Dumpster Fire of a World

I think the title is a little on-the-nose, but also necessary. We have such progressive movements as The Great Resignation highlighting the severe fallacy that is workers' rights here in the good ol' land of the free, a raging (mutating) viral pandemic, and day-to-day apathy at an all-time high.

As a licensed RN myself, I would like to chime in.

In one of my more recent posts, I expressed my gratitude for a new job opportunity. A job opportunity that led me more lost than I had been previously. I am one for anonymity, but I feel that I must share some amount of detail in order to add context to the situation. This requires some background on me.

I am a new nurse. I graduated from an accredited university in a major city in May of this year, but I have an extensive background in the medical field. I obtained my CNA license (accompanied with college-level preparation courses in nursing) when I was a senior in high school. I was a medical scribe in the emergency department in a local city hospital (a level 2 trauma center, which was very mild compared to the environments I have been in since then). When I completed my Fundamentals of Nursing course in college, which is roughly 2.5 years into an RN/BSN education, I became a float pool student nurse technician. I floated to different floors each shift, sometimes with different roles, and got acquainted with many different medicinal specialties. I saw everything. No shift was the same, especially in a massive hospital such as the one that I worked in.

It was in this position that I was first introduced to the final frontier of Covid treatment. In March of 2020, in the beginning of the pandemic, I was floated to my very first Covid ICU. The land of medically-induced comas, ventilators, and supply shortages. However, these specifics are stories for another blog post.

When I passed my NCLEX and officially had an RN license, I was over the moon! I had a job secured in a progressive care unit, which is somewhere between an ICU and a medicinal floor. I thought at the time, a good starting point. I learned how to stand on my own as a nurse. How to communicate with doctors, families, and be the ultimate advocate for my patients. All was abundantly well, at first.

Que the overwhelmed medical system, greedy hospital administration, and the Great Resignation movement. We had patients that were much too sick for our floor, our patients and staff were contracting Covid from one another, and management couldn't be bothered. Management, specifically, was a large reason why I left this particular RN position. They seemed to be incredibly tone-deaf to the plights on their bedside nurses, despite having been one of us themselves. Patients with Covid were not transferred to isolation floors specifically designated for them, despite management also overseeing one of these units (he should've understood the importance of this). This hospital also lacked retention programs. I was to have the exact same wage as I did when I started, indefinitely. There were no bonuses for being exceptionally short-staffed and overworked, which puts my patients and my license at risk. There appeared to be no future, and I came home a little more deteriorated after each shift. I did not see a future for myself. Hospital administration seems more concerned with pizza parties and verbal congratulations (which is rare in and of itself) as adequate efforts for keeping their nursing staff.

So I left. I left for a vaccine clinic that paid double and had more reasonable hours. It eventually got out to my coworkers that I was leaving, and I was shunned. I was made fun of, but I also noticed that several of the other nurses were also looking for employment in other places. I feel that I had sparked something, or at least subliminally encouraged them to do something they were already thinking of.

I loved this vaccine clinic at first. It was in a pharmacy close to my home, which cut down on the commute significantly. I didn't have to worry about a 15 minute walk into work from my parking space, on top of a 30-minute drive. It was relaxed. I actually had so much free time in between appointments that I was able to read and have time to myself!

However, I wasn't being paid. The contract agency that I had been employed with simply did not pay me. When I looked to pharmacy management to help out on this matter, they promptly terminated me and hired another nurse.

I was devastated. I was floored. I was flabbergasted at the audacity. We're talking ugly-cry, screaming-at-the-world devastated. This contract was supposed to last for 5 months, but was cut short at just above 2 weeks. I felt like a failure and a disgrace to my profession.

Until today.

Shortly after the incredibly unfair termination of my contract, and spending two full working weeks of my time, I applied for something different. Bedside nursing is awful right now, Notoriously terrible as nurses are leaving in droves for greener pastures. I thought that I should simply do the same. I need to invest in myself if I am to have any kind of successful life.

Nursing is plagued by the notion that you must be, what we call, a bleeding heart. You must be selflessly devoted to your patients and the practice, hinting at little consideration to anything else. You don't like your work environment for x and y valid reason? Well, you chose to become a nurse! You should've anticipated that!

A ridiculous and successful propaganda technique to prevent us nurses for advocating for ourselves and, go forbid, unionizing. I disagree with this. I believe in a work-life balance for all. I refuse to be a wage slave to my employer.

So I thought.

I thought about specialties that could pique my interest and also be safe, reasonably stressful work environments. This lead me to OR nursing. Where nurses can only be assigned to one case at a time, be learning about fascinating procedures, and have more flexible hours than the 12-hour norm.

Today, I was accepted into an OR fellowship program in my area, which I am so excited for! During my interview, when we were touring the facility, I got to sneak a peek at a spinal surgery in their neurology surgical pod. It's orderly, still emergent, and amazing!

I am very optimistic about this opportunity, and have been more vigilant with hospitals since my previous experience. This particular hospital appears to be concerned with nurse retention. They are the only hospital in my area that I have seen actively respond to the unhappiness of the workforce at the moment. I could be very happy there, and certainly able to tough it out for two years.

I'll keep you posted, send some extra love to the nurses in your life.

And remember to fucking unionize :) your quality of life is important too, not just your employer(s)'