Nurses would you choose to nurse if you had your time again?

[Hairytangerine]

Ward manager here, qualified 20 years. Really struggling. Feel role hardest it’s even been. People are really unwell. No rescources,

Just can’t see a way out, no side step that I can see.

Would I choose to nurse again? Probably not 😩

No the bullying is horrendous

Never. I’ve loved aspects of the job but the staffing, pay, exhaustion, bullying, general misogyny, lack of influence in the organisation, watching the NHS disintegrate. No thanks. Leaving in 5 years if I make it that far.

Well, after being qualified for 13 years and working shifts on a ward all that time, I still love the job at least some days. Some days I hate it but those days are less than the days when I at least kind of like it. I also have no idea what else I would do now or what else I would have chosen to do at 18 if I hadn't gone into nursing (probably an English degree and then ended up teaching, which would have likely left me feeling much the same as I do now). But, it is very challenging to combine with a family life. I have 2 DC now, and am missing weekends, Christmases, events at school, one had to miss a friend's party because DH didn't want to take both of them there and I couldn't swap shifts. DH and I have regular arguments about the amount of childcare he has to do while I am at work and how he has to work all week and look after DC at weekends while I am working and has no free time. I am also exhausted by the shift pattern even working part-time, and my back/ neck/ shoulder are fucked despite not having to do move/ lift adults in my job.
I can't say I wouldn't do it again, because I have no idea what else I would do, but I wouldn't recommend it to my children.

I would not change anything. I'm an aged care nurse in Australia and work for a great company with flexibility with work life balance. I'm very grateful that I don't have to put up with all the crap nurses in the NHS do.

No. I trained in the 80’s and probably enjoyed the first 10 years, mainly due to the camaraderie of colleagues. We were still treated badly back in the day, (I now realise) but the expectations were nowhere near as crazy.

I’ve worked in management too and for non-nhs providers. Demand cannot be met from current resources and it has been exacerbated by the often poor training that the current staff have (through no fault of their own).

@Isadora2007 I’d strongly advise getting some work experience/insight visits with mental health OT before you go ahead. My friends who did MH nursing said the interaction they’d hoped for is more within the OT role than the nursing role and they wish they’d done OT in retrospect.

Peadiatric nurse here. I love it!

Qualified 14 years and work with a lovely bunch of people.

No.

I was a staff nurse for 8 years actually I did enjoy it until I became seriously unwell & was unable to carry on in the role.

The NMC have said that if my health improves I could do the 18 month return to nursing course but I've since been diagnosed with Schizo Affective Disorder & so my health hasn't improved.

But I wouldn't return to nursing even if I could. I'm now a band 2 HCA & I can just about cope with this job.

Slightly detailing the thread here but as a RN, if you wanted out what could you step into with a nursing degree?

No because of the bullying. Short staffing. I could write a book.

Why is nursing so bad? Is it historical or management? Why do so many people complain of bullying?

No, I wouldn’t. I would do a degree in library sciences and work as a librarian.

My mate was a librarian and said it was the bitchiest job ever

I qualified as a mental health nurse last month. First month has been so stressful and not what i thought. On my days off dreading going back friday

I think there’s lots of reasons nursing is bad. Hours are not great - most AHPs cover more 8-6 hours whereas we do nights (I appreciate plenty of others do nights/on calls). We do some of the grottiest parts of care.

I’ve found there’s a lot of bitchy people in nursing (not just the women!). My experience has been that if your face doesn’t ‘fit’ you won’t get promoted, even if you’re probably the best candidate on paper. Some bosses aren’t very fair either, for example with the off duty.

I really, really don’t want DD following in my footsteps.

Why is nursing so bad? Is it historical or management? both of those, but actually I found the job impossible.

30 years ago most 28 bed wards had a couple of empty beds ready to accept emergencies, and would have a mix of acutely Ill patients needing a lot of nursing, rehabilitating patients needing some assistance and encouragement and convalescing patients who were mostly self caring.

Now, that same ward will have no empty beds, patients in the Day room/treatment room and will be under pressure to admit as soon as a bed becomes vacant. The 30 + patients will all be acutely Ill and many may be confused and incontinent. It is impossible to care for people properly in those conditions, you never finish anything, as you are always being called away to do something else.

It means you might have to leave your patient lying in shit and piss, because you are already dealing with a wandering, confused patient.
It means you don’t have time to listen to a patient who is worried and scared about what is wrong with them.
It means you work through your break and go home late every day, and still don’t finish anything or feel you have done a good job, because deep down however hard you try, you can’t do a good job.
It means working hristmas and missing time with your family.
It means taking over an hour to do the drug round and finding one of your patients dead at the end of it and realising that no one even noticed because everyone was so busy.

How do you go home after that and tell yourself you did a good job?

why is nursing so bad?

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. I think a lot is misogyny, it’s still a heavily female dominated job. For the largest profession in hospital organisations, it has relatively little influence. It has a background in military, so following orders, wearing strict uniform, for example, still prevalent and at odds with the autonomy demanded of a profession.
For years it required less academic qualification than comparable professions, that has now changed but unrecognised in pay and influence.
Nursing balances highly skilled work with less skilled work and rigorously defends the latter (I see why, assessment of the whole person picks up early deterioration- don’t jump on me). However, tasks classed as care work are poorly valued.
Handmaiden stereotype is alive and well. Those people do well.
Shift work, hospital environment are poor for health, family life.
Bullying is endemic, nurses eat their young. There is a type that is overly promoted and sadly the crap rises to the top.

Sorry, forgot:

The pure drudge, endless.
No time to do anything well.
Bed turnover too high.
Support services like good admin severely lacking.
Community services to keep patients out of hospital are poor.
Being at the sharp end of people’s frustrations.
The general exhaustion.

This is sad to read. Does anyone know if midwives feel the same?

What does OT mean?

I agree with Iheartniles. Qualified in 1993 and 18 years spent in ICU. Love the job but can be horribly bitchy and cliquey depending upon who you're on shift with. Nursing is very much a teamwork profession so often you're very much dependent upon others who may not be as diligent ! You invariably tolerate mean insensitive behaviour because you're dependent on others to help you do your job properly .....

I guess the question is whether nurses are the only ones who feel like this... would I become a lawyer again if I had my time again... no... qualified 18 years and have a role that fits with my young DCs and pays well so like many of you on this thread I can't really go and do anything else at the moment.

Ironically I'd like to be a primary school teacher.... another profession that people say they regret entering!

NO! way!

Currently a b7 clinical lead in community mental health and looking at non medical prescribing next year to advance towards nurse specialist / consultant type post. I've got twenty odd years left before I can retire but to be honest, I wouldn't want to be doing anything different. I'm stressed to hell and working countless unpaid hours but nursing isn't what I do, it's part of who I am. NHS Stockholm syndrome maybe