Nurses
In the world of health care, you can guarantee one thing – you will never have the same kind of day every shift. It is a fast paced, fast moving, constantly changing world. Continuing education is a must to be able to keep up with the skills and procedures to taking care of people.
How long can nurses go at a fast pace before they reach burnout and frustration. It is different for everybody but the signs begin showing before the nurse herself knows it is happening.
What is burnout?
It is an emotional, physical and mental exhaustion from caused by excess and prolonged stress levels. Burnout zaps your energy level, makes small issues seem larger than they are, causes resentment, feelings of hopelessness and lack of incentive to do any more.
Most of us have days where we do not feel as if we are appreciated, or noticed for the things that we do. Let alone feel rewarded and have to drag our self out of bed to make it to the time clock to punch in and get started. Increased call out days and more grumbling rises. Everyday seems to be a bad day, and your exhausted more often than you feel rested. Taking care of your work, home, and family seem like mindless effort that is a waste of time.
If this sounds like you – you are flirting with burnout.
The negative effects of burnout spill over into every area of life – including your home and social life. Burnout can also cause long-term changes to your body that make you vulnerable to illnesses like colds and flu.
As I listen to other nurse’s talk – so many seem to have the same conversations and the weight on their shoulders is obvious. Young nurses seem to feel the stress sooner and are not sure if nursing will be a life time career. After just one and a half years, one young nurse stated, “I feel like a maid to the doctor, and the patients who can be so rude (not all patients), and because I am young the seasons nurses seem to dump the extra work on me. I can always expect to get the worse patients on the floor because I am young and new.” Stress is too much, overwhelmed but seems to get better most of the time. Burnout – is “I have had about enough”
What is it that burnout nurses want?
Most nurses will admit they enjoy taking care of people and the the things they learn – but feel the hours, working holidays, people from all levels demanding perfection becomes more than most want to spend a lifetime doing. The average nurse will work on the main patient care area 6 months to a year before they change jobs and some leave nursing all together which is causing a shortage in the field.
Coping with Job Stress
The most effective way to combat job burnout is to quit doing what you’re doing and do something else, whether that means changing jobs or changing careers. But if that isn’t an option for you, there are still things you can do to improve your situation, or at least your state of mind.
Signs your burnout are:
1.You’re so tired, you now answer the phone with “What do you want!”
2.Your friends call to ask how you’ve been, and you immediately scream,
“Stop asking me all these damn questions!”
3.You wake up to discover your house is on fire, but go back to sleep because you just don’t care.
4. You don’t set your alarm anymore because you know your pager will go off before your alarm does.
5. You start to run to a code Medical in Wal Mart when you hear the BEEP on the intercom.
6. On your day off you feel like you need to call someone to tell them you're going to take a break
As a former burnout nurses who worked for 21.5 years on the patient care area of a state funded mental hospital I understood what “burnout” was all about. Even though I was not ready to give up nursing all together and was offered another position that kept me in nursing but out of the one on one care area — – the stress lifted.
Many nurses do not realize the tremendous opportunity that exists to work from home and still employ their nursing skills. You will need to be organized and have the ability to stay focused on the task at hand, but working from home can be very rewarding. Bottom line is that there are options available to you if you choose to work from home as a nurse in a different role.
Discovering if it is just what you needed to add to your life style depends on you and something you can do without quitting your full time job. Serving people with good care has always been a nurse’s focus and of course a nice pay check. It is time to make your own schedules, set your own pay scale of what your worth and see people smile because you helped them without being at the bedside.
If you Love it - Share it!
