Dealing with people who shame you for quitting nursing.

Have you ever complained about a certain aspect of nursing or contemplated quitting nursing only to find a bunch of people that would shake their heads at you and make you feel ashamed for feeling the way you do?

Some common complaints and the judgmental responses you may get:

“I don’t get paid enough! I work overtime without pay. I often have to stay in on lunch breaks and after hours because there just isn’t enough staff and the patients struggle at the end but now I’m beat, broke and don’t have much time for my family or friends.”

 

“Nurses shouldn’t be looking for money, they should be doing nursing out of the goodness of their hearts and as a service to humanity.”

 

I’m sorry but times are tough and the “goodness of your heart” isn’t going to save you when they try to repossess your house and put your kids on the street. If that’s the case why do doctors get paid so much? Nurses have every right to be well compensated for the work they do. It doesn’t make them evil if they ask to be better paid. They still care about the patient at the end of the day but they have needs too!

“I am stressed out, burnt out, losing my hair, my manager won’t help, we’re understaffed and overworked.”

 

“You chose nursing, deal with it, you should be doing this out of the goodness of your heart. Stop bringing the nursing profession down.”

 

Now I know there are people who really are very thin skinned and complain because they want to complain, but allot of us don’t want to have anything to complain about! Pay us well, give us enough staff, treat us like we’re valued, assist us when we’re overwhelmed. It isn’t much to ask. I know I personally pushed myself to do everything I possibly could to keep things running smoothly and it did nothing but harm at the end. Too many nurses end up with damaged backs and health issues that cannot be helped or reversed and it’s usually because they aren’t given the resources they need to survive such a difficult and challenging career. I also often found that management would try to cut corners and save money by sidelining the needs of nurses and expecting them to make do under unbearable conditions. Like running a full ward of 32 critically ill patients with only 2 nurses. Again the goodness of your heart isn’t going to heal your broken back at the end of the day. No other career in the world is expected to run on love alone.

“Doctor Who is being nasty again, he didn’t get his coffee because I answered the telephone at the nurses station and now he wants me fired”

 

“Doctors are very important to us because they make us money, a nurse is replaceable, we don’t care much for the goodness of her heart, goodbye and good luck finding a new job.”

 

Nurses are constantly made to feel undervalued and doctors can be such bullies about it. How can anyone be happy in a job that doesn’t let them feel valued or wanted? There has to be a sense of accomplishment and a sense of being valued.

Here’s an interesting talk about how people really want to feel valued in their profession not just do the job and get paid for it.

So the next time someone makes you feel like you’re the scum of the earth for raising complaint about your job, tell them you appreciate their input, (it is important to hear them out, they may actually have a point at times), then evaluate whether you’re being unreasonable in your complaint, more often than not, you’ll find you had a good reason to feel the way you feel and you should do something about it. Nothing improves by laying low and staying silent!