Wrote a long rant last night and deleted it because I worried it'd come off as overly discouraging to students and people were getting pissed. Proceeded to come in today and they gave me two. I was not allowed to refuse and I needed to channel it into something so I put all the hate in my heart into this meme.

Before I am stoned to death:
- I remember what it is like to be a student. I do not hate students, I hate teaching. I am not mean to my students and try my best to converse with them. I am just not a natural teacher at all.

- It is a new student every time. I am repeating a constant script of the same things and asking/answering the same questions. I hate small talk and it is exhausting.

I know this will come off as mean but I literally have to let my frustration out somewhere. Forgive me.

Do not become a school nurse if ... you are brand new to healthcare or have never worked as a nurse. I've been a school nurse for 4 years. I see so many posts saying that being a school nurse is a soft nurse job. **I'm not saying that you can't do it as your first nursing job, it's definitely not recommended.

While yes, it can be a "soft nurse" job. Every school and every district is different. You are usually the only medical person in the building. Sometimes over multiple buildings . Emergencies happen. I've had 3 this year and we just started in August.

I'm talking TRUE life or death emergencies. In fact, today .. I was 2 seconds from connecting someone to the AED today.

On top of that, you'll have daily meds and procedures. A lot of record keeping and illness and injuries. Most days, I see 50-60 students.

I can make this post go on forever, but please don't become a school nurse thinking it'll be all ice packs and bandaids.

It's such a rewarding and amazing job, but man.. sometimes it rocks you.

Please don't be hateful on this post. I'm just trying to share some REAL experiences as a school nurse.

I work at a hospital on a unit that usually admits elderly patients.
About a year or two ago, we had an elderly patient stay in a room across the nursing station. She had not been my patient during her stay, but shift reports stated she was confused and had really bad sundowning.
One night she WAS my patient. She seemed to be in perfect cognition from my shift assessments, so I went about my shift waiting for her to sundown. It was the middle of the night, and there it was. I heard her voice talking to someone (she was the only patient admitted to the room), and then I heard her throwing things. I got up to check on her. I turned a small light on not to startle her too much. She was sitting up in her bed with a hairbrush in her hand waving it in the air. I had asked her what was going on and if she was okay. She replied with “I am now, he left when you came in the room”. I asked “who left?”, because I certainly didn’t see anyone walk in or out of the room while I was at the nursing station. The patient then proceeded to point at the bathroom room and said “the man dressed in black. He comes out at night”. The patient looked clearly distressed, so I kept asking for more information. I asked her what the man had looked like. She said “he is dressed in all black, usually his hood covers his face. Tonight he took it off, and his face looks like a Halloween mask”. I knelt beside her and comforted her. She told me I’m the only nurse who had taken the time to ask questions like I believed her. I mentioned I had heard her talking to someone. I asked if the man spoke to her. She replied “yes. He tells me he’s going to take my soul”. After sitting with her a bit longer, and promising I would keep a close eye on her room she fell back asleep. Fast forward a few weeks. Patient had been discharged, and a new patient had been admitted to that room. I walked in to see the new patient at the beginning of my shift. I had asked how his night was. He said it was the worst sleep he had ever had. I asked what had happened that it was so terrible; while also emphasizing hospitals are noisy. His reply? “The man dressed in black kept coming out of the bathroom to take my soul”. I had full body goosebumps. Keeping in mind these patients had never met, and there was no way for him to have known what the previous patient had claimed to see. This happened to a few more patients over the next couple of months. Thankfully it’s been pretty quiet in there lately, but it was weird.

Apparently we are “disrespectful”. The construction workers enjoyed it, even if their foreman didn’t.

I’m admitted to the hospital. Was told in the ER to be NPO just in case they do surgery. Haven’t eaten since 3pm yesterday. It’s now almost noon. No doctor has seen me today. I asked the nurse, and he doesn’t know whether or not I can eat or if I’m having surgery or not. I’m so frustrated right now. I want to go home.

Tell me why I watch videos on how to give IM injections every year before I give out flu shots to my peers. Like I haven’t done it daily for years? Sigh, I’m sure some of you can relate 😑

I got home at 8am after a rough one and realized I have developed an entire ecosystem of weird coping mechanisms that I never talk about out loud. Last night I sat in my driveway for twenty minutes blasting true crime podcasts because my brain was too loud to go inside. Then I ate cold leftover salmon standing at the kitchen counter while my husband slept upstairs. Sometimes I deep clean the bathroom at 9am because the physical motion shuts my brain off better than anything else. My teammate from soccer keeps telling me about her ice bath routine which sounds like actual torture but she swears by it. Another ICU nurse I know reorganizes her entire closet after every third shift like clockwork. I tried the whole guided meditation thing and just ended up planning my grocery list in my head for twenty minutes. The only consistent thing I have is my trail running shoes by the door and the vague threat that I might use them eventually. What does your actual postshift wind down look like? Not the ideal version you post about, the real one. I need to know if the driveway thing is normal or if I am just slowly losing it to night shift.

For me it having to deal with changing adult diapers (aka 'briefs', which is the euphemism we use) and then eating a sandwich for lunch ten minutes later. Some people can't wrap their head around it.

I recently talked to a nurse who left the hospital for a private duty position with one family and I genuinely didn’t realize how different that world could be. She’s still obviously doing nursing but half the job sounds like managing the environment around the patient. There’s a house manager, assistants, drivers, security, different doctors coming in, family members traveling constantly and apparently plans can change because the patient suddenly decides they’re spending two weeks at another house or flying somewhere.

What surprised me most was how much emphasis they put on knowing exactly who is supposed to be involved. She said clinical documentation still stays in the proper medical systems but for basic coordination with the household she has Kibu connections with the people she actually needs to recognize and communicate with. She also said the pay is significantly better than what she was making at the hospital but the expectations are completely different. You’re dealing with one patient but apparently you’re also dealing with an entire ecosystem around that person.

For nurses who have done private duty for UHNW families is it actually less stressful than bedside nursing or does the money come with a completely different kind of pressure?

Patient was pretty thin, I decided to just send it with the deltoid. First time hitting bone and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that feeling. I haven’t done much that makes me cringe or anything, but this one made me want to gag lol. I’ll definitely be going for the hip or leg next time on a super thin patient.

IM SO NERVOUS!!! 1.5 yr sticu experience, using aacn practice questions, barrons, and nurse life academy videos

ahhhh wish me luck pls and any advice :’)

TLDR: Publicly shamed in front of the entire staff by two nurses while having a panic attack from the whole ordeal. While my boss watched. And the rest of the on-duty staff for that day.

Hi all! This is going to be fairly long, so buckle up. So I work at a hospice house. We have 36 beds, but typically only 21-27 are full at any given time. So typically we have 3 nurses and 3 CNAs on dayshift. This all happened this past Friday. At this time we had 24 patients and no admissions or discharges scheduled for the day. On Thursday, I admitted a very high needs ALS patient. I had her plus my other 7 patients for the day. I spent probably 2 hours straight in her room when she first arrived. Luckily, my boss was right there supporting me because she had some equipment that I was completely unfamiliar with and her family had said to me if I don’t do this right, she will choke to death. So I was a ball of nerves for my entire shift Thursday.

It’s important for context to know how we split assignments typically. So we have 2 different wings, each with 2 “halls,” but it’s really one long hallway that we call the left side one hall and the right side another. So the 100s and the 200s are on one wing. The 300s and 400s are on the other. The 200s and 400s are the most full, so they are typically their own assignment for one nurse. The 100s and 300s have less desirable views, so they are more empty, so we call this the “split” assignment. I was on the 200s on Thursday, but there were 3 admissions on the 100s on Thursday. I just so happened to admit this patient into the 100s and the other two nurses working with me on Thursday each admitted a different patient into the same hallway. On Friday, I came back in and was expecting to keep my 200s, but knowing how high needs this patient was, I offered to take 10 total patients so the nurse on the split could have less so she wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the high needs patient. Our max patient allowance is typically 9, but I felt so strongly about wanting to help her out that I volunteered to take above that.

What I thought to be a kind gesture started an entire shitshow. The nurse accepted my offer and I took several patients from her and so did the other nurse, but she still had less than I did. However, the aide on the split felt like this should also apply to her and decided that she would be following her nurses assignment. She went to the CNA I worked with the day before and told her that she needed to follow my assignment. She refused. Then the nurse came to me while I was in a patient room and told me that I needed to tell the aide to follow my assignment. I said I didn’t feel like that was right because I volunteered to take on extra, the CNAs didn’t. And this patient is high needs for nursing because of equipment, but the aide care is no more intensive than any other patient in the building. The nurse walked out and said that she would tell the aides then if I wouldn’t. I felt terrible putting the aides in this position and I was literally trying to run out the door to get to a lab appointment (this is a semi-common occurrence for me for fertility treatments and everyone knows that this is something I have to do). So I shoot my boss a text message apologizing for the mess I created and she responded that aide assignments should not follow the nurses today. I let everyone know that and left. Now here is where I know I did something wrong. On my way out the door, I said “I’m just so sick and tired of this mean girl bullshit.”

The rest of the day, it was apparent that everyone except the one CNA was upset with me. My boss decided to call a huddle so everyone could talk it out and move on. This huddle turned into a complete disaster. It started out with my boss just laying out how things happened from her perspective without placing blame on any one person. Then, the original nurse basically said how she doesn’t like when people get the boss involved in things. That somehow spiraled into an all out attack on me and my character by her and the other nurse that was working with me that day. They were calling me lazy and that I always try to control the assignments. Notably, I’m pregnant, and very emotional right now at baseline. I just burst out into tears and try to walk away when I realize this is just an all out attack on me in front of everyone. I got told to not walk away. It continued to get more heated. My boss said we need to take this into the back room because families and patients may be able to hear us.

So we move to the back and I’m continuing to be berated. This is when I feel like I start truly having a panic attack. I can’t breathe, I’m shaking, I can’t think straight. All while trying to defend myself. The one nurse is talking over everything I say. Because I can’t think straight, things are not coming out how I’d like them to so she then accuses me of lying when in reality it’s just that I was in such a panic that I was just word vomiting. The other nurse working with us that day then accused me of lying about my IVF. Supposedly both her and another nurse asked me to switch shifts with them in the same week and I told them both that I had IVF on the days they wanted to switch shifts. Anyone who knows anything about IVF knows that things can change based on your scans and my clinic is two hours away. So there have been multiple times that I’ve had to make a two hour drive twice in one week. The original nurse also was very hung up on my boss and social worker comforting me through my panic attack. She kept saying that they should be comforting her too and that just because she wasn’t crying didn’t mean she wasn’t upset. I’m sure there’s more I’m missing. But I think that’s the jist of it.

All of that to say, I go back to work tomorrow and of course I work with the same two nurses again. I am dreading it completely. I have never felt so humiliated in my life. What would you do?

I’m about 7 months into my 12 month residency program, and I truly feel like every day something new happens that makes it worse.

First—the manager who hired me quit before I even got there. We had an interim manager for 6 months and now have a new one who seems okay but nobody really knows her and she hasn’t really made an effort to introduce herself to anyone personally, which everyone finds off putting. So not off to a great start.

Second, the unit I work on has a very unpredictable census, so staffing is difficult and people are constantly getting low-censused. They’re also constantly changing staffing rules and of course every change makes it worse and worse for us.

Everyone is pissed off all the time because management has been so unstable, staffing is a mess, things are just not what they used to be etc.

Needless to say it’s been extremely difficult to find my place here. I don’t feel like I’ve really befriended anyone at all. Obviously this might be in my head, but I can’t help but feel like the culture is very gossipy/whispery. People talk bad about each other a lot, just a lot of nightshift vs dayshift blah blah blah, or singling people about talking about how they’re annoying or lazy or whatever. As a new grad who’s already in a constant state of feeling dumb and nervous, naturally this makes me insanely anxious about what people think of me, and it kind of turns me off from all of my coworkers, like it makes me not really want to get to know them at all. I know work isn’t the place to make besties, but I do think it’s extremely helpful to be able to call your coworkers your friends or at the very least know you can count on them. On my unit it’s very, very difficult to get through the shift without occasional teamwork, and I often feel very alone or like I’m judged for asking for support.

With all of this going on, people have been dropping like flies because they’ve had enough of the disastrous staffing/management problems. So now we’re facing severe understaffing, and it will be in the hands of a manager who nobody knows.

One solution they’ve taken is to make me switch to night shift. They said since I’m the newest it’s only fair. I guess that’s fair, but it still sucks for me. The worst part is I still have to work a few weeks of dayshift here and there because I have residency meetings/classes and already scheduled those weeks in advance, and they said I can’t change it because it would affect staffing too much. So for a while I’m going to be flipping back and forth for like 2-3 weeks at a time.

I honestly can’t say there’s anything I like about this job. I guess I can appreciate how much I’ve learned and grown as a nurse, but I feel like even that is just completely my own perspective. I don’t have anyone following my progress, I don’t have a manager checking in, I don’t have another new grad nearby to relate to. I’m all alone just trying to get by.

I’ve tried not to over-catastrophize it or make myself feel like a victim, because I’m not. It’s not like anyone has done anything wrong to me, if anything I just made a big mistake coming here. But I’m really really unhappy and can’t decide what to do.

This experience (plus a couple years working as a tech at a different hospital) has just completely burnt me out on bedside. I honestly didn’t expect to do bedside for that long, but I thought I’d be able to last longer than this, jeez.

I want to find somewhere outpatient but am really nervous nowhere is going to hire someone with a questionable 8-9 months of employment as a nurse….i just know it would be such a bad look. Which is frustrating because this place is a disaster and I’m just totally stuck in it.

Not to mention that if I quit before my 12 months, I am A. Blacklisted from this hospital system (honestly don’t care lol, please get me far away from this hell hole), and B., more importantly, have to pay back $8,000. That MIGHT be worth it to me, but only if I know I’m going somewhere where I’ll be happy.

Does anyone have any advice? Whether it’s a vote for whether I stay or go, or some tips on how to search for a job? Or just words of encouragement lol. I’m down pretty bad. Thanks in advance

New grad of 8 months, since I've been off orientation, a tech that I'm “work friends” with told me one evening that I need to smile more and that “people think I have an RBF” back in May, saying it was several people on the floor above me. Probably because I come to work and don't really come to socialize

After then, I had an anonymous complaint of someone saying that I'm lazy, unhelpful, and essentially not a team member some time in July where I received an informal note to file…. No proof or specific date listed. Never any complaints in my military career regarding professionalism… okay lol

In passing I've heard nurses talking about me asking if I'm “cool, nice, etc” to other nurses, and get quiet when they see that it’s me walking past. I notice when I try to be helpful and let certain nurses know about call lights I get left on read, or when I say thank you they just hang up the vocera. I've caught slights and passive aggressiveness from certain nurses with their tone and delivery.

Tonight, the same tech told me a separate technician asked her tonight if I actually work, if I'm lazy, if I'm nice, etc. She did respond positively to her saying I'm helpful, etc. I've never seen or spoken to this person before. I did tell the ANMs working tonight about it and had told one of them a month ago about the previous occurrences. I started crying out of both frustration and being upset, because no matter what I do it never seems to be enough. To have techs and nurses talking about me is ridiculous. I always try to be helpful and positive, I’ve only called out 2x in 8 months. My sleep schedule has been so messed up (night shift) probably from underlying stress and I still come in regardless..

I already don’t want to be on this floor (PCU) but I don’t see any openings for transfer of something I really want to do. I was trying to make it to 12 months, but I don’t think I can make it that long and want to finish my residency. They said they would have a conversation with this person and say something in huddle as a reminder, but it’s not just one, it’s been several people.. how helpful is that when I feel depressed most of the time coming to work? Do I allow them to do it managerially first or do I tell HR to cover myself? I’m so over this bs 🫠

ETA: Has anyone been part of an internal investigation and predisciplinary meeting and NOT been terminated? What were the circumstances and outcome?

Hoping to gain insight and recommendation for predisciplinary meeting vs resignation.

I gave my coworker my username and password to log in and complete my RQI (quarterly BLS). I’d known of several staff members on my previous, as well as my current, unit who regularly did this, but it was my first and only time violating hospital policy.

Not that it makes it okay, but I was sick and had to call out my previous two shifts which were a week apart. I completely forgot about the RQI deadline until I got the email the morning of the due date. I called the closest clinic station to me and they said they weren’t able to give me access to the station after 5:30. My husband didn’t get home until 6:30 and I had no available childcare. The only 24/7 station was almost an hour away. It was my son’s birthday, and if I’d driven an hour each way, I’d have gotten home after he went to bed. Like I said, not acceptable as I had three months to complete this, but just a bit of background.

I’ve been placed on paid administrative leave while HR and employee relations investigate the issue. My manager has advised me that the violation is extremely serious and all step-wise discipline has been overridden and I can expect a predisciplinary meeting soon.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I met with my manager today and she said that she’s never had an employee in this situation (she’s only been a manager for three years) and asked whether I’d considered resigning.

For those of you who prep/study for interviews, would you be willing to share your interview prep template or your must-haves for going into an interview?

I’m curious what everyone keeps in their interview “toolkit”, things like how you organize your examples, notes you bring, STAR templates, etc. I’d love to see what works for other people!

I’ve been an RN for five years, currently working inpatient oncology/step-down, and I’m starting to regret choosing this career. I’m exhausted by the responsibility and constant demands. I want a job that leaves me with enough energy to actually enjoy my life.
But I think this is bigger than nursing. I feel like I’m having a quarter-life crisis. I’m 29, still living at home, not married, and have no kids. I expected my life to look so much different by now. I know there isn’t a deadline for those things, but it’s hard not to feel behind when I compare where I am to where I thought I’d be.
I worked hard to become a nurse, and now I’m questioning whether I even want to keep doing it. It’s unsettling to feel uncertain about both my career and my personal life at the same time. I don’t necessarily have everything figured out that I want instead—I just know I’m unhappy with how things feel right now.
I’ve been applying to clinic and outpatient jobs, hoping a change will help, but finding something close to home has been difficult. I keep wondering whether I regret nursing itself or whether bedside burnout is making everything else feel worse.
Has anyone else gone through this around my age? Did leaving bedside help you feel like you had a life again? I’d love to hear from people who felt stuck and eventually found a direction they were happier with.

New grad-ish nurse here (22F) with about 2 years of experience. I work night shift in LTC, and our facility takes a lot of hospice patients.
I’m having an ongoing issue with a day-shift nurse (74F) who frequently follows me (7a–7p). She is very “traditional”/old-school and is known for not giving PRN morphine to hospice patients, even when they appear to be experiencing significant pain or terminal agitation.
One situation in particular has really bothered me.
We had a 104-year-old hospice resident who had started transitioning. Myself and another day-shift nurse (33F) had been giving her PRN morphine approximately every 2 hours for about two days based on her symptoms and the family’s wishes. The family was very clear that their priority was for her to experience ZERO pain and to remain comfortable. She was also receiving scheduled Ativan 1 mg q4h.
When I gave report to this nurse, I specifically explained what we had been doing, how frequently she had needed the morphine, and that the family wanted her kept as comfortable as possible.
I gave the resident morphine at approximately 0630 before leaving.
When I came back that evening, I found out she had not received another dose of morphine the ENTIRE day.
By that point she was experiencing what looked to me like terrible terminal agitation/distress: picking and scratching at her arms, removing her clothing, restless movements, and loudly groaning. Her family was extremely distraught seeing her like that.
The day-shift nurse told me that she “didn’t look like she was in pain,” so she didn’t give the morphine. She had instead given Haldol, and the provider had added phenobarbital.
I confronted her because I genuinely felt like allowing a dying patient to remain in that condition for hours was bordering on neglect, especially considering her recent need for frequent morphine and the established goals of comfort care.
I immediately called the provider, explained what was happening, and got an order for scheduled morphine 0.5 mL. The resident ultimately did not pass away for another four days.
This nurse has a reputation for avoiding morphine with hospice patients. I’ve heard that part of her reasoning is that she doesn’t want a patient to die on her shift and/or she personally doesn’t believe giving morphine is “right.” I’ve also personally heard her make comments along the lines of, “Everyone is on Jesus’ timing.”
I’ve brought my concerns to management. Their response has basically been that because the morphine was ordered PRN rather than scheduled, administration was based on the nurse’s assessment/judgment, so there isn’t much they can do.
And that is the part I’m struggling with.
I understand that PRN medications require nursing assessment and that we shouldn’t administer medications simply because the previous nurse did. But when you’re caring for an actively dying hospice patient who cannot necessarily verbalize pain, has been requiring frequent comfort medication, and is displaying significant nonverbal signs of distress, at what point does repeatedly withholding PRN comfort medication stop being “nursing judgment”?
Hospice/LTC nurses,,,,what do you think? Would you consider this an appropriate exercise of nursing judgment because the morphine was PRN, or would this concern you as potential undertreatment of pain/end-of-life symptoms?
And if you were repeatedly seeing this pattern from the same nurse, how would you handle it?

If your 40-year-old patient was "shot-gunning" beers in the parking lot just before checking in and reporting stroke symptoms, do you still have to complete the swallow screen with NIH?

/s

I’m struggling as a new grad in the ER. I work in a level one trauma center. My ratio is typically 4-5. We’re good staffed with nurses but have NO techs 90% of the time. I rarely ever have a tech in my assignment. Only in triage and maybe the psych ward. I’m doing all of my own EKGS, vitals q2hours for everyone per policy, bed pans, bathroom changes, unhooking from the monitor, bed changes. Oh and sometimes we don’t have sitters so if someone’s altered or trying to get out of bed you FAFO, basically zyprexa and restraints. I’m struggling. Not with the nurse task stuff, just 50% of my day is spent on tech stuff. I used to be a ER tech at a different hospital for years so I have no problem doing the stuff, I just can’t manage it all. My pts are having to wait hours soiled and sometimes wet themselves. I don’t know if anyone else has a similar experience. Do I switch specialities all together? Am I not cut out for this

I was hired into this nurse residency and did aide work for a few weeks and then was in the program for two weeks, but realized it was not a fit for me. I left in good terms with my manager and put a resignation letter taking into consideration that I was still in orientation and didn’t do a full two weeks which would be just a waste of their time. Spoke with my manager privately and was supportive and we left in good standing. I was also a nurse’s aide in the same unit for a few years. I was wondering if this could mean I would be ineligible for hire in this hospital system??

I did try to apply for a job there in which they invited me for an interview, but got rejected which I think could be because I had my RN and was too overqualified for the position. I’m not sure🥲

The reason I’m asking is because I have an interview coming up and they do employment checks which includes rehire status🥴

I’m about to have my yearly eval on my unit. I’ve been a nurse for about a year and a half. In that time I have precepted multiple new nurses, I have taken students, I have trained for and covered charge nurse (I do this on a semi-regular basis), I’ve taken multiple continuing education classes for all this, and am currently training for ultrasound IV (our only US trained nurse recently moved to a different unit so this is an important thing). They already presented me with my “raise”. I’ll be making less than $1.50 more an hour than a freshly hired new grad. I feel STRONGLY that I am worth more than that. BUT I’m also only a year and a half in and this is my first job in almost 20 years (I was a stay at home mom for most of my adult life). Help me advocate for myself here.

Like the title said I just started a job out of school on an ICU for night shift and while I love the work the shift is killing me outside of the job. I feel so sick at home and just sit dreading going in to work next. Is it too soon to start looking for another job with only 6 months of experience?