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Rethinking Nursing? Think Twice!

Last Updated 2 19, 2012

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Have you ever thought about leaving our profession? I have. In my essay titled “My Journey Continues”, I wrote:

I am 50 years old. Sharing new life remains magical, but I am tired. I stay on night shift by choice. Each night, driving to work, I silently affirm: there is energy and healing in my hands.

I plan that when Colin graduates high school in 2008, I’ll earn my get-out-of-nursing free card. “That’ll be thirty years,” I say. “Some people get a pension after that long.”(Buley, 2010)

So did I leave nursing?

No.

Inspired by a question posed at a 2005 childbirth education conference, “Who will answer the call lights?” I was in the midst of creating a book of nurses’ stories. A book to inspire new and practicing nurses to remain active in our profession, encourage others to become nurses, and lessen the guilt of my planned 2008 exodus.

My essay continued:

I am collecting essays from registered nurses. Reading their stories reminds me of one of my goals for this book: inspiring fellow nurses to stay in nursing. I know there’s life—and nursing—beyond night shift. I decide to stay. And I am glad. (Buley, 2010)

According to US News and World Report, “registered nurse” is one of its “50 Best Careers of 2011,” in part because nursing is predicted to experience strong growth over the next decade. Yet, you may be where I was- planning to leave. If so, ask yourself these questions:

What brought you to nursing?
What are the pros of your current employer?
What are the cons?
What are the pros of your current position?
What are the cons?
What is it that is pushing you out?
What could make you stay?
What salary and benefit package do you need/want?
Are you able to relocate?
If you leave, what are you planning to do?

In answering these questions, you may realize it’s not nursing you’re tired of, but rather your shift, your employer, or your current area of practice.

If it’s the shift or schedule that’s getting to you, look internally and externally for nursing positions that would afford the hours and/or days you’d like to work.

Is it your employer? If circumstances prevent you from moving, are there job openings where you live or in a nearby city? Are you able to relocate? Then cast a wide net. The internet offers a plethora of job opportunities. There are hundreds of nursing jobs listed on NurseTogether.com and many health care employers have job openings listed on their individual websites.

Do you have, or are you interested in pursuing a graduate degree? Wonderful! A shortage of nurse educators exists, and more advanced practice nurses will be needed to deliver primary care to aging baby boomers and to the more than 30 million people who will join the ranks of insured Americans.

Are you tired of your current field of practice? You’re not alone. According to the American Nurses Association December 2010 “Have Your Say” poll, only 44% of the 995 respondents are working in the same nursing specialty they started in.

What nursing field would you like to switch to? Possibilities abound. NurseTogether lists 99 categories, ranging from ambulatory OR, home infusion, occupational health to wound care. And in “Warm and Fuzzy,” Barbara H. Toenyes wrote:

Nothing in my career: public health nurse, school nurse, hospital nurse, nursing home nurse, home care nurse, private duty nurse, mental health nurse, American Red Cross volunteer nurse, and college nursing instructor has challenged me as much as my new job. Prison nurse. (Buley, 2010)

Rethinking nursing? I hope you’ll reconsider. I didn't leave our profession in 2008. Nor did I switch specialties. Instead, I stayed in the field I love—Obstetrics—but made some changes. I lowered my TPD status, which has given me more time for writing. And, after more than sixteen years of working night shift, I switched to days.

I stayed in nursing. And I am glad.

Reference

Buley, Karen, ed. Nurses on the Run: Why They Come, Why They Stay. Dog Ear Publishing, Indianapolis, 2010. Print

About the Author: Karen Buley, RN, BSN has been a nurse for thirty-two years and continues to care for new families and their babies in Missoula, Montana. She recently edited a collection of nurses’ stories, Nurses on the Run: Why They Come, Why They Stay. Ten percent of book proceeds will be donated to nurse educator scholarships.

Click here to view other articles by Karen Buley.

Advanced nursing practitioners, if you are interested in sharing your expertise with our audience through providing educational and career related articles, please click here.

Tags:advanced practice nursing, Compassion in nursing, nurses and burnout, nursing career, nursing education, nursing inspiration, nursing jobs, nursing profession, nursing specialty

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Recent Comments (there are 22 comments)

I have been considering leaving, too, but this article that I'm sure God brought to me to read, has given me new hope to remain in a field that I dearly love. Thank you.

Posted By: R H on 3 09, 2011

I became a RN when I was 40 with the intention of working in oncology. I went into med surg "for the experience" and stayed 20 yr. slowly burning out from micromanagers, violent or rude patients, overwork. My husband died recently & I decided it was time to recapture my original dream. I am now working on an oncology floor & feel like a new nurse full of excitement and idealism. I love going to work! It isn't work now, though, it's my passion. From: IBK

Posted By: I. K on 3 10, 2011

Last year I had two jobs in nursing. One job was in home based oncology. I dearly love patient care. After 37 years, I still love it! But I was "bashed" by one of the nurses in managment, over and over. I could not do anything right for this woman. In addition, one of our doctors was totally rude to me. " He is that way to everyone," was their response. I left that job after only 5 months. My next job was in pediatric homecare. I loved that child so much. But her mother came home from work one day in a very angry mood. She took it out on my. Within 30 minutes, I was thrown out the door with my paperwork literally thrown out onto the porch. I have had it. I give up! Never again will I be subjected to abuse from other nurses, doctors, patients or their families. I am an excellent nurse. I love to give care. But I am burned out, to a crisp, by all the abuse. I do not deserve to be treated that way.

Posted By: Paula S on 3 10, 2011

I love nursing, but the politics are sickening. I am tired of the pushed assembly line that leaves no room for compassion. I love nursing and miss it but I will never go back full time.

Posted By: J D on 3 11, 2011

I have been a nurse for 44 years full time and now I am tired and so disappointed that the computerization we MUST do has caused me to want to turn tail and run. We don't do patient care but check mark answers on a computer. Everybody's chart looks the same. What has happened to medicine. I miss the "can you tell what is wrong" part of things and having the time to try and assist the pt. to better health.I love nursing and yet I don't get much of it anymore. HELP

Posted By: connie D on 3 11, 2011

I agree with of you above I love what I do I started nursing at 30 Now at 60 I am still here. It the patient, the care that we give, the love, the compassion. regardless of the computerized charting,the administration and supervisors who dont have a clue. Even the nasty Doctors or family members. We continue to do what we do because it is our calling. Be proud of our calling. do what you can to the betterment of the patient. when you cant do anymore, move on. It is infact God that makes our assignments.

Posted By: Helen M on 3 11, 2011

For 32 years in nursing I've found that changing departments every few years has helped keep my job satisfaction and interest level up. I choose to work nights to avoid dealing with management and politics. My latest change has been patient care on a med-surg floor instead of being a charge nurse. It's been one of the most rewarding and challenging areas of nursing I've ever worked in.

Posted By: Diane l on 3 12, 2011

God meant for me to read this. I feel so overworked and under appreciated. I pray every morning that God will use me to be a blessing. I know my patients need me... but I think I need to find my niche'.

Posted By: Brittany R on 3 11, 2011

I was also tired of nursing. I became an RN at age 38, and thought I would be working in the field of holistic nursing, but I ended up on a cardiac stroke unit, for many years before switching to a clinic position. In this position I was harassed, belittled, and came to realize that in the hospital nurses do whatever they can do for their patients. On the outside it is not the same. We are in a doctor's world, the world of business, numbers, data collecting, reaching fiscal goals, and how much we care is not taken into consideration as much. There are some nurses who would love this, and that is fine. I was lucky to still be a union member, and the support of my union allowed me to switch back to my original position with my head held high. I am glad I am back on the floors. I am now 51, and only work 3 days a week - but I love the patients and I love my coworkers, and I couldn't think of doing anything else.

Posted By: C. S on 3 13, 2011

I am a new nurse. I am really thinking about getting out. Its not the patients, for I love them. It is the people and the demands. If we are to be PERFECT, then our pay should increase. If we have to put up with nurses eating their young and the pettiness, then that is not incentive to come to work on a daily basis. I am an LPN and I truly feel unappreciated. I have RN friends that I just don't see the passion in THEM as motivation to obtain my RN as it is highly obtainable..right within my grasp. I have worked with men my entire life and served my country in two branches of service. I have never been this 'tired' and frustrated in my life.

Posted By: Syreeta W on 3 14, 2011

I am also getting burned out! I have done nursing home nursing for 25yrs. I am an LPN and I am not interested in doing RN work. I love the hands on and doing nursing but it irritates me so that the new RN's (not all of them) coming into the field are rude and they think they know everything and push all the stuff they don't want to do on the LPN's. I am also tired of working short staffed and having to work 16hrs or more d/t staff shortage. It doesn't help either when the government cuts our moneys. Our DON won't even lift a finger to help and it's sad. I feel that when you work in any facility whatever it is the patient is to be the most important and they were are to work together to accomplish whatever that resident or patient needs to have a good quality of life. It doesn't happen where I work. I thought of going elsewhere but I like to make a difference in my patient's or resident's life and I feel that I cannot do that anymore. It's more of a job now than being there for a human being.

Posted By: Twila L on 3 15, 2011

It was so refreshing for me to read these comments. I have just stepped down from a clinical nurse coordinator position to being a staff nurse on the floor. I left that position for the same reasons many mentioned in their comments, politics, nembers, no one standing up for patients and nurses. I am glad to be back to floor nursing and hope I can get my passion for nursing back. Thank You.

Posted By: Donita P on 3 15, 2011

Hello Fellow Colleagues: I can certainly appreciate most everything that was said in these posts. I too believe that God has assignments for all of us. If you are certain that you are in the wrong field, why not pursue additional education or change your field to something different within nuraing. That is one of the big pluses of being a nurse; there are SO many opportunities. I, too, have felt burned out and have been the victim of colleagues misunderstanding me and bullying me. So, instead of doing the same old "reacting", I am writing an article about it and trying to do something about it. When people hurt people, I believe it is generally because they have been hurt in the past. In addition, there are those folks who need to feel better about themselves, and just like in kindergarden, bully others to increase their self-esteem. I think that the trick is not to take things personally and to always take a look within ourselves to ensure that we have not done something to offend. Good luck to all of you and may God Bless You!

Posted By: Suzanne C on 3 14, 2011

I am 62 and plan on working until I'm 70. I love nursing. I don't like the politics, and anyone who will do anything to cover up mistakes rather than admit guilt. I have been terminated from 3 of the 4 jobs. The first because I dd not believe that an order reading, "ASA 5 suppository BID for 14 days" meant to give the patient 5 suppositories at one time 2 X a day, and the only one who didn't do that. I was fired from another when a nurse I followed failed to give a patient her morning meds. She charted they were given, but there they sat in a cup in the med cart. Instead of correcting the charting, she scooped up the meds and gave them at 8PM, when they were due at 8 AM. She then proceeded to take the MAR and leave with it. I was harrassed and threatened by the ward clerk and another RN if I said anything. That was my second night on the job. The charge nurse lied to the unit director, and covered up. When I spoke up about being threatened to my director, she was ready to bring it to HR and said there would be an investigation. When she got back to me the next day, all she said was, "I can't use you." The last termination happened after I found 2 amputees with necrotic tissue that no one had mentioned or charted. One patient went back to surgery the next day. The other patient was sent home "to heal." That patient came back to the hospital for more surgery within a couple of weeks. About 2 months after that, I was railroaded by the head of Human Resources. I was asked to go back on orientation for 4 weeks by my unit director one Friday morning. I had been at the hospital for 13 months and had completed the 6 week orientaton and had been working with no issues. She kept telling me, "You don't know how big this is." She said my 'work was not satisfactory', but would not give me anything specific. How can you correct anything if you don't know what the problem is? The following Monday morning, I was called into another meeting with my director. She said we had to wait for someone else. Turned out to be the head of HR. She adivsed me that for the remainder of the 4 week period, I was on 'probation' and not on orientation. I still had to work under other nurses though. Everyone, including the second in command on the unit, said I was not going to be fired and that my work was fine. The day before the last day of the 4 week period, I was told to meet my unit director in the HR office. Yep. I was terminated. My director sat across from me at the side of the head of HR and told me 3 times...."Please understand this is not coming from me." Of course I realized they had wanted me to quit, but I didn't want to. I told my director that when she hired me that I was looking for a good place to work until I retired some 6 to 8 years down the road. I told her I really hoped she liked me because I had no plans on leaving. At the 'exit' meeting, the director said she talked to the rest of the staff and they all liked me. Big whoop. That and a buck fifty would get me a cup of coffee. I ended up being forced to sell my home that I dearly loved. I am very angry. I am extremely disappointed in a profession and with people that I have worked with, cried with, and everything else for 18+ years. And now, to ad insult to injury, my track record makes it look like I'm not worth employing. I didn't cover all the backstabbing and horrible games played, even to the point of using patients to get what other nurses wanted. It's unbelievable to know that people in 'our' profession can be so mean and cruel. It's also scary to think what it says about patient care and concern by our profession.

Posted By: J C on 3 14, 2011

I have been in the nursing field for 42 yrs, so I have seen some major changes. I am now 5 yrs from retirement, and it won't come fast enough. In our hospital, I feel like nothing more than a number, easy to replace, and much less exspensively at that. These days I see the floor nurses over worked, stressed, and micromanaged by managers who don't have a clue. I am so distressed about recieving patients from the floor who have been hospitalized for days, who have not had their teeth brushed, bathed, or shaved. Yet management is hammering at them to do on time charting or be written up. They have laid off most of the ancillary nursing staff, so it all falls on the RN, who cannot possibly give good care to such a large number of patients. Life now is about budgets, cost cutting, and watching your back. I find younger nurses lack dedication, and have a lack of work ethic. Who wouldn't with these conditions, and older nurses always eating their young. If it weren't for the satisfaction I get from interactions with patients, I would not be doing this.

Posted By: Linda S on 3 21, 2011

I a nurse of 27yrs experience. What I found the nurses coming out of nursing school are learning how to write papers instead of learning how to take care of patients. So, when they are on the floor they don't have a cue on what to do. Where the compencies, obvisiously not being taught by the school.

Posted By: Mel F on 4 30, 2011

I graduated nursing school in 2008. I worked in three different nursing homes and finally decided I would never put another application into one of those places. At that point I thought it was the places I was working that made me cry going in and cry coming home. I recently got a job in a hospital rehab unit and am still on orientation. I am just sick and miserable constantly. I just don't know what to do. I hate it so bad. The other nurses there are mean to each other and me. They make me feel like I'm stupid. I mean I know I have a lot less experience than they do but I'm regularly belittled by them. I would rather make $10 an hour doing something I love than go through this another day. I have never had a problem with depression but I think I might be experiencing it. I'm so sad all the time. My worst fear is disappointing everyone around me(family). And we need the income... I just am so torn. I can't stay this miserable. I just want out!

Posted By: Donna B on 6 30, 2011

It seems the summary is that 1. New grads need to see this as calling not job to find satisfaction and understand older nurses. 2.Employers need to see us as unique,valued people not cogs.Quarterly profits do reflect miracles and lives changed. 3.Public needs to see nursing not as a service that is to report on Press-Ganey but caring that makes you walk when you are scared,forbids burger when not farting,gives shots that sometimes sting and all this is what is supposed to happen.

Posted By: Cheryl C on 8 15, 2011

I chose nursing as a second career. After graduating with honors from Case Western Reserve, I have spent about ten of the past 15 years as an oncology nurse. I have been searching for work for the past two years but no one wants me. Since hospitals don't know me, I suspect it is due to my age and gender. Does anyone know of an employer who has hired a male nurse in his sixties?

Posted By: kenneth n on 2 22, 2012

Nowadays, being a nurse isn't much difference from being a mechanic on an assembly line. Except that mechanic probably gets paid better, gets benefits, and more respect! Do it again? No way!

Posted By: Margie D on 2 23, 2012

I have been an RN for 31 years. Prior to that, I was an LPN for 9 years. I am sorry I didn't leave nursing before I got my RN. Nurses not only eat their young, many of them are vicious and bullies due to unhappiness, insecurity and abuse in their personal lives. Most of the managers I have worked for have been micromanagers and bullies. I currently work in a position in a hospital where I have my dream manager and dream co-workers. I will be retiring in a few years. I'm sorry I did not find this position earlier. This is the first time I have felt nursing was a career. I have a 7 year old niece. I will direct her towards medicine be it human or vet medicine. I don't want to see her go through what I have gone through. I would never direct a young person towards nursing.

Posted By: Nancy W on 2 23, 2012

I started my medical career as a Navy Hospital corpsman/surgical technologist when I was 20 years old. I then went to school to be a Medical Lab tech. I got bored with that and in 1998, I went back to school to get my RN, which I should have done a long time ago. I have been in medicine for almost thirty years, but I did not take the time to settle down and have a family. I am almost fifty years old, newly married and unable to have children. I worked so much for so long that I am physically unable to work at all. Therefore, I can't even afford to adopt. I am very grateful that I was able to experience and do all that I have, but I have great regret in not taking the time to settle down until it was too late. I feel blessed to have been in the ranks of God's angels on earth. God Bless each and everyone of you.

Posted By: Teresa B on 2 23, 2012