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I am no longer working as a nurse. I think if I were to accept a job offer (they do keep calling), I would probably vomit. I was a nurse for 10 years. No one wants this job, really. It is very hard work with unbelievable responsibility, especially in a teaching facility. The only area I think I can sanely work in now might be hospice. I worked in oncology, hematology, med/surg, rehab and sub-acute and even worked a little in long term care reimbursement--an office job. I used to fantasize about having a job taking orders for pizza. The worst that might happen is the pizza might get cold, much less stress.
I worked 12 hour shifts, 16 hour shifts, night shifts, day shifts, 11-11 shifts, had mandatory overtime, on call, weekends, holidays, worked without breaks. I have had some patients throw absolute temper tantrums that their need for another lunch tray were not met --even after apologizing and explaining the patient next door was coding and not able to breathe. And where exactly do I take the person we had to admit to the hallway to the bathroom--what bathroom--the one by the elevator? I am tired of being expected to get a 500 lb person up out of bed three times a day--and they are not helping, won't even move their legs and having to argue FOR a foley catheter to be placed because they won't roll for the bedpan or to get cleaned up--it takes 6 nurses to do this (two to hold legs, two to hold up the abdominal folds, one to hold up the folds below that and one to place the foley. It takes the same number to clean this size individual up when they miss the bedpan or don't use the bedpan. It is hard to do when you only have 4 nurses on the floor. Someone goes home with a back injury every time we got this kind of admission.
Of course med errors happen. Any given morning I would be interrupted counting meds to get a phone call, to take someone to xray, some resident has a question, a stat blood draw is needed, someone has a fever, and because family members wanted to know what was going on-- and I am not allowed to give any info out over the phone and this infuriates them causing me to get f-bombed. I am just surprised they don't happen more often. Plus, people are so incredibly ill. I often had 3 leukemics on reverse isolation with hourly iv antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and transfusions in addition to 3 other patients admitted for various reasons because the authorities found longer stays with patients transferred in house so our ER admits (no matter how inappropriate) never left the floor even though we were supposed to be a cancer treatment floor. I could end up with an orthopedic surgery patient even though I have not taken care of one since nursing school. And to couple that with the fact that people don't want to swallow their meds when you bring them or they're mad you didn't bring them at exactly 8 o'clock or you should have brought the one pill before they got breakfast or they can't take them till after breakfast or they can't possibly swallow these with water, they need apple juice or pudding or this needs to be broken in half and coated with applesauce and it can't be warm or cold or the pill is too small to swallow..... most of these are pills they take every day!
And we are supposed to train the residents, precept random nursing students, adapt to new paperwork daily, document, constantly check for new orders on the computer--if you can get to a computer (no one tells you anymore and none of the people at the nurse's station are actually nurses--they are in the halls running their asses off) and answer the frigging phone on top of our main duties which are to maintain an therapeutic and healing presence to our patients and every new rule and protocol in the hospital seems intent on keeping you out of the room. Then we have to be very understanding of the aides and techs and do two of their baths because they are hopelessly overworked. Physical therapy comes by and scolds you for not walking people when you can't even keep up with the breakfast trays for your insulins. Case Management pulls you aside to reinforce that you need to teach family members how to (give a shot, do a dressing, change an ostomy appliance, flush a central line-- whatever)--then they show up and say "I can't do that".
And through all this I am cheerful, I am your cheerleader, you will get through this and have your life back soon and I will bring you your pain meds and dutifully check back to see if it worked, ask you to rate it and write it down in 3 different places. And I haven't been able to go pee in the past 10 hours which I guess is okay because I'm also dehydrated and have been running on hershey kisses left at the desk all day.
Now I am going to end this post and do some yogic breathing.
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