The Effects of Nursing on Nurses
Hi, welcome to my blog post. I have never had a blog post get more than 50 comments, so I am a bit overwhelmed. After responding to many comments, here is a note:
Note: I wrote this blog entry at the end of my 3rd 12 hour shift in three days. I was tired and I was emotional. It is a blog post, not an “article.” It is not researched or sourced, it is purely opinion.
The point of this post is that nurses (and many other professions) need to take the time to practice self care and to encourage one another to practice self care.
My biggest mistake in this post (and there are many) was to use “her” or “she” when I should have used “they” or them.” I ignored my male coworkers, and I should not have. You have my apologies, and I have corrected the post. I have left “she” and “her” in place in the portion where I talk about my coworker.
I have read every comment posted and deleted some very nasty comments that were not helpful to conversation. If you feel this is the place to spew your vitriol, it is not.
August 11, 2013
This morning, while I was giving report to the day shift nurse taking over my patients, she burst into tears.
She’s going to miss her children’s hockey play offs due to our strictly enforced every other weekend schedules. You work every other weekend, no more, no less, unless you are going to college (I work every weekend because I’m in college). She’s their hockey coach, and inevitably, each year, their last game falls on a day their mother has to work. I’ve come in early for her before.
So I offered to come in on my night off for an hour and a half so she could get to the game. I’m coming in that early because I know she won’t be done charting.
She turned me down until another day RN got involved. I reminded my coworker I only live a mile from the hospital, and it really wasn’t a big sacrifice for me. She finally agreed, and calmed down. We got permission from the charge nurse.
Nursing is one of the largest professions in the world. If you don’t know a nurse, I’m really surprised. Nurses talk a lot about the rewards of nursing. Catching that vital sign, saving lives, providing comfort, but nurses, by nature, are taught to martyr themselves on the altar of nursing.
When I was a new grad, I hated coming to work so much that I would wish I’d get hit by a car on my way to work just to get out of work. One night, while checking medication sheets, I confessed this to some experienced nurses and found out some of them still felt the same way.
In nursing, it is NORMAL to have days where you wake up and just can’t mentally and emotionally face the day at work. I swear, the only other people who can understand this are nurses.
Nursing is emotionally, physically and mentally taxing, and some days you run too low on what you can give emotionally, physically and mentally. That minor back injury you don’t want to report to HR because you don’t want it on your record. Having a patient with constant diarrhea who can’t get out of bed and needs to be physically rolled and cleaned several times an hour. The cold you got from the two-year old someone brought in. The sorrow that comes from supporting someone who has just found out they were dying, holding in your own tears so you could wipe theirs. In one day, all of those patients could be yours.
I don’t know a nurse who hasn’t taken a mental health day. Some do it by requesting more vacation than others. Some do it by calling in sick, but it’s all time off because we are too drained to give anymore.
So if you know a nurse, and that nurse mentions to you that they feel like calling in because they just can’t take it another day, don’t give them a hard time. Especially if you have an 8-5 job with weekends off or some other really great schedule. The 12 hour shifts nurses work mean we miss the entire holiday we work with our families. Night shift nurses have to choose between holiday dinners or sleep. Often, if a nurse chooses to sleep rather than go to the holiday dinner, guilt ensues. Even though I’ve told my mother-in-law repeatedly that every nurse has to work holidays, she makes a point to say how horrible it is my husband has to be alone for a few hours. What about me? Working my ass off while everyone else celebrates?
We work hard. We are intentionally understaffed by our hospitals to improve profit, even if the hospital is a non-profit. We help people at the worst times of their lives, and often have no way to debrief, to get it off our chests. We don’t just bring warm blankets and pills. We are college educated, degreed professionals who are often treated like uneducated, lazy servants. We get sexually harassed by our patients. We get groped, punched, cut, I even know of a nurse on my floor being strangled (she survived).
Nursing can be rewarding. But nursing is a fucking hard job. If you are afraid of healthcare rationing, you should know it is already happening. Nurses are unable to give everyone the care they need, so patients with smaller problems may not get the same level of care. A nurse may be pressed to only give the minimum amount of care to a patient if they have 5 or more very sick patients. If you don’t want healthcare rationing, talk to your local hospitals about their nurse to patient ratios. Talk to your doctors. If you hear of legislation to support nurse to patient ratios, vote for it. Support it.
So if a nurse needs a day off, you support them. If you’re in a position to help like I was this morning, do so. If you are a nurse, go easier on yourself when you think about the things you didn’t finish, or the things you should have said. It’s a 24-hour a day job and you don’t have to do it alone.
As of January 27, 2014, this post is no longer accepting comments. I am doing this as a practice of self care. Tending to this blog post, several times a day, has become a burden. It has had over 2 million hits, and I am tired. The post has become a platform for people who want to propel their own agendas and are using my space to do so. Thanks to all who said such nice things, and to everyone else, go write your own blog.
Posted on August 11, 2013, in Nursing and tagged Health care, Nursing, registered nurse. Bookmark the permalink. 2,612 Comments.
ofcourseitsaboutyou 
This is why my mom is totally my hero. She not only has been a nurse since I was a baby, but got two degrees (associates when I was in kindergarten, bachelors when I was in around 3rd grade) but had and raised five kids. Now, she’s still nursing and taking care of my diabetic step-dad, whose cancer of the mesentery has recurred. She tried a lot to be supermom, and failed to live up to her own standards, but she is the standard for her children. We do tell her frequently, by the way.
CNAs grok this, too. At least where I worked. We were the ones who did vitals, range of motion, patient turning, any soiled cleaning/toileting of patients, feeding, bathing, etc. and were the functional unit secretary because admin didn’t believe it was necessary after 5p to have clerical support. All for $10/hr (if you worked nocshift) in usually consecutive, but not always, 12 hour shifts.
It sucked ass. I loved my job sometimes. But I also really hated it. And I hated getting asked why someone “like me” (which always meant “smart”) was doing a job “like that” (which always meant unimportant, unskilled work). I used to say the economy, but I actually got to the point that I’d point out that having a smart CNA can be hella handy and if they were paid better and more appreciated, they wouldn’t have such high turnover.
Sorry. That’s my personal rant. If admin treated all nursing/nursing support better, the whole thing would function better. Adequate pay and staffing would be a kickass investment in the overall health of not only nurses/assistants, but people in general.
Agreed the PCA’s,aides do perform a lot of the dirty work, vitals etc. I am a nurse but was a aide before becoming a nurse and one reason that I became a nurse is because I enjoyed the hands on care. As a nurse now though , I do help with doing vitals, assisting pts to BR, cleaning them up, etc. Nursing today is supposed to be pt centered but at my workplace, in my eyes it is computer centered. Everything we do has to be documented at bedside on a computer – assessments, teaching and educating etc. And if it is not documented it is considered not done.
Absolutely agree with you, techs are so underrated! The job you are doing WAS nursing 30 years ago minus passing meds. The whole nursing profession has changed and morphed from its origins due to the increasing knowledge and technologies that are at our disposal today. Thank you.
Today’s nursing profession is no longer just a physical job of comforting a sick person like it was 30 years ago. Now the RN’S job is primarily based on knowing, really knowing and understanding the normal and abnormal pathophysiology of the human body and how that can be made to change from all the various diseases, treatments and procedures of medicine. 30 years ago only doctors had to understand the why and how, today so do nurses. This is why it is important to have good techs working with us so the physical comforting of the sick is not overlooked while we respond to the mental tasks that are demanded of us so the patient can be cared for well. This can make a capable tech think we nurses are not doing anything except charting and passing meds when in fact we are busy mentally understanding, assessing, planning and acting on the patients constantly changing condition while they are under our care. With the increasing abilities of medicine to improve and increase health (remember only a century ago that many of our patients today would have long before died) it takes both the mental and physical aspect to adequately take care of the increasingly complex acute care patient. We do not need to fight, we need to recognize each others strengths and work together in order to survive these stressful jobs.
I love that you used “grok.” 🙂
I’ve been in subacute/longterm care for about 3 months, and I’m already emotionally at the end because of everything I see, and yet I still have the energy to get up out of bed five days a week to go back to work! And I have 15 to 20 patients to take care of. It takes a toll, and only other nurses really understand what it’s like!
pshh why do ppl say that…why do you think non nurses wont understand? what about the patients? it’s not like they WANT to be there. some nurses are NOT passionate and are not in it for the right reasons and every patient is not some burden. the patients are human, just like the nurses. nurses need their downtime. ive seen what it’s like from both sides
Subacute LTC is the Med-Surg of yrs past….grueling, physical & mentally exhausting. I found it to be the most challenging area of nursing & also the most disrespected.
This is the same for CNA’s as well. Im sorry if I offend but where I work we do the blunt of it all! The only things our nurses do is pass meds, assessments (NO VITALS WE DO THIS), and start IV’s plus charting. WE DO the hard labor and I am sick and tired of US not getting recognized! We make half of what they do an hour and we get treated like crap all the way around.
So keep crying about how stressful your job is while you make $20-30 an hour and your cna’s barely make $10 an hour
There are hospitals like mine that are RN driven and we don’t utilize techs in the way you described. We do it all no tech on many occasions. So, this article may have offended you but, there are nurses such as myself that this article does apply to. Write an article about CNAs and quit dogging what some RNs actually do. Just beause your hospital is different doesn’t mean it is untrue. Starting with checking labs, vitals, assessments, pulling chest tubes, pulling introducers, titrating drips, whiping bottoms, changing sheets, getting cussed at, recognizing an early stroke or MI, to not having time to eat lunch. It’s all in a days work. We even empty our own trash cans at the end of the day. Don’t be a negative nancy, understand that some nurses actually go through all of this.
Stop crying about your low wages until you spend $50K on schooling to get a bachelors degree in nursing.
Where I work the RN’s do primary care so WE do everything….when we are able to keep 1 tech they are only given X amount of patients, we still get at least 2 patients primary care. Maybe then you should go get your RN license like the rest of us since you are already doing all the work anyway.
As a nurse I have had some fantastic CNAs that made my job a million times easier, and I have also had some terrible ones that hide in unoccupied equipment rooms for the majority of the shift. While I am very grateful to the good CNAs, and express my gratitude regularly, I have yet to see a CNA stay for two hours charting after her shift is supposed to be over. In my experience, when the nurse is trying to scarf something down for lunch and her patient needs something, she skips the rest of her lunch to go back to work. If the CNA is called upon for something similar, she states “sorry, but I’m on my lunch right now.” You know what? That’s okay. The nursing degree and the extra $$ mean that some extra responsibility comes along with the job. However, it doesn’t mean that I’m not sick to death of reading posts like these about how CNA’s do basically the same job as nurses for less money and less recognition. Talk to any nurse who used to be a CNA and she will tell you, it just isn’t true.
Yeah lolarey, you actually did mean to offend so don’t preface with an apology. Like Jenna said, spend the money on the degree and then reap the benefits of a higher pay check. With that said, I beg to differ that all CNAs work as hard as you say you do just like not all nurses are lazy as you imply. I can do your job but you cannot do mine. In the court of law it’s my license at stake not your certificate. I can lose my livelihood while you can simply get recertified. So yes stop your petty bitching about the pay. While you may not have chosen this job due to whatever circumstance, it is still a choice. I chose to get my degree and guess what, 10yrs later I’m still paying for it.
I am sorry you feel like your RN’s don’t appreciate you. Every hospital I have worked at has no aides on night shift, and we have gotten to the point that we don’t have any on day shift either. $10 an hour isn’t a lot of money, but neither is $20-$30 an hour as an RN, which is always closer to $20 unless you have worked there for 30 yrs. I know that it is usually a choice to either pay my mortgage, or pay the student loan company that continually calls, my student loans cost more than my house. RN’s don’t just pass meds, chart, and do IV’s, we are the ones calling the doctors in the middle of the night that yell at us, it is us who management continually tells us needs to improve and that we are getting dinged one more time for something pharmacy did, and we are also the ones who get pulled into court where there is a lawsuit because of our documentation doesn’t prove us innocent than we must have done it or not done it if we forgot to chart it. Again on behalf of RN’s everywhere thank you for the work you do, but the next time a patient falls remember it is the RN who will be coming into meeting during the day when she should be sleeping, and getting yelled at by administration even though it was the doctor who ordered the Ambien for that person, and because the poor soul was bleeding profusely, she took him down to the ER where at the time there was no patients, and he is the only doc in the hospital and got yelled at for bringing the patient down. Trust me. Nursing is the only profession where you can have a degree and get treated like nothing.
You obviously don’t work in the ER where the nurses do EVERYTHING! We have degrees, you have certification. Go back to school for nursing and then make your comment.
That’s a completely ignorant statement grouping all nurses with the ones you work with. Try working in an ICU taking care of an intubated patient on 10 drips, constant infusion of blood products, dialysis pump running with no lunch or bathroom break for 12 hours. And that extra $10 more they may make, took them at least ten years to get to that point. What other profession only gives a dollar a year raise? You do not have a degree , therefore you get paid less. If you don’t like it, go work at Mcdonalds for your $10/hour.
Yes, I make a good wage but I have been doing it for 34 years. Hospitals are all about customer service these days. Some people you will never be able to please. If a patient is unhappy nurses are called into the managers office because of it. It’s all about money. Medicare penalizes hospitals if patient survey questions are not answered between 9-10. If the hospital loses money who gets blamed, you’re right the nurses, There are lots of nurses on antideprssants and antianxiety agents. Now you know why.
To Lolaray, I’m sorry but your comments were laughable and extremely insulting to me. First of all, tell me how much longer an RN’s schooling is compared to a CNA? Even for an ADN nurse, two YEARS to complete prerequisites and another two years of nursing school. How long is a CNA program? 6 weeks? 12 weeks tops? I rest my case there. Secondly, you said “the only thing our nurses do is pass meds, assessments (NO VITALS WE DO THIS) and start IV’s plus charting” I love how you use the word ONLY. Do you know how many types of meds we give? Do you know the correct doses? Their side effects? How do certain meds affect lab values? If a patient is receiving Solumedrol, what’s an expected WBC or glucose level? If a patient is on Digoxin, what is the normal blood level range? What are signs of Digoxin toxicity? If a patient has a low potassium, would you give or hold Digoxin? What meds can’t be given together? Do you know when or why a certain med needs to be held based on a physical assessment or a change in vital signs? Do you know how fast certain meds work in the body? How fast to push different IV meds safely? How to titrate an IV drip? I could keep asking you rhetorical questions about everything involved with passing a med but let’s move on to “all we do are assessments” Let me start off by saying doctors of course diagnose medical problems and order treatments for those problems. However doctors are not with the patients for 12 hours. A patient’s condition can change in an instant from stable to unstable and RNs (not CNAs) are responsible for recognizing those changes and acting quickly. We have to meticulously asses our patients and pick up on the slightest changes. Sooooo do you know signs and symptoms of most major diseases? Could you tell when a patient is starting to go septic? What are signs of a declining patient? Could you recognize a patient having a stroke vs. hypoglycemia? What orders would you expect from a doctor if a patients goes into rapid Afib? How do the lungs sound in a patient with CHF vs. PNA vs. COPD? If a patient suddenly goes into pulmonary edema, how does that look clinically? What do you do? What does unilateral vs. bilateral leg swelling mean? What’s the difference between and unstageable pressure ulcer and a stage 4 pressure ulcer? What are abnormal ABG results? Do you have to know normal ranges for lab values? Do you know when a lab value is critical? Do you know when or why to call a doctor regarding a critical lab value? Do CNA’s have to call a doctor when they notice they a detrimental change in their patient? Do CNAs have to know when to call a doctor at all? In any instance? The answer is NO!!! Thirdly, let me address “all we do is start IVs” What if your “hard stick” ESRD patient is going for a STAT CT scan with IV contrast and they need 20G IV? Trust me, it is way easier said than done. Do CNA’s know how to put in a Foley? NG tube? What is a Wet to Dry dressing change? Do you know how to change a wound vac? Do you know how to safely change a chest tube Atrium? What do you do if a chest tube is detached from the patient? Would you know how to draw blood from a PICC line?
The questions I’m asking you are probably 1% (if not less) of everything an RN has to know in order to safely and proactively take care of patients? On top of all that, we have to chart every little thing we do and see.This takes a lot of patience and a lot of time. Please don’t get me wrong, CNA’s are crucial to our work. Your assistance to us is invaluable at times. Every RN would agree with me when I say that a good CNA can make a 12 hour shift infinitely better. But please do not question why we make more money than CNAs. Please do not assume that we never get dumped on? Please do not say that we are always recognized for our work. We make more money for a myriad of reasons and we are always under recognized and overly dumped on.
P.S. A little word of advice to you Lolaray, never start off a sentence by saying “RN’s ONLY have to…” because we will speak up and we will put you in your place.
My name is Jeremy. I’ve been an RN for a year and a half on a Respiratory Med/Tele floor. I was just hired in the ICU.
I was a CNA for YEARS. With 20+ patients all to myself, heavy med surg / Tele sick and confused patients. I’m now a nurse & long for the days of my CNA work. Get a degree & you’ll see it’s not as easy as you make it out to be!!
Not cool- yes, in SNFs, the CNAs do have to take a good deal of the brunt because the RN has meds to pass for 20-30 patients!!! But in hospitals they only have the one CNA for a whole half unit and the nurse has to do a lot of the CNA type duties. Hell, I’m a PT and I toilet people A LOT cause I know the nurses are just at the end of their rope and I want to help. Not cool to slam this article, Lolaray
I have just spent five weeks with my dying Father and the girls who did all of the real nursing were not the nurses. The nurses were wonderful but they administered meds, did all of the administration work required of them and worked with the Palliative care team. I have great respect for everyone who works in the medical field but it was not nurses who sat with Dad, changed him, fed him, washed him, rubbed cream on his skin, did the laundry, tidied the room, lifted him, even pushed to get the bed that he and they needed. Everyone has a different story depending on their experience within with our medical system. I have nothing but praise for all of the staff who cared for our Dad, who just left us two days ago. This was my experience.
I work in an ICU and we do not staff a CNA, so we nurses do complete patient care. I love the rare occasions we get a CNA to work with us though! I worked as an aide in a nursing home while going to college, so I know what it’s like. But yes, as another person mentioned, we have spent a LOT on college to earn what we do!! And the risk of lawsuits is so much higher for nurses over CNAs!!
I recognize your hard work, I was a CNA before I became a nurse, so I see both sides. I work with CNAs that have more than 10 patients and I see the struggle. But it seems you did not read or even attempt to see or understand her point. Not all nurses just sit on their butts or as you put it, just “pass meds and do assessments”. There is a great deal of responsibility in those two things you feel are so minor by your tone – if we give someone the wrong medication they could die, if we don’t do our assessments correctly, we could miss something and the patient could have a negative outcome. That falls on the NURSES, not the CNA. There is a great deal that we do that you do not see. And it upsets and saddens me that that is all you see (“passing meds & assessments”). This is the same tired stereotype that is placed on the nursing profession, that causes it to be seen as a “lazy” profession. It is statements like yours that cause the profession not to get the respect that it deserves. During those heavy times for the CNA, ALL of the nurses I work with rally to assist with OUR patients. I’m sorry if the nurses are like that where you work. If you are sick of not getting credit…become a nurse then. THEN and ONLY THEN will you see what it is truly like to be a nurse. Maybe you’ll even second guess your comments. When you are commenting on a post such as this – please try not to make generalizing comments. And yes, I am offended.
One more thing….it may not have been clear how I felt about my CNAs with whom I work – I LOVE THEM!!!! It is true, on a hard day, I wouldn’t make it without them.
Lolaray, I have a lot to say to you but I need to be professional. Keep your ignorance in check. I was a CNA and I thought it was tough. Nursing entails a lot of dynamics. You report your VS to your nurse whose job it is to treat that pt. Nurses are constantly held responsibe for everyone’s mistakes. I remain in Nursing because I love it ans I am so proud to call myself a NURSE. I have never regretted making this choice and I cannot think of what to do.I am sure most nurses feel this way, it is not just about the money. Healtvare cannot survive withoit nursing services. We make that wheel turn
If you do not like what you are doing or your pay rate go to school.
While I agree 100% everyone is valuable, please don’t confuse being able to perform tasks with being able to assess a patient’s condition accurately and understand physiologically what is going on with the patient and what the next appropriate steps are to correct the situation.
Nurses are college educated, state licensed professionals with continuing education requirements. There is a reason we get paid more and have degrees. When is the last time a physician, nurse manager, patient family member, or you held yourself responsible for an adverse outcome? Understand wet are the ones responsible for our patients.
I worked as a cna for 3 years before I became a nurse. I know a cna’s job is hard, but they don’t have the responsibility of a nurse. Man I miss the days of saying, oh I can’t handle this let me get your nurse.
We won’t stop wining about it. Worked as a CNA 12 hour shifts while putting myself thru nursing school and had three kids and a husband. So if u want to complain about the $10/hr you are making then maybe you should go to school.
A CNA does not have the knowledge or skill set that a professional nurse has nor do they have the years of education that is required to do that job. That is the reason for the difference in pay. Professional nurses bear the responsibility for their patients and for the actions of who they delegate tasks to. It is pretty simple to figure out, more responsibility equals more pay. Nursing is hard and it doesn’t matter if you are on the top rung or the bottom rung. If you interact with patients and their needs it is taxing.
I would be pissed if I only made $20-30 an hour … CNAs can go to school for nursing if they want and make more money. You are obviously very ignorant if you think that what we do is “all you do.” I was a CNA for years on a busy hospital unit before I was a nurse and I know it is not easy, but being an RN is definitely more stressful because of the the responsibility that is in our hands (btw we are technically responsible for making sure that your tasks are done as well) and critical thinking skills that it requires in addition to juggling skills and decisions that can be life-threatening if not completed in a particular manner. You really need to check yourself, then educate yourself, Lolaray.
As a nurse it would never make it thru my shift without a hardworking STNA orCNA doing most of the hands on care. There is so much more to being a nurse than what you say but put a good nurse together with a good aide and you have a great team that gets the job done.
Go back to school and get your hard earned degree then, that’s what I did. I started out as a CNA too! And for the record I work in a critical care unit in a hospital that has no aide we do it all!
I’m truly sorry for the way yall get treated, 1ST I did not choose nursing! It chose me, I babysat an cared for the elderly as a teen an cldnt wait to turn 18 an get my CNA! MVA followed, % 50 compression fx T6&T12 yr.in bed learning to walk over again which haunted my love, passion, an performance as too the lifting nonstop. I refused to give up so it was time to move on an get my LPN… I was treated poorly by the CNAs because I went to same SNF I was a CNA@an became Charge Nurse of my unit. I was treated so poorly by so called team players (CNAs) so called licensed professionals, which i call haters dont be mad because we make more money okay just because I busted my ass to get thru sch I wasn’t going to let non team players take my joy ( they still succeeded later) I moved on an found many welcoming nurses. 24 yrs later…60k student debt I just passed my Exits an am awaiting for NCLEX! You will get respect if you earn it and I eventually did! You have to have a functional team anywhere you go. So quit complaing an go to school, suck it up! Wasn’t easy an I’m 50 y/o now! Look in your heart an soul maybe it’s not for yyou.Respectfully J.Michaels LPN/GN
Depending on where you work, nurse assistants can help nurses out A LOT, but not all nurses treat them like crap. I am sorry you have had bad experiences, but that does not apply to all nurses at all. I work as a nurse assistant while I am in nursing school, and the nurse has different/more responsibilities. The nurses I work with in the ICU appreciate everything I help them with, but they do not expect me to do all the dirty work for them when they are perfectly capable of doing it; when they are very busy, I enjoy doing everything I can for them. Now I have floated to the floor and experienced some nurses that expect me to do all their dirty work while they are not even busy, but this is not the norm. CNAs are part of the healthcare team and have their own importance to the team; if you are being treated like crap, voice your concerns. Do not put down all nurses because I know plenty of wonderful nurses that appreciate all the help assistants give them.
I am a RN, been for 3 yrs now, I worked as a CNA before this in a hospital and never once thought I deserved more than a nurse. I did everything you mentioned as a CNA and also was paid very little but I knew then and still know now that nurses need CNA’s, they are their right hand. I do understand your feelings but also I need to tell you that I have worked with many CNA’S and their are good ones and their are not such good ones, what I mean is the ones who think like you are, have chips on their shoulders and nurses like myself do not want their help, especially when we are questioned about everything we ask and have eyes rolled at us, no I will not seek out their help I will do it myself, also you stated that nurses just pass meds and do assessments and chart well, yes, we do pass meds but we also are responsible to check say a heart rate or BP before we give those meds that effect those vitals and more. Assessment to me is the most important part of a nurses job that’s when we make sure we see, hear and feel head to toe, and it lets us have that time to get to know the patient. Charting…… Ugg! Don’t even get me started, most nurses I know hate charting b/c there is just way too much of it, and believe me we really don’t like it. Lastly, I am not arguing just straightening it out that yes nurses do get more money than CNAs but I don’t think of it that way, I got into healthcare b/c I really like helping people get better, and love being a nurse, also,I loved being a CNA.
Why don’t you go to nursing school and stop griping. Nurses get paid more because we go to school for 4 years to learn how to critically think and ultimately the liability for patient care and outcomes lies with us. Everything you do a nurse can do but you can only do a fraction of what we can do. So stop the pity party, get an education become a real nurse and then you will understand.
if you feel under appreciated maybe that’s more on you and not the nurses you work with? or MAYBE you work for a terrible institution with not so great RN’s (that’s certainly a real thing sometimes). i work in a place where our RN’s and our MA’s work side by side and incredibly well together. i value the help i get from MA’s and CNA’s. if you want to bitch about the way your place is run – go find a place to work where you CAN be appreciated.
A.) RNs carry MUCH more responsibility than techs. Yes we do have degrees, but the responsibility, liability, and critical thinking is what we are getting paid more for.
B.) You may feel like you are doing the hard work, but at most hospitals that is not the case. On my PCU unit we have 3-5 patients per RN and only have an aid about 50% (because we are ALWAYS understaffed) of the time. Even on the days we do have an aid we are still expected to take 2 patients to do all care on because our CNAs complain about having a 23 bed unit alone. I was a CNA three years through nursing school so I get it…you feel like you do a lot for a little….but RNs do a TON more. And you will never understand what is on our shoulders unless you become a nurse.
Get an education and you can come get a taste of what nurses endure on a daily basis. Just because you do the blunt of the physical labor does not mean you deserve to be in my position. If I had time to do your job and mine, then guess who would no longer be needed. That being said, Thank you to all cnas and pcts. Without you a nurses job would be unbearable.
Totally ageee & It totally chapps my ass when I inform the nurse of an issue going on with a resident ( blood in stool, pain, weak, etc) and they do nothing because they don’t want to get off their ass to attend to them….yet we are their first line of defence! And the resident suffers because of it ! CNA’s ARE TOTALLY WAY UNDER PAID !
Get a degree of some kind. I used to be a cna as well, and i got my bsn, now working on my msn. If you don’t like they way things are, help change it.
Hi there, Lolaray.
At my hospital, we share one aide, who primarily does vitals, takes patients on walks, and empties drains. The nurses do the majority of vital signs and patient care. I am sorry you feel you are treated poorly at your job. I worked as a tech prior to becoming a nurse and I know the work can be backbreaking, thankless, and very hard. This is why I ALWAYS check on my aide, and always thank them for their work.
This is similar to how (unpaid) single parents of children with high needs feel, though nurses have to travel to do their jobs and have to deal with strangers, often numerous during a shift. That’s a whole different level of support, particularly when it comes to physical care and/or behavioural issues. I will never forget the nurses who were there for me when I had my babies and surgeries, nor the folks who came in and cleaned up any accidents that took place and did so all while reassuring me that all would be fine. Nurses and other healthcare workers are an incredible breed for which I’m truly thankful.
As a large animal Veterinarian in a busy Dairy Practice for 30+ years, I can relate to this article very well. Every other night, every other weekend on call, thats 24/7 not just an 8 or 12 hour shift. On farm surgery, recumbent cows, difficult deliveries, all hours, all weather, the physical and mental and emotional stresses were huge. Ambulatory Practice as well so hours of on the road between farms in all weather conditions. The only time we did not respond to emergencies was when the Sheriff Dept closed the roads. My oldest sister a PICU nurse, and my youngest sister, Coronary ICU nurse. I guess we all thrive on challenges. Nurses are my hero’s and now my daughter is starting her Nursing Career in OB. I guess she saw enough Bovine standing C-sections!!
Imagine the stress on the farmers…….looking after the farms 24/7/365.
Wow you said it! I work in nursing and what pisses me off is when you get attitude from an RN because you called in sick and she now has to replace you..they should be the ones to understand..
I understand if you are sick occasionally but not if it is every week. If you are burned out, get a new job don’t repeatedly leave your co-workers hanging. That is unacceptable.
Stop whining, Toughen up. Suck it up. You are not the only ones who have to sacrifice to make a living. It is dog eat dog in the nursing profession as it is in every other profession. Don’t like it??? Get out of it. No one is forcing you to stay.
R u a nurse?? Way to care!!!!!!!!!!
You, sir/ma’m, are the ignorant buffoon this article is attempting to put some sence into. I hope none of us find you in an empty parking lot/ back alley some day….
Wow if this the level of empathy you give to your fellow nursing professionals, I shudder to think of what your attitude is like with patients. “Suck it up – lots of people get cancer and die!” If the job has made you that callus then maybe you should consider getting out.
Wow seriously?? Until you hold a screaming child in your arms that you know is being abused and receiving a very very painful procedure to keep them alive ( most likely due to abuse), until you have held the hand of dying woman whose children can’t make it because they dont want too, until you work with no sleep (because of the horrors you experienced that day) and still save lives ( which btw could and most likely will be yours someday) do not ever say we are whining or to toughen up. A nurse is one of the toughest people you will ever meet in your life and if we choose to let people know what we do is hard and that we make sacrifices we most assurdely will do so. While I know that others sacrifice as well we do so while we hold hands, wipe tears, calm the scared and help someone come into life or to depart from it, all the while we must stay strong because the other patients are waiting in the next room. We give our time with our children, families and loved ones to do this for others families and loved one. Not whining by any means at all and I truely pray that your nurses are always compassionate when they needed dear. We speak out so we can keep our compassion and go to the next patient with love and care, not a cold heart or uncaring attitude. And if every nurse that got frustrated or upset, didnt like working weekends and holidays got out, you and every one around your would suffer. Trust me on that!
You’re a troll.
you choose your profession not me. I don’t feel sorry for you at all. You did your own choosing, I don’t have to suffer for you.
a nurse also doesn’t need to treat you with extra care remember that
Apparently you have never needed a nurse? Better hope you never do cause you would not get the care all patients deserve, from me with that attitude. How about taking your uneducated self to a hospital and see what nursing does for healthcare! Trust me most doctors will kill you because they spend 5 minutes writing orders while the nurses are the ones truly doing the care! And I will say the CNAs do a lot of work too in caring for the patients with the nurse. However in the ED the techs spend more time getting out of work than actually helping so as the RN I just assume to do the work right and myslef than ask anyone else. It is a thankless job and remember the RN is the one medicating you so when you don’t get your pain meds you will know why!
Thank you for this. 6 months into working and after graduation I feel like this and I am thrilled that I found your blog and I am not alone… And that this is normal (somewhat I suppose). God bless nurses. I pray if I do nothing good on my shift I don’t do anything to harm any of my patients ever.
This is why nursing will never truly be a profession. I don’t hear this kind of public whining and demanding of sympathy from Accountants, Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, etc. The hours are what they are. Funny, that we only hear the sob stories and complaints, but never about how the three, four and five days off in a row mommy spent with her kids. I used to be in finance before I became a nurse. I worked much longer hours and missed a lot more family events. The rest of the world has it bad too. Enough.
You must be an amazing nurse.
How on earth can you say nursing isn’t a profession? We are, as the article states, college educated professionals. You’ve never heard an accountant complain around tax time? Never heard a doctor complain about medical school loans or long on call shifts? Never heard a lawyer complain about not becoming partner at a firm? Because I have, and never once have those complaints made me think they’re not members of a profession. What we do can only be done by those who hold a degree and are certified to be nurses. Yes there is a great deal of complaining which does irk me, but I find it highly offensive that you do not consider our work a profession.
Funny, I thought it was my license and the fact that someone pays me for my skills and expertise that make me a professional. And if you have never heard a physician complain – you must be a really new nurse.
lol SO TRUE!!! 🙂
Lawyers whine plenty!
I realize the educational requirements for lawyers…but $200/hr? Nurses have people’s lives in their hands….the pay should reflect that fact.
I’ve heard every one of these professionals complain. What planet doyou live on? I thank God every shift for my fellow nurses and Cna’s because we count on each other to get the job done. I don’t consider venting to each other “sob stories” We vent to each other to decompress so the bad attitude doesn’t find it’s way to the patients bedside. Maybe you should go back to finance, you seem to lack the empathy a good nurse needs.
Wow! You must be one of the nurses that got into it for the money because you obviously don’t give a shit. Too bad what you obviously don’t do or have to do is work MORE than just 3 shifts a week, like most nurses do and unfortunately HAVE to do. Clearly you just go to work to get your paycheck and go home. I feel sorry for the poor souls that ends up as your patients.
If you would have read the entire article, the point was that this job is physically, emotionally, and mentally taxing. When you were doing finance, were people punching you, screaming at you, and then did you have to wipe their rear and clean their vomit up, and comfort them… only to stay a little while longer to chart it all, losing an additional 2 hours of sleep (this week’s total sleep: 8 hrs)? I love my job and couldn’t imagine doing anything else, but we’re allowed to vent sometimes. Chill.
Perhaps you should go back to finance, doesnt sound as if I would want you to take care of my family if you are not a professional, where I come from we are licensed with a degree that I paid quite alot for. Actually am still paying for it. Not sure in finance when you were holding dying peoples hands or doing any of those emotionally draining things I do in nursing every day, but I will say my days off are spent recouping emotionally and physically so that I can go back and do it again. And I am not sure that any of us complaining or giving a sob story either. If you are a nurse at this time and dont miss family stuff or work long hours that exhaust you mentally and physically as well as make tons of money please send me an application, I most assuredly work at the wrong facility!!
OH you make me laugh!! Never heard a doctor complain?? they shouldn’t because they call the nurses to come in the room to assist with everything. I had to hold a patient in position while 5 YOUNGER THAN ME doctors stood there humming and hawing. I had a doctor tell me to reposition a patient because he couldn’t move them he had hurt his back..Well my neck and back are gone from pushing pulling lifting and assisting people. AS for the CNA in your dreams sister you are NOT doing all the work you only think you are..I do total care for 4 patients while my “tech” sits on the computer and reads and only gets up when I ask her to give me a hand.
I wasn’t looking for your sympathy in my blog post. This isn’t a magazine article, this was a call for nurses to practice better self-care. Yes, I could have written it better, but really, it was a way to deal with the emotion I was feeling at the time. Dealing with emotion through journaling is a much better idea than calling in and leaving my floor short or having it affect my patient care.
I have heard plenty of whining from accountants (my grandmother), lawyers (friends), engineers (my husband and his friends).
As far as the myth of how much time nurses get off work, plenty of nurses have stated here that working 3 12 hour shifts in a row often means you need to recover for a day. We work 36 hours in those 3 days, and often work enough OT to bring it to 40. So if a nurse, at the end of his or her shifts, feels the need to complain that they are tired, they are completely validated.
Reblogged this on wanderingquilter and commented:
My daughter is a nurse, and because of that, I know a bit – just a tiny bit – of what she goes through. There is a lot here to think about – especially when you need a nurse.
My daughter is an ER nurse, and wow. Thanks for putting it out for people to hear……
Thank you!! Thank you, thank you and thank you!!!
I completely believe that being a nurse is a calling. If you are going to nursing school because of the pay you are going to be very disappointed. Yes, the pay appears to be good, but when you have to figure out what you have to do for that pay it’s not near enough. For myself, I’ve been Unit Clerk/Registration/Admissions for the last 20 years, I’ve seen first hand how hard the nurses work and the little (if any) respect and acknowledgement they get. God bless all of you, CNA’s/LVN’s/RN;s..etc..you are truly angels from heaven.
well I for one am not a nurse, but happen to work in direct care, i care for the people that no one else wants to take care of, its a 24 hour day job and its not fun at times, but the rewards are just as great if none at all. I have been doing this for several years now and can tell you it’s no more rewarding than being a nurse or another health care professional.
I have at times worked those double shifts and back up again maybe after having about four to six hours of sleep for the ones that don’t have any family or are not a team player.
So what goes around comes around, i have been there several times with no holiday dinners or celebrations, so suck it up buttercup, you chose to be a nurse and i chose to be a direct care person
I can buy this up and to the part where you state that hospitals intentionally understaff for profit. Not true. Thin margins for hospitals are not made by cutting direct care positions. I have been a nurse for 30 years…and I’ve not seen a hospital yet that decides to cut nursing jobs to turn profit. Just not the reality.
I disagree. I am constantly told to downstaff because the budget does not support a 6:1 ratio on nightshift. They instead run us at a 9:1 ratio and call3 nurses off.
Sorry to bust your bubble but that is exactly what they do. With the new Obama care it is only going to get worse. The health care is definitely going to be rationed out.
You happen to work in a good hospital then. I’ve worked in many that do force us to work understaffed. I’ve worked shifts where I am the only nurse on a floor of 42 patients (thank the gods for my PSWs) because someone called in sick and the higher ups refuse to try to cover the shifts because anyone available to call would be overtime and they aren’t willing to pay it. It unfortunately happens, and in flu season and vacation season it can happen frequently. And when I’ve had to stay over my shift for one thing or another I’ve had my request for overtime pay denied so many times I don’t even bother to try to get it anymore.
It IS reality. When we are short staffed we can’t call in other nurses because there is NO overtime. It costs too much! Who cares about the price to the patient/resident!! Oh but when state is expected and we need to be working up to state guide lines for our inspection. You can bet your sweet a** they’re offering overtime. It’s ALL about money to the majority of the hospitals and long term facilities! Pay attention to administrations concerns. It’s $$$ and I understand money has to be made to continue services. But how much profit do they really need???
your dam right state coming your falling over people because they want to pass but other then that your always short staffed i had a don ask me to work a hall that usually has three nurses rehab and acute i told him where to stick it tracs and severe wounds mrsa not i told him i guess you better get the floor going heres the keys. well due their greedness which caused me severe injuries i guess ill be cutting into their profits so far 25000.00 in medical bills from an pt attack but i still love to be a nurse its my passion its what i was meant to do but now my dreamn is over.
Wrong answer………..and yes I have been a nurse for over 30 years.
I have been an LPN for 45 years and finally retired. No pension, no insurance, used my 401k up for multiple health problems, many of which were caused by many years of doing just what this article says. Nurses give up more than anyone but another nurse can understand. I loved being a nurse but my family always seemed to come second. Thank God for the people who take care of you and your family when you are sick or unable take care of yourself. We are here for you.
I have been a registered nurse for 26 years and yes nursing is difficult, but this is the occupation I have chosen. I was a nurse when there were no aides or CNAs. We did all the beds, baths, VS, respiratory treatments, housekeeping and PT. I have been at facilities with all RN staff. All I will say is that nursing is unique and yet rewarding. Nurses can do everything in a hospital, but not everyone can do what an RN does. I chose nursing because I chose to make a difference, It is not for money or notoriety. I started out as an associate degree RN and have become a doctorate prepared epidemiologist. I teach nursing and tell those who are about to graduate that nursing is not everything, but it is what you make it. I chose to make nursing the best occupation with some of the smartest people in the world performing that job. I aspire to be better than I am in nursing. Always improving….always striving to make a difference in a patient’s life. No more, no less. Remember….nursing is not always about you. there are always “things ” that are bigger than you. Caring for someone selflessly is always a calling. I still work on the unit at time so I can remember what floor nurses must endure. I am a hardcore medical surgical/ ICU nurse and will always be so. To the writer….do not breed disdain among the nurses. Bring us closer by sharing positive stories. Thank you
I’m an x-ray and MRI technologist at a large hospital and I have to say that most of this applies to us too. I’m just as educated as any nurse but often patients and nurses treat me like an ignorant button pusher. No not everyone can do an RN’s job but an RN also cannot do everything in the hospital. I know 100% that no RN could do my job just like I could not do an RN’s job. Try to remember that hospitals employ more than doctors, nurses and nursing aides.
Amen, sister !
I worked as a nurse for 20 years. NO CNA’s where I worked, You get paid according to the DEGREE you pursued and WORKED for in school. So let’s just stop whining about being an over worked CNA, advance your degree and become and overworked RN.
although I hear what you are saying, I never had the desire to become a Nurse. I enjoy being a Nursing assistant of 40 years. Value 80% of my Nurses! The ones who really care! I never complain about my wage, or my job. And I do RESPECT My Nurses
You are an ass
Wow! So many “suck it up” comments…..let’s try this…speak not of what you know not. If you’re not a nurse…don’t put your oar in, cause you don’t get it. And yes, there are times when mommy gets three or four days off In a row, but she’s a zombie for two cause she worked so many 12’s that turned into 16’s. And yea, you don’t hear many MDs or accountants complain cause they’re not on code brown patrol for their demented patient on isolation with c’diff who need to be cleaned up q15 mins while the attempt to crawl out of bed, wiping poo, lovely contaminated poo onto every surface…..and you have five or six other equally needy patients…. MDs and accountants also usually get to pee during their workday AND thy usually get to eat once in 12 hours…..not so for many nurses….Ohhhhhh yea…nurses have an EASY job…..Came to nursing as a career changer and it is by FAR the most challenging job I ever had. Good thing about nursing….lots of ways to be a nurse…after enough soul sucking codes in Critical Care, I left the bedside and won’t EVER go back for just these very reasons.
Been a RN 23+ years and healthcare only gets harder. It’s never about the patient instead it’s about the money. Insurance companies dictate care, not healthcare professionals. It’s sad to see how much healthcare has regressed yet the cost has increased. Document, document, document so you don’t get sued….RIDICULOUS….if I’d known then what I know now…I would have chosen a different profession but it’s not over til you die so maybe one day, I’ll do something else.
I hope that the people on here that told us to suck it up never have a loved one or themselves that need medical care on a holiday. I’d love to turn the light’s off December 24 at 8am and open again Dec 26th on the labor and delivery unit I work on…
Right???
I’ve graduated in 1982. I work 12 night shifts and everything you said is so true. We’re always working short. It’s a 6:1 ratio on my floor. On top of that, our nurse manager ‘micromanages’ everything, threats abound, changed the time clock so we’re late at 7:01 PM rather than the 7 minute window the rest of the hospital goes by. (I’m always at work at least 20-30 minutes early to get ready for my shift so that doesn’t affect me other than morale wise) She has a form for every stupid thing, e.g. if I do a set of vitals for one of the CNA’s before I give a bp med, I have to initial a form.. I’m so tired of it. Alcoholism is rampant where I live.
I had a 25 year old die from it this year and it really hit me hard. I never sleep well the night before I have to go back to work.
It’s so many things are weighing me down right now. If I could afford to work PRN I would.
Well written. The only thing Id say is yes I support mental health days, but not when the unit is short staffed and the nurses to come ready to work everyday get stuck with 6 or 7 patients and struggle the whole day because a nurse called in. It’s very hard for nurses to call in because with our profession, we rely on each other to work as a team and be a team together. I have been a nurse for 3 years and have only called in once because I had contagious pink eye. No I’m not saying I’m better than the nurse who calls in once a month, but I’m always the one having to suffer through a short staffed shift and it is not fun when you are on a busy trauma surgery unit.
blah….that’s all. call me in 20 years and let me know your perspective THEN!
Exactly, good article. I agree everyone needs a mental health day periodically…..schedule one off!!!! I have called in 2 in the past nine years (both 2 weeks ago and actually I was sent home because of how sick I was). No one gets upset at the person who calls in because they are really sick, we get upset at those who constantly call in with “my stomach hurt”, “I had a head ache”, “I just didn’t feel good”, my favorite “I didn’t get any sleep” (because they were out at a party the night before and posted it on Facebook.
Nursing is a rewarding and strenuous profession. I love my job most every day, some days though I don’t really like it. Love my co workers, without them, it would be harder to do it. When times are hard, our motto is “we can do anything for 12 hours!!”.
CNA’s, if you want to believe you do all an RN does, go get your degree, then you will know the difference.
People should call in when they are sick, not when they feel like not coming to work. That is what scheduled vacation time is for. When you call in because you want to stay home, you put the rest of the staff in a difficult spot, as well as potentially causing an unsafe situation for the patients. That is not professional behavior. Where I work, we often get time and a half (which for some staff is over $75 dollars an hour) for covering sick calls. Even then we sometimes can’t get enough staff to cover. If you need days off, plan ahead.
All worthy points.. but nursing is no longer a “female” profession. As the wife of a hard working male nurse, I experienced the same alone time as the author of this article’s husband experiences. It’s a profession for dedicated individuals, and dedicated spouses. Either you’re willing to make the sacrifices or you’re not.
I apologize for the feminine tone of this blog post. When I wrote it, I was very emotional. I wrote this primarily for myself. I had no idea so many people would see it. I am going to add a note to this effect to the post.
Thank you for this article!!!
What part of taking care of others do you hate? Is it the multiple days off? Is it the good pay? Benefits? Sign on bonus? Sheesh! If you have to work weekends you get weekend bonus pay. Work a holiday, get double time and a half. Night shift? Differential pay. Cry me a river. Literally millions of people would like to have your job. Quit whining about it.
Shut up Jeff. Not everyone gets double time for holidays, differential pay. Nursing is a tough job. No such thing as a sign on bonus. Millions of people could have our job if they could make it through nursing school and pass boards. You cry yourself a river. Your comments sicken me.
Where I work we get no sign on bonus we only get time and a half on Holidays which is what most people get, and no weekend shift differential.
hate to reply to this but:
we work full time in 3 days so yes we need our multiple days off but they are not usually in a row.
pay for what we do, it is not enough.
sign on bonus, uhhhh NO, not for most.
weekends – don’t always qualify people for a weekend bonus pay.
holiday – never have gotten double time and a half. gotten straight time, time and a quarter, and time and half depending on where i have worked.
night shift – deserves their differential, being up all night for several nights without great sleep in the day, takes a toll on their health over time.
those who want our jobs – go to school, get a bachelors because that is what they are requiring. then maybe there won’t be a shortage of nurses in the future 🙂
BTW – not whining about my job. Love my boss, my coworkers, and my hospital 🙂
The hospitals I have worked at no longer offer a sign on bonus. The shift diff is 50 cents. Holiday pay is not double, it’s time and a half. There is no weekend bonus pay. I pay more for insurance then my mother who works at Giant Eagle.You can’t request time off in certain blocks of the year and any vacation time you request to take can be denied. I love my job, but hate people like you who talk out their ass.
Actually – our hospital just took away weekend bonus pay, we only get time and a half for holidays, night shift gets an extra – wait for it – ONE dollar an hour! Woooo!
Which is the same night shiftdiff that my son and mother made at walmart working nights FYI
You must have your facts wrong. I have no weekend differential and the night shift is .50 cents. No sign on bonus. Holiday pay is time and a half but only on the actual day, not night shifts. We work all day without food or water. Im cleaning up bodily fluids when I would pray for a bathroom myself. But I love my job and I love having the knowledge, stamina and compassion for my patients. I pray that someday you never need a nurse…
Jeff, hospitals in my area are doing away with weekend pay. Holiday pay is non-existent (and has never been time and half, let alone double time and a half!). Night shift differential is about $2/hr. I have a Master’s degree in nursing and make less than my husband who works in construction and has no degree!
I love caring for people. I don’t get weekend differential, hospitals are phasing out sign on bonuses because they encourage turnover, I got better raises working at Starbucks, and the $4500 I’m paying out of pocket for health care this year while paying almost $400 per month in premiums on the best health care plan my hospital offers, as well as $50 a month for prescriptions seems to say my benefits are not, in fact, that great. Calling management to tell them we’re dangerously short-staffed and then watching a baby end up permanently disabled because there wasn’t enough staff to do the emergency c-section fast enough (9 minutes decision to incision was far too slow) was both emotionally horrific and risked all our livelihoods. Any other profession, a small mistake may cost you your job, but there are other jobs. A nurse can forget to chart something small and lose her entire livelihood. When that license is gone, it stays gone. But really, thanks for the support. I won’t be skipping my lunch, pumping break so I can feed my child, or bathroom break for you or your family.
What multiple days off do your refer too? Typically when one works a 12 night shift, the 2 days they get off, well, one of them is shot because that nurse is so tired all they want to do is sleep, so that leaves 1 day to get as much done as possible, and that is not a lot of time when there is family or kids involved, or God forbid, a sickly parent or someone who needs care at home. Benefits? We work for those! Good pay? Not as good as you think for some, unless you are vested, and I’m not. Sign on bonus? Really? There are many places that don’t offer that. And nope, no weekend bonus pay either. As for the differential for the night shift, it really don’t add up to much at all, so don’t be fooled. And typically when a nurse is sick, they are trying to cover that shift from in-house staff and not use agency due to the cost. So what 2 days off? As for holiday pay, none here I’m afraid. I don’t even get an exchange day off for the holiday’s I work. As for millions who would like the job, there are more colleges with open doors to educate than I could ever name, so get to it by all means. There are area’s who desperately need nurses. As for whining, no stating facts. Reading your comment makes me think you are one of those who uses the services of your local ER, or clinic and who does nothing but whine and expect way too much and not do much to help themselves. Sorry, but whining? Really? By all means, if you can walk in mine, and other nurses shoes, have at it and lets see what you got, how much of a load you can carry, and what your breaking point is.
you must be talking hosp try working in long term we dont get paid enough to be beaten on a daily basis from our pts broken bones etc understaffed 35 pt to a nurse thats my job well was till my pt broke my back and neck. so what are you a tech then go back to school and you can have the same five pts and 35000.00 in loans
You obviously aren’t a nurse otherwise you wouldn’t have made that statement…..your info is incorrect. 1) In most hospitals now working weekends is now part of your weekly hours so there is no differential 2) by the time you get “mult. days ” off in a row…you are half dead from busting your ass the prev. 3 days working 12-14 hr shifts back-to-back. You wouldn’t last 5 minutes being a nurse since you are a misinformed know-it-all & have no compassion about something you know nothing about – that’s a deadly combo in nrsg. !
I have yet to get double time and a half for holidays and have been a nurse for years. Sign on bonus? Tell me where. If millions of people would like our job then they can direct themselves to any local college and go to nursing school. Nursing is one of the few jobs you get penalized for calling in sick despite that the patients you care for are who make you sick. I could go on for hours. No matter what happens we work through it and come back to work because no matter how trying or difficult at times, and how many events we may miss from ours kids social activities, we love being a nurse and the passion and drive to help others always prevails.
Then why isn’t everyone a nurse if it’s so great, Jeff? Double time and a half. That’s a good one. Only of you’re a plumber on Christmas.
My techs deserve every penny they work for, but as it is, they are under the LICENSE I worked my ass off for. Go back to school if you want more $!
Your techs work their ass off
Jeff, you clearly don’t know any nurses personally, do you? Only looking at those ads on the side of a webpage? What sign on bonus? I don’t know of any at the hospitals in the three states surrounding me. Great pay? Pfft! For what we do, we don’t get enough. Yes, we may get more days off than you, but we also work full time hours in three days and one day “off” is spent recouping. Holidays are not double time and a half (where are you getting your info?), they are time and a half, just like any other job on a major holiday. You are only seeing this profession from the outside. I highly doubt “millions of people” would like to resuscitate a 28 week old baby, or watch a baby withdraw from whatever drugs the mother used, or hold a mother’s hand while she labored and delivered her stillborn baby. It takes a special person and even though we don’t get paid millions to do it, the money isn’t why i do what I do. I love being a nurse.
Love this. I have been an ER nurse for 7 years. Everything you say is true.
Love this! So so true.
Thank you for taking the time to write this article. It validates everything that I feel almost daily in our busy Psych ED. Some days it feels like being the patient would be a welcome change! Great job!
Thank you for the compliment, but I want to emphasize. This is a blog post, not an article, not authorized or source. It is completely my opinion at a time when I was very upset on behalf of a coworker.
I agree with every word! I’m a nurse who is currently unemployed and despite financial hardships, part of me dreads going back because of all those things stated! I wish hospital administrations could understand this and make adjustments accordingly! Even before I was a nurse, I saw first hand how hard it was as a volunteer and as a mother of a dying child. I depended on my son’s nurses. I saw how much they wanted to change things for my son, I saw their care and love daily for him and my family. While I know his death was unimaginably painful for me, I saw their pain as well! And while I know only a nurse could understand the true depth of this type of care, I wish all others would just believe us when we tell you it’s hard. If it was all about money, believe that we would have picked another profession!!!
I too chose nursing, 32+ years ago. For me it is a calling and I love what I do. I read this article seeing something different, apparently, than Karen and Kelly did. Nurses need to remember to take care of themselves and each other. Staffing does suck, when I was a new nurse there were “walky talky’s”, those who could walk and talk and bathe themselves. Those days are long gone and the ratio has gotten worse! It’s hard, it’s rewarding, it’s tiring, it’s inspiring and it eats into your personal life and is a blessing… I hope you get the drift. We call off sick and get the business! I’ve called off sick one time in the last 5+ years and got a hard time for it. I chose family first! It was emergent! I don’t take burdening my coworkers lightly either. Nursing is about caring but the best caregivers know how to take care of themselves!
Very well said!!!
In my book Nursing encompasses the CNA. Direct Care Professional, Me (the LPN) and the RN. We are a team. We hold each other up!
I am not a nurse. I was a patient who cannot sing their praises either. I had 15 surgeries in a 7 month time frame. The surgeries were caused because a doctor put a wound vac on me after stomach surery and the wound vac caused my stomach to rupture. During most of my hospital stay which was quite lengthy, I can honestly say I had ONE nurse who was worth his weight in gold. The rest, sadly were pretty much useless. On one ocaission, two nurses actually broke my back in three places while I was in for what was supposed to be an out patient procedure. I ended up in the hospital for 11 days. Another nurse allowed me to remain in so much pain all I could do was cry…..this continued for over 8 hours until she finally called my doctor who changed my meds and give me some relief. During my last and lengthiest stay in the hospital, I developed severe diarrhea and lost control of my bowels because of an IV antibiotic I was on. The nurses would allow me to lay in my own waste for HOURS at a time. Many times I had been in this situation overnight and would only get cleaned up when my husband would come to visit me in the mornings before he went to work. He should never have had to handle this task but more importantly, the nurses should never have allowed me to lay in feces overnight. After being in the hospital for over 6 weeks, the skin on my backside and my back was raw due to laying in fecal material and urine. In addition….they would forget to feed me and this was a matter of just changing my TPN. If I had the ability to get up and use the bathroom or a comode, I would have been more than happy to do so but because of my physical condition I could not even get out of bed by myself or walk without 3 people helping me. Unfortunately, these bad experiences were not just in one hospital but in all three of the hospitals which I had experience with. As I stated earlier, I am not a nurse; however;,I started my college education in Nursing. I became ill and 6 weeks before graduation, I had to leave school. I know how nurses are supposed to act and react. I know that their jobs are not easy and their CHOSEN profession can play havoc on their personal lives physically and mentally. But I also know there are some really, really bad ones out there and they are usually the first ones to complain about long hours, missing family and family events and are also the ones who THINK they are the saviors of the world.
sorry for your experience. please don’t judge all by a few bad seeds
Why didn’t you use your call bell when you soiled yourself? We nurses are many things, but not mind readers. If you were given a call bell you should have used it. Sorry about your awful experience, but not all nurses are uncaring and unconcerned
I am so sorry that you had to experience that poor nursing. I am a RN and there is absolutely no excuse for that negligence. There are times when I am completely overwhelmed but I would NEVER treat a patient so poorly. There is NO excuse for that kind of treatment and I sincerely hope you make a formal complaint.
Oh, my Helen. I’m so sorry you had such a terrible experience 😦 I’ve been a Labor and Delivery RN since 2008, and in 2009, my mother fell gravely ill with an operable brain tumor. Her surgery went poorly due to a physician error and mom was in a irreversable coma after a massive stroke at age 48. She was in the ICU for 6 weeks. I too experienced similar issues to what you describe. If I hadn’t have been there some days, it may have been hours before her RN got to her leaking rectal tube or cleaned her foley–changed her bedding or turned her to avoid bedsores. She was MRSA+ by week 3. I’m afraid it seems in the MedSurg realm, what the author of this article says is true in many places. Hospital Rn’s are often given very acute assignments with very sick patients in a very high ratio that is HIGHLY inappropriate for giving quality care, and our patients suffer. It makes me very sad to hear your story, and I hope you are doing better today at this writing. In my area of work, we are starting to experience the same issues. We all need to start complaining to the RIGHT PEOPLE–our local & state legislating bodies, to FIGHT for better working conditions for Nursing and Nursing support staff, so that patients can get the quality care they expect and deserve. Because the corporate people running our hospitals care only about their FAT paychecks and their bottom lines–(our CEO made nearly 6 million dollars last year)–NOT about you the patient. It’s big business and it’s sickening. God bless you Helen, you will be in my prayers. And if you believe in such things, pray for me as well. I CHOSE nursing, i love what I do every day, but some days are hard. Blessings to you.
I agree that there needs to be more awareness on nurses to pt ratio and counting Mgt. during the day that are on staff and the supervisors that are on other shifts in their pt to staff ratio you cant give good quality care without the staffing we also need to get it aware of the injuries we substaind from certain violent patients for me my career is over due to the injuries my dream my passion gone when i voluntered to work a double and to them is all money esp long term we got to fill that bed wheter their a danger to us or other doesnt matter we need the money
Well said! I love nursing … wouldn’t trade my job for any other… but yes…mentally physically and emotionally challenging
Really? The nurses “broke your back in three places?” That sentence negates any validity there may have been to your story.
electricians work massive shifts when the powers out…they freeze in the cold trying to restore your power,fireman do god knows more than we can fathom,in near every profession..there are so many ups n downs..chefs work most holidays and weekends…quit crying if you dont like it take up truck driving..i dont care..just dont cry to me about making great wages inside,where its safe,and getting paid great money…its a job..love it or leave it…but spare me the tears…i,m a parent too…and i do what i have to do and do it without all the poor me…btw..whats your wage?for knowing a coworker who got strangled and lived,for almost missing a soccer game,for being forced to do your job….ive had ten coworkers die since 2000…stfu and quit or do your job!
Sorry about your co workers. How did they die?
And please, tell me, when was the last time a chef or electrician had to spend thanksgiving doing chest compressions on a 3 year old and then later wrapping them in a plastic bag headed to the morgue?
This article isn’t about electricians or other professions and nowhere did the author say that there weren’t other professions that have similar or worse difficulties, but she is a NURSE and is therefore commenting on her experiences in nursing. I wouldn’t go to an article about the hardships of firefighting or being an electrician and start beaking off about how easy they have it compared to others, so don’t do that here. And don’t just assume that because other professions aren’t mentioned in this article that the author or other nurses are always oblivious to the fact that other people have hardships in their chosen profession, and those people are more than welcome to write their own blogs on their hardships. Using your same logic you should NEVER complain about anything in your life because somewhere in the world somebody has it worse. So unless you’ve never complained about anything in your life (doubtful), how about you recognize that every profession has difficulties, and that people are entitled to voice them.
very well said…but like any job there are pros and cons…its life….you knew this going into nursing that its 24/7 I understand the stress but when I hear everyone bitching about the holidays and weekends I cant sympathize….its ALWAYS BEEN TWENTY FOUR SEVEN….nurses, medics, firefighters, police officers and the medical techs/assistants are also affected….there are a multitude of nursing jobs that provide flexible schedules to accommodate your family…..been there… done that for 33 years
Hello my RN colleague. I am also an RN in a very busy Emergency Department I agree and have done everything in your post and more I have cried with and for patients in all situations some much more tragic than others. I think I know how you feel, but maybe not as I am a man. I feel on the outside by your comments I feel I do not belong from what you say. I have messed many,many of my children’s activities (yes I coach as well) due to my job. But hey, it’s OK you a man. Really? guess I’m second class in the feminist nursing profession you blog about. Happy New Year
John G Young CRN
Article has facts about our profession. It’s sad to hear the negativity.
To the people saying that nurses should just choose another profession if they find it hard I say this: if enough people choose a different path from nursing because of its challenges then who will take care of your loved one or you if heaven forbid you need skilled care? Doctors, aides, etc are all essential, but nurses are also part of the backbone that forms the health team that keeps people alive who may not otherwise survive or recover. One of the reasons people in accidents or critically ill patients stay alive is because enough nurses decide to stay and care for your family instead of just leaving because of the downside of the job. So how about a little gratitude instead of berating them for not going elsewhere?
Booo hoo!!! Try being a Firefighter /Paramedic we work 24hrs on & 48hrs off. Often 120hrs every 2 weeks compared to Nurses 72hr shifts & make a 1/3 of what nurses make an hour & can do ALOT more. So while but whining about your 8-12hr shift on a Holiday were away from our families for the whole 24hrs & risking our lives. Errrrr. Hate dumb nurse’s complaining about their job. Your job is CAKE!! If I could deal with waiting for a Dr order & telling me how to do my job I would, but I Dont like asking permission.
Justin I have an unbelievable amount of respect for firefighters/paramedics, but really dumb nurses??? My job, just like yours is far from cake. As a critical care RN I absolutely do not wait for a Dr to tell me what to do, it is my job to know the situation, react and intervene….almost always before a DR is ever around. While I know a huge amount of firefighters and EMS, I have never had one ever call me dumb, in fact when I left our ER to go back to ICU, I had tons of them contact me personally to tell me that they would miss me. Your attitude is very obviously not one of a team player. As with any good EMS or Firefighter they know that when they bring the patients in we follow up what they have started. It is a continuim, from one to the other. And many of my ER friends and ICU friends are EMS and firefighters and would never say that a nurses job is cake. Just as you hate “dumb” nurses, we hate responders who think they are gods. I am blessed to be around the ones that truely do it for the good of the people and work with the local hospitals and staff without such an attitude!!!!
Boo hoo to you too Justin. Get over it already. The same junk you are spewing to Nurses can be spewed right back at you. As for you doing more, I have to wonder if you are one of those Paramedics, or Paragods, who dumps and runs when you transport someone to the local ER. You think our 8-12 hour shift is cake? Get over yourself Mister. If you think you can do my job, come on over and lets see you bust a move. If you want better pay, get a degree and make the salary the same as the others did. If you work a 24 hour shift, that is what YOU signed on for when you took the job. Not to mention, some of those 24 hours shifts are spent at the station and you get to watch TV, sleep, and hell, you even get to eat! As for risking your lives, I understand there are situations that do put you in harms way, but you are never alone and have a team that is there with you. There are nurses who deal with very volatile patients who are a danger in themselves to anyone exposed to them depending on the area or city you work in. Been there, done that, got injured, and it wasn’t nice!! The nurse to patient ratio is way too big, so many times I am handling more than I need to be, but I do it and I deal with it because it is what it is and there is no extra help. As for our jobs being cake, hell I would love to actually be able to take a decent break long enough to eat cake!! Almost all of my shifts I work through those breaks. As for waiting for a Dr. to give you an order and telling you how to do your job, get over it. There are many facilities that hire Paramedics to work in the ER, so if you think you got the kohones to carry the heavy load and deal with the stress, come on over and lets see what you got since you seem to think you got the answers and the solution..
What you say would be valid if you spent those entire 24 hours working. Are you often out on a call for 24 hours straight with no breaks? I’m sure there are days you get several calls a shift, but aren’t there some where there are no calls?
And if I waited for a doctor to tell me how to do my job there would be a lot of dead people around me. Do you just stand on a corner with your hose in your hand, waiting for the chief to tell you to aim it at the fire?
“Justin”, maybe before you comment on “dumb nurse’s” you should learn how to spell it properly. And I never said we were any better than paramedics or firefighters, or anybody else for that matter, nor did I say our work is more important but it is still crucial. I respect both professions tremendously but this particular post was about nurses specifically which is why I didn’t add a random caveat about our job versus a paramedic’s. I said that people telling frustrated nurses to pick different careers don’t consider what would happen if every stressed out nurse did pick a different career.
As far as our job being “cake”, if you think that all nurses do is stand around waiting for doctors to give them orders then you are either not a paramedic who has actually worked with nurses or else you’re just a troll looking to anger people and just posing as an educated professional (and judging by your ignorant comments and writing ability I’m going to guess the latter). If following orders is all we did we wouldn’t need to go through 4 years of post secondary schooling to learn how to manage chest tubes, medications, and hundreds of other procedures, protocols and pieces of medical knowledge that save lives every day.
So if your job is so much harder then why don’t you go vent or comment on a forum or article dedicated to how difficult firefighter/paramedic work is instead of going to an article about nursing to berate them for using that forum to vent?
LOL. I can’t help it, I must feed the Troll. “Justin”, you are a piece of work. Stop trolling on RN blogs acting like a ParaGod. My father has been a first responder (EMS/Firefighter) for 32 years, so I have a healthy respect for EMT’s , Paramedics and Firefighters, but you “sir”, are just a jerk. You’re probably one of the guys that rolls up to my LDR backdoor telling me that the patient you’re bringing is fully dilated with the head crowning. Yet you roll up sweating your ass off and she’s on her cellphone texting. Guess what pal? That’s pubic hair, not a babie’s head. And her cervix is closed. Show us the respect we deserve, and you’ll get back. Until then, with comments like “dumb nurses”–you’ll get precisely the respect you deserve. And BTW–this is a personal blog for a nurse who simply wanted to vent some feelings and share amongst her peers. No need to come onto this blog and insult everyone in sight.
Boom.
I have been a CNA for 40 years. well not 40 as they did not certify when I started. I praise and admire many nurses… some not so much. but I will say that for the most part my nurses have been awesome! they listen when I tell them there is a coc, they follow up. As a TEAM we give awesome care, no I don’t have your expense of the education, but I learned from many great nurses, CNA’s / the ones who care do a valuable service, but with out our Nurses we would have no stucture
I really appreciate this article. I have really been struggling with all the kinds of exhaustion listed ( as a new grad). I have also been feeling so sad that I haven’t been able to care for people they way they deserve! ( for example a shower every other day). We chose a difficult profession, and I find such encouragement to “fight the hard fight” through frank discussions like this . Thanks again
Well said article. I have been a nurse for 40 yrs. and it has never changed as far as conditions in nursing. It’s just the truth. It also has never changed as far as opinions by those that are not professionals. The mental stress alone is the most difficult part of being a nurse. Caring for an ill or dying patient plus tons of paper work are the downfall for us. The positive side is being able to help someone in need. As far as CNAs go, I have always told new nurses ” You nursing assistant will make you or break you.. you have to work with them”. I relied on mine to keep me informed as to my patients’ conditions. I do feel that they deserve more appreciation and higher wages for what they do.
Hey Jeff,
What sign-on bonus? Newsflash, it hasn’t existed in years. Differential for night shift? 1 big dollar, in a city where nursing is oversaturated and monopolized by a money-making health system.Double time and half for holidays? Try time and half.
Yes, there are a lot of people who would love to have our jobs. They can go to nursing school and do it too, as I assume you are jealous of us and would like to do as well.
I like this article. No, I’m not saying I’m the savior of the world. But it does piss me off, as a nurse, that I get screwed out of time with my family, and that I have to be at work while seemingly the rest of the world gets to have Christmas off.
There are times when I do love my job, but we get abused and it is not right. Why is it ok for family members to curse at us and treat us like junk and we have to just be nice and grin and bear it? I get hit and bruised and I hate it.
It’s the same with respiratory. We get 20 or more patients on the floors and most want their breathing treatments at the same time as if we can be everywhere at once. There have been nights where I’ve wanted to call in sick because of job stress.
I seriously don’t know how you guys do it. I see you scrambling. Thanks for all you do. 🙂
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