Nurse Burnout
The nursing field is changing rapidly in 2022. Going into 2023 we are going to see a wide-sweeping change. I know new grad nurses that are already burned out and trying to switch careers after being crucified in their first new grad job. I have seen several of my coworkers quit already and I have only worked my job for 5 months.
Nurses are burning out for several reasons:
1) Cutting Orientations Short
2) Bad Pay
3) Refusing PTO and Vacation Time
4) Bad Management
5) Gatekeeping and Bullying
6) Wearing too Many Hats (Responsibilities)
7) Short Staffed
8) Lack of Accountability
As new grads, we question everything and we are just trying to learn. There are experienced nurses that are heavily gatekeeping nursing experiences and bullying new grads. So put together burned-out experienced nurses with terrified baby new grads and you get newbie burnout. Suddenly they question if they ever want to be a nurse, change jobs, and find nursing unfulfilling. I have personally experienced about 3 new nurses already quitting because of burnout and gatekeeping. But they are new nurses how is that even possible? On top of being trained by newer nurses and being bullied, new nurses are also getting their orientations cut short to get them into empty positions faster. Although streamlining nurses is fast and efficient, not every nurse is built the same and capable of handling fast-paced learning.
Then you have your in-between nurses that have a few years of experience. These are not the "seasoned nurses" but these are now the experienced nurses on the floor. These are the nurses that probably learned nursing through the fire of the COVID-19 pandemic. These nurses are quickly leaving bedside or leaving nursing core jobs to become travelers. they are taking advantage of the great surge pay and getting their experience. But, these nurses are extremely burned out and trying to suck out every dollar they can before all the surge pay is gone. The nurses in this group that are not entirely money driven have definitely job-hopped to find better opportunities and more stable hospitals.
Management throughout multiple hospitals has been rotated with new managers and administrators constantly. You have new managers coming in with promises they can't keep and staff they can't manage to stay. It is a horrible cycle of new management coming in, wanting change, and staff fighting the change. then you have management that will force new change and old staff will leave. Mix the pandemic, with nurses demanding better pay and ratios, and ever-changing management and you get what we have today.
The extremely seasoned nurses with years of experience are either sticking it out for their retirement and 401k or they are leaving the bedside. So with these experienced nurses leaving, the money people able to train new nurses, are nurses with only 2 years of experience. if that. These nurses have seen several rotations of managers and staff. I have been told by some of them that they feel like no one cares and they have seen a specific cycle of overturning before.
1) Cutting Nurse Orientations Short
For cutting orientations short, many new nurses across the country complain of either an extremely short orientation or a perfect one. Short orientations can make new and experienced nurses make preventable mistakes, and prevent others from bullying nurses for not knowing information too fast.
2) RN Nurse Salary
I think another reason most nurses complain of burnout is the fact that a travel nurse will be paid three to four times the amount of core staff. Also, when a new hire is started at a similar rate to someone who has already been working, they feel unappreciated. Incentivizing nurses to stay loyal to a company for years means paying them adequately. Poor pay is absolutely a huge reason nurses are burning out.
3) Refusing PTO and Vacation
Many nurses complain about refusing PTO and vacation due to so much short staffing. But, when your current staff cannot get a break, it adds to their burnout. There are ridiculous rules on how to get PTO approved and at this point, people have to just call out in order to use PTO as a vacation. No one likes to call out. It looks bad on you and leaves your coworkers hanging. Vacation time should be a priority for hospitals to appreciate their staff.
4) Nursing Management
Bad management can bring an entire unit down and create a huge turnover rate. Management that does not listen to their employees can quickly cause a lot of nurses to question nursing altogether. Poor managers can include absent managers, mean managers, and nice managers that do not actually do anything. I have no idea what else to add to this other than it's an obvious reason that nurses can hate their jobs.
5) Nurse Bullying
There is a huge amount of gatekeeping and bullying in the nursing community. There will be experienced nurses maintaining their egos by being the only ones capable of certain tasks. They love the idea that they are the only ones with experience and skill, and it makes them feel good. Maybe experienced nurses do not want to give this impression, but some of them certainly are. Some nurses are trying to seek the favor of their managers or trying to throw other people under the bus.
6) Having too Many Responsibilities
Now more than ever, nurses are doing the jobs of transporters, techs, housekeeping, tech support, management, and more. It is difficult for a nurse to give great quality patient care if they have multiple jobs to do while on shift. It is also difficult if a charge nurse has patients, orienting and being management all at the same time. In no way is a nurse paid enough to do everyone's job at once.
7) Nurse to Patient Ratio
Being short-staffed is obviously the main reason nurses are burning out so badly. Patient ratios have increased significantly, burning the soul of nurses. They are expected to care for more patients, with less time for each patient.
8) Lack of Accountability
Lack of accountability for those not actually doing their job is burning out the nurses that do their job correctly. This includes the experienced mean nurses not being corrected for their behavior, or known unsafe nurses not being handled correctly.
I am personally sticking it out because I believe there is going to be a change in the nursing field and how we are treated. I am hoping there is going to be increased pay everywhere to try and hold staff down, as well as better nurse-to-patient ratios. Maybe it won't be next year, but nurses are speaking out. If a hospital can't get nurses, they are going to have to incentivize them somehow.
For the new nurses who are already feeling burned out, hang in there and make it through the storm. eventually, we won't feel incompetent and we will actually feel like great nurses. if your mental health cannot take bedside nursing anymore, there are still great outpatient options for you.
