and listened to me rant, cry, problem-solve/obsess, and cry/rant some more about all of the things you mentioned and more. The haunting of the love/hate statement stuck such a chord for me. I am not sure I could have verbalized it as well as you did but it is exactly where I have been for the past couple of years dealing with my health and all the changes, shortages and frustrations. Though there was relief in making my decision to resign, I have to be honest that I am also grieving it that it had to be made in spite of everything. It boils down to my body telling me that I needed to stop and that I can no longer keep up, but, that said, I will continue to cheer on the rest of you from the sidelines. Nursing isn’t what it once was, nor what it still could be, if only……. (That e-card says so much in it’s little square).
Thank you for your words & for still persevering in spite of the many times that ‘something you loved could give you such grief’. You have a gift & heart for writing. May God continue to give you all that you need for all that He’s called you to do.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you so much!
Tonya P says
I totally can not agree more Brie! I’ve only been a nurse for 14 short months, but I hate the circumstances I work under. I absolutely love what I do but feel like I can’t give my patients the proper care they need. It breaks my heart knowing how bad and how hard I worked to be where I am today and doing what I love to only hate the situation. What keeps me going is my patients that I care for. I know that every day I go to work I’m making a difference in the lives of others but yet I feel I could do so much more! Thank you for posting this. I was just trying to explain to others about my job and how I feel.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you.
Michelle says
As I train in the ICU and I read your blogs I can relate to every.single.one of them. They inspire me to keep going and to be the one voice for my patients as frustrating as nursing gets not to give up completely. Critical Care nurses are needed. There are only a handful who still have the true heart and soul of a nurse who wants the best for their patients and has not been burnt out by the politics or the charting. Something needs to give. I feel if I make a difference in just my two patients lives on my shifts than I have done Gods work. If I have lifted the moral of my coworkers than I have done Gods work. It is so difficult but so worth it.
I am so grateful for all of your blogs as I am also a mother of three young children, however my hardest navigation right now is trying to be a compassionate and caring nurse while keeping up with the demands of the management, MD’s and all the charting.
Your blogs help me to keep the Faith.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you for sharing this with me. 🙂
Jen says
I understand very much how you feel, though I’m a teacher not a nurse. The political, the paper work, the entitlement burned me out after just three years.
Susan Winslow says
Brie, So well articulated ! You took the feelings out of my heart and the words out of my mouth. I just left a hospital that I had been at for 25 years for all these reasons. I just could not take it anymore. I wasn’t acting as a nurse anymore but more a answer person to ” Hey you, get me more such and such ” . I was charting on 6 patients every hour when I should of been at the bedside. You get the picture. Luckily I found another nursing job in a smaller hospital where ” big business ” hasn’t hit yet and the patient is still the first priority. What a relief! As nurses WE need to stand together and take back our field to what it was that really worked for the patients. What is happening now- is surely not making anyone happy and where would hospitals be without nurses. That’s really what I want to know.
kk says
Thank you for putting into words how so many of us feel. I retired a month ago. I’m 61 and technically, too “young” to retire. I have been a nurse for 41 years and worked all but 9 years (I was a stay at home mom until finances changed). I worked over 26 years with one physician and many of the patients we cared for were there when I started. I left before all the life was sucked out of me. Demanding patients, counting days for refills on narcotics, spending more time on the computer than with patients, attempting to meet “meaningful” use…that broke me. It was stealing my joy and sucking the life out of me while I tried to be the best nurse I could be. I loved most of my patients. I miss them and they miss me. I would go back in a heartbeat but I won’t be clerical help. That’s not what I was called to be. You can’t go back home but how I wish I could go back to the vocation I love…minus computers, cell phones, social media and all of the other time stealers and distractions we deal with now. So I’ll wait, watch and listen to see where God directs me. Thank you for putting it out there and starting the dialogue.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you.