Nearly Half of Nurses Consider Changing Careers as Nationwide Shortage Looms
from Healthcare Finance
A new national study by RNnetwork, a travel nursing company, shows nearly half of responding nurses are thinking about leaving their profession, and major drivers behind the potential mass exodus include feelings of being overworked and disrespected by their coworkers.
Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.
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I am 62. I have cared for patients now for over 39 years. Nurses must be able to leave their shift feeling good about the care they have provided. The culture of nursing today brings anxiety and fear. I would never hate what I do. What I do hate is being spread so thin that I cannot keep up. We are eating our young by making the work so stressful and fragmented. Please help us. Please preserve our young. Let’s make nursing a satisfying career again!
ALSO WANT TO ADD THE DON(CLT) WAS BRAGGING ON A PAPER SHE WROTE ON WHAT KIND OF NURSE MANAGER SHE DID NOT WANT TO BE. IT MUST OF SAID COMPASSION,UNDERSTANDING,COMING IN TO WORK WHEN THERE WERE A 10 TO 11 PT ASSIGNMENTS WITH ONLY ONE TECH FOR 35 PATIENTS. THE CHARGE NURSE WITH PATIENTS. SHE SAID IT GOT GOOD RESPONSES FROM HER PAPER,SHE NEEDS TO GET IT OUT AND READ IT AGAIN. I WONDER WHY? IT MUST OF TALKED ABOUT NURSING ABUSE BY PATIENTS AND HOW THEY STAND THERE AND TAKE IT. OH ALSO IT TALKED ABOUT HOW MUCH TIME I SHOULD BE IN OFFICE. ONLY COME OUT TO EAT LUNCH FOR OVER A HOUR. ALSO SHE LISTEN TO OTHER EMPLOYEE COMPLAINTS AND BELIEVED THEM . I MYSELF WERE CALLED IN THE OFFICE FOR A WRITE UP ON A EMPLOYEE COMPLAINT THAT I KNEW WAS A LIE AND IT DID IT HAPPEN. I WAS TOLD IT CAME FROM A GOOD SOURSE. I HAD TO LAUGH AT TIMES. SOME ON THE COMPLAINTS WERE SO RIDICULES . I HAD TO LAUGH. YOU DID NOT HELP THE PCT IN ROOM XXXX. I WAS ASSISTED A PT THAT WAS NOT DOING WELL. WELL THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME WE HAD A COMPLAINT FROM THIS PCT ON YOU. “REALLY” REALLY”. I COULD GO ON ABOUT MY 30 PLUS YEARS OF NURSING.” SHE WAS THE BEST”. “SPECIAL”. I WILL ADD,ITS NOT ALL BAD. I HAVE SEEN GODS MIRACLES TAKE PLACE. MET SOME GREAT PEOPLE. SAVED A LOT OF LIVES. WE HAVE TO OVER COME THE BAD AND LOOK AT THE GOOD. THERE ARE MORE GOOD PEOPLE OUT THERE THAN BAD. BED SIDE NURSING IS NOT EASY. HEALTH CARE WORKERS NEED TO BE NICE TO ONE ANOTHER. WE ARE A TEAM.
YES I can understand why nurses are wanting to leave. I just took a $436.00 a month pay cut. I have been a nurse for 30 plus years. As soon as I can which will be soon I am leaving where I am and seeking different employment. At this time I have no medical insurance. I can not afford it. I am a traveler and the medical insurance rates are so high it is unreal. If I take it thru the agency i take a $3.00 a hour cut in pay and pay my weekly premium with a high deductible. Nursing retirement. What retirement?. There are nurses working now that are in there 70s. I just found out BJC is taking way there sick pain time off. Either you get short term Disability (it will cost you) or use your vacation time if you are sick and need surgery. Where I am at we worn short all the time. A lot of times there is no PCT. So you work short doing primary care. How save is my license . You do not do it you get fired,you do work short and make a mistake who pays. You do and the patient. Management work. I do not think they own scrubs. Come on it and work with us. OOPs i am sorry for asking. I will pull in the office and talk to you about a alarm going off to long and you did not get to it. Well hell I was in another room and the patient was on the floor. The other nurses were in there helping me get a 300 pound person off the floor. Well just pay more attention to the monitors . Why are we working so short. There are plenty of nurses in college. Lot of them go back to college for something else after the first year. ITs Hell no this is not what I expected. A lot go for masters of nurse practitioners to get away from bedside nursing. A have a great story to follow. Keep reading.
Personal experience: I was working for a physical rehab hospital. Worked there for about 6 years. Durning those years we will get some drug overdoses that had strokes and were recovering nicely. Nice enough to call you names,curse at you,lie on you. Report you. But what i enjoyed more than anything was the hitting,slaps and physical abuse as NURSE I got. When I complained to our DON (CLT). She stated to me I am tried of hearing you complain about this. I was told I was a servant and when I took the nursing oath that that was part of it. I do not remember that abuse part being in it. I looked it up and I thought maybe they changed it. NO it said nothing about a nurse being beat up by a patient and taking it with a smile,or anything about the verbal abuse a nurse must take. She also said that that was taught to me in college. I must of missed that class. I never missed a day. Maybe i was dreaming. When I started this new job on the first day of orientation This was said “IT IS NOW A FEDERAL OFFENSE TO HIT A HEALTH CARE WORKER,WE DO AND HAVE PROSECUTED FOR THIS HERE. I CAN HAVE THIS PERSON ARRESTED AND PRESS CHARGES ON THEM .WE DO
NOT PUT UP WITH THIS AT ALL”. WOW. ITS ABOUT TIME.
I have worked for a major hospital in NY and a Home care agency in NY as well. What managers and older nurses do to the younger nurses are unbelievable. The harassment, the intimidation is too much for a young nurses. I survived because I put patients first. I spent 95% of my 12-hour shift of the hospital in my patients room. I would go to the patients room to encourage them or just apply lotion to their hands instead of staying in the nurse’s station. I loved charting in the patient’s room because my patients made me feel special and I feel that they were the only one matter. As long as I am right by my patients, no other opinions matter. I went to home care for the one-on-one interaction with the patients without the distraction of the police/ administrators. I feel very blessed that they were willing to open their homes to me, and they were always looking forward to my visit. No matter what is going on, I still encourage young people to go into nursing. It is a very, very rewarding career. Many of my colleagues who were constantly harrassed by managers of the homecare company I worked for, left. I left also, when I was being harassed. They wanted you to answer phone while you were seeing patients. We were given a 1-hour window to return a phone call to a manager. If not, they write it on our evaluations. The harassment was too much. Most nurses I have been in contact with love what they do. I enjoy being a nurse today just as the first day I started my clinical rotation as a student nurse. As a young nurse, you have a lot to offer. If one hospital or homecare does not appreciate what you bring at the table, go to another one. There are plenty of hospitals and home care agencies who treat their nurses as gold. Still #1 career on my list after 21 years. Go nurses!