Nursing is one of the holistic and noble professions in the world which requires someone to have unshakeable passion to care people of various characteristics, age, race and status.

Nursing career is a caring profession in which someone has to put the other's need first before her's. That is why I could not agree more if they say NURSING is not for everyone.

It takes a real passion and PATIENCE to survive and thrive in this career.

I am currently a home care nurse somewhere in this world but I have been serving the humanity for over 12 years now. For the span of those years, I have been switching fields. From hospital nurse, community nurse to being a home care nurse. As I looked back to those previous experiences, I realized how time flies so fast. Lots have been changed and so is my preference and values.

It is kinda so sad to unveil the fact that I am planning to strike out of this career sooner. To other people, it seemed as if I am throwing the BIG opportunity now that Nurses have become in demand across the globe since the COVID 19 pandemic came up.

Yes I know.

It seems such a waste.

And it hurts me the fact that I had never imagined myself making this ultimate decision until I was put in such miserable situation in which I am right now.

But here are my point-of views:

I Am in the Nursing Career for Wrong Reasons

To be honest, I really liked nursing when I had just graduated High School. My CSAT results tells it. Not only Nursing was comprised with Science-related subjects which I was interested in, I also liked the idea of caring people. At first, I wanted to become a Doctor. Not having enough funds to support myself, I chose Nursing course instead.

There were a lot of courses to choose from in college, if I had just decided money wise. But I still ended up taking the Nursing course despite of my parents' financial constraints, because I had been following the common flock.

So what do I mean by that??

Several Years ago, Nursing career had somewhat been a fad among freshmen students.

It had been a known to laymen that Nursing is an in-demand job which could allow someone to earn lots of money especially if working abroad.

The same thing I heard from my relatives who taunted me to take up nursing course. They said by being a Registered Nurse in the future, it would be easier for me to go abroad since one of them would assist me to get into it. Thus, they promised that they would assist me financially in my education.

I don't know if you would agree with me, but being on Nursing Program in my old times gave such an impression to students that they belonged in a "smarter", "neat", and "well-off" club since Nursing course was one of the costly degrees in college and universities. Guess what, the University I enrolled in looked like a hospital filled of personnel in all-white uniforms.

In addition to that, being an inferior student trying to assimilate with peers and not wanting to part with them, I enrolled myself to the Nursing.

Funny isn't it?

At my 4th year in nursing, I remember myself starting to question the path that I took. But I just continued because I could not afford to waste the time that I put in and the tuition fees my Mom had sacrificed.

Fortunately, I actually became A Registered Nurse. I worked as a Hospital staff Nurse for the first 3 years of my career. However, from that experience, I realized that "this isn't me".

I had this inkling that I would not definitely work as a nurse forever after I had experienced the most of the disadvantages at work.

I know that there is no such Job as Perfect. Any job has its own pros and cons. But on my perspective as a hospital nurse, the disadvantages of Nursing outweighs the advantages.

Now that I am a Home Care Nurse, I reminisced one of those bad days in clinical I ever had. My lame reasons to take up nursing course boils down to my present reason as a registered nurse: TO EARN A LIVING

I had a lot to say about my Home Care Career and why this experience became one of my incentives to quit Nursing. I'll explain it on my next blog.

Had I known the true insides of Nursing Career in the real world, I would not have chosen to be in that profession. Although i had enjoyed Nursing career at some point in my life which was being a Community Health nurse, I realized I became a nurse for wrong reasons.

Working on a job to earn a living is GOOD, but if I am lacking strong passion to do it now, this career path is not going to last a lifetime.

LONG HOURS OF WORK

There nothing worse than working on a job that I hate for very long hours!.

One of my weaknesses in a job is having to work for more than 8 hours per day.

Now that I am a home care nurse I work 12 hours per shift not including the 2 hours travel time to patient's house back and forth. What is more draining is I am only granted with 2 days off per week, sometimes, I would only have a sleeping off per week if the facility is understaffed. This does not apply to this field. It is often seen on all types of nursing career.

You can just see how nurses at COVID 19 crisis have been so worn-out.

Nurses are expected to work tirelessly for several hours since our career is expected to focus on patient-centered care.

I remember myself working in a hospital for 3 years where I was forced to have over-time because of emergencies at work such as: code blue, a huge wave of fatalities in the ER and understaffing.

The workload of nurses in a few hospitals at present from 8 hour per shift now became 12 hours per shift for lesser endorsements and maximizing patient care.

It would be agonizing on my part since I don't have the sense of passion in bedside care for now.

The longer hours I have to put up with, the more the work is killing my soul.

It would not have been a problem if only I liked what I'm doing for several straight hours and it is allowing me to have a bladder break and have at least an hour to eat my lunch without a haste.

It is Taking A Toll on my General Health

If you guys have experienced working on night shifts with irregular rest days, you would know what I am talking about.

Working on night shifts does not only impair my physical health but also it messes up my sleeping pattern.

I would be lucky enough if the house I would sleep in would be as quiet as the midnight.

But tranquility and silence are not guaranteed if I am co-existing with people who are awake, up and about at daytime. TOO BAD, if I have a roommate or a family member who doesn't compromise for me to have a sound sleep.

On the next few days, when I am scheduled on day shifts, it would be so hard for me to sleep at night since I was already accustomed to being awake at night. This is such an arduous problem if I only have 1 day sleeping off. (An unhealthy transition in which I had to work on day shift the next day after having the night shift).

So imagine if I sleep at daytime from a tiring night shift, I would have been a night owl later on throughout the night.

Oftentimes, what I get into by the time I arrive from a night shift job is noisy neighborhood and unnecessary disturbance from the people living with me. As a result, I would only have at least 3-4 hours of sleep at daytime on average.

By not having enough sleep, I would feel weak and ill physically and mentally.

SLAVERY

Although being a nurse cares and saves lives, it would also mean being a slave to several types of people in this scope of career.

Like any slave in the world, it feels like I have to please these types of people just to survive my nursing career. And it is tiring and intolerable.

TO THE PATIENT

A nurse in a nutshell is a slave to patients, in a way that she has to be the a shock absorber of the patient's emotional, physical and mental stress.

If the patient is mad and hostile I had to deal with it.

So it would be not uncommon to get beaten up and yelled at at the same time. I have to take all kinds of stressors my patient emits including all the negativity and misery. And because they are ill, they do not care what would I feel if they will throw their load to me.

On the physical aspect, I had to endure the physical stress at work to keep the patients safe and alive at my watch.

I have to put off eating my meals if necessary especially if there is code blue , when someone needs immediate response or i need to attend the call light.

I must also mention the physical risks that I face such as tolerating to lift the patients full body weight without using a Hoist because in my current assignment the patient refuses to use an assistive device when transferring from one place to another. As a result, I acquired chronic back pains and high risk for spinal injury.

I realized that Patients in general lack the understanding what kind of stress a Nurse has to bear upon taking care of them.

They have the SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT in a way that they get mad at me if I don't bring their cup of tea on time. They get admitted at the hospital demanding as if they are staying in a 5-star hotel without thinking if the nurse had even peed or eaten her lunch.

You see, patients are important. But disrespecting me as if they own me puts me on a severe kind of emotional stress that does not easily get relieved by the time I go home at the end of the shift.

Most of the time, I hardly go to sleep because I had been so preoccupied what could go wrong after my shift.

• "Did I forget something?"*

"Didn't I missed anything on the chart?"

"Has there anything been undocumented?"

"Did I administer the medicines properly?"

"WILL MY PATIENT MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT?"

TO THE PATIENT'S IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBER

While I attend to the patient's needs, there is one family member who thinks he knows better than I do to the point he interferes whatever nursing intervention I implement according to patient's needs and safety.

So almost everytime I get myself into trouble because I had quarreled with the patient's relative whose opinions would put the patient to harm.

He has written me off to the nursing service for a complaint against me.

Of course, I then got told off for misbehaving at work and been asked to make an Incident Report. It is indeed so hard to make a content of an IR for a mistake that is not obviously my fault..

TO THE PHYSICIAN

I know you would say "It is indeed your job".

Yes I know.

I AM AWARE with my duties and scope of practice the moment I recited the The Nightingale's PLEDGE:

No wonder, that Nursing does not mean a separate profession. And it is nothing more than professional slavery.

You see, nurses are indeed dependent to Physicians even though they have separate body of knowledge and scope of practice.

Knowing that the physician is the one who makes orders for the patient's cure, I cannot go on working without having to refer to him first.

Every single move that I make independently must be made known to the physician otherwise, I will be doing malpractice and I might insult his profession. (Maybe I'm just not a team-player kinda person)

Not to be judgmental, It would not be hard if all doctors are nice and respectful.

However, oftentimes, Doctors have a sense of dominance and acquired arrogance towards nurses. My suggestion / nursing intervention for example was not taken seriously by the doctor and when the patient worsens his condition, I am to be blamed.

Another annoying for me is whenever I clarify a sloppy penmanship indicating an Order, the Doctor would rudely scold me for disturbing since he's probably in the middle of something.

So I think some of the nurses would rather put off calling the attention of doctors for clarifying their orders than to risk themselves getting insulted on the phone call.

Doctors are no different to patients and patient's relatives who tend to me become emotional as well especially if they are stressed out about saving lives. As a result, Nurses became the recipient of all sorts of displacement from irate doctors.

Doctors by profession have strong desire to cure and revive patients. Some of whom are even after for a prestigious credit which is why they appear uptight.

Have you ever been thrown at with a metal chart by a Doctor who was just mad at something? Yes, I have. And I acquired scratches on my skin for not being able to evade the metal chart. That happened when I was a post ICU staff nurse.

If all the insults I had received from my Doctors in the past were lethal, I would have been dead by now.

TO THE ADMIN AND NURSING UNIT

This goes down to Nurse Supervisors, Headnurses and Admin Department, who change around the work rules and set up. Since they are at the higher position, they always have the right to impose unjust punishments to nurses they don't like. I'm not trying to generalized all of them, but most of them became too personal towards their nurses with their implementation.

Standing for oneself as a Nurse by responding to a Chief Nurse for instance would mean cutthroat dealing with her. It happened to me several times, when I was trying to defend myself for being falsely accused of doing I did not do. I was put on straight duties without having off for straight 3 weeks. The schedule of course was made by the upper people.

As a result, I got seriously sick and even contracted an infectious disease in the past.

SUPERIORS are good , most folks are.. But when they get too personal . They seem unprofessional.

TO THE CO-NURSES

I'm not saying that all nurses at work are like that. Most of them are even like brothers and sisters to us.

But what I'm emphasizing here is "BULLYING"

It is good to get along with senior nurses ahead of us since they are the ones who will be teaching and orient us about how to get around the new job and hospital rules.

However, if these "senior" nurses are insolent and arrogant , that's another story.

You see, bullying is not only seen at schools, offices or sports but is also seen among newbie nurses working with a bunch of senior nurses. Bullying towards a newbie like me at that time would look like this:

Getting unfair number of patients with unbalanced cases. "Would you ever survive taking care of 3 mechvent patients and a bunch of pediatric patients at the same time?" While the rest of whom are having the "Nonchalant cases". And these colleagues think that I deserve having these heavy workload so that I can learn and because they had been in the hospital LONGER than I had.

Being blameworthy for a mistake committed by a colleague.

Not getting help at times of too much business.

Getting ostracized for being a "slow learner" someone who does not get things quickly.

Getting introduced to another senior as a "talking donkey" when get asked to make verbal endorsement in the first day of work.

I bet you have something to add up here...

IT IS NO LONGER IN LINE WITH MY VALUES IN LIFE

To the people I know and whom who knows me very well in the beginning, they would probably question my decision.

They would likely say I had wasted several years of education and hardworking just for lame reasons to quit.

To be honest, I liked NURSING but in another aspect.

I didn't mentioned in detail that I had been a community health nurse for 5 years which made up almost the bulk of my Nursing career. I like caring and helping people. And I liked it even more when i get to go to different places during home visits while meeting diverse kinds of people. I like helping people who appreciates my effort and purpose. I like making presentations among bunch of people through giving health teachings about basically what they need to know about health. I prefer serving a whole community aiming for an advantage that affects lives in large scale.

And I prefer dealing patients way more different than the way I did as a hospital nurse. I like to keep a certain barrier between me and my patients and that is Professional Nurse-Patient relationship where people are partners, not bosses and slaves.

I like working in touch of beautiful nature. I prefer driving around to go ahead seeing a patient while basking in the positive ambience outdoors.

I do not prefer working anymore at night shifts. I could no longer tolerate long hours of work , not being vested with holidays and the other disadvantages that go along with this career.

EMOTIONS

"I never got to know myself more until I got assigned to a certain patient who has pushed my buttons."

In my early years as a Nurse, I was so tolerant with my patients since I understand how they felt. I used to be a patient too so I can pretty well resonate with them.

However as time went by, I gradually understand deeply the essence of being a nurse. That is having an immense PATIENCE AND COMPASSION at ALL kinds of patients who come across me.

When I got assigned to a patient who was rude and cocky, it was a harrowing ordeal to me. Being so ungrateful to my services, he managed to annoy me in so many ways that finally pushed my buttons.

This patient was abusive in a way that compromised my safety and mental health which lead me questioned my attitude towards being a professional nurse.

Overtime, I slowly relinquished my temper. I tend to have extreme anger and unstable emotions especially if I get physically exhausted at the same time. Therefore, there has been a time when I almost blow my resentment towards him in return.

You see, that's how HARD nursing is. Being a NURSE is an EMOTIONAL JOB.

As Nurses, we are dealing with all sorts emotions. Therefore a NURSE must be emotionally resilient even to a very rude and hostile patient otherwise he/ she might unlawfully offend the patient.

Unfortunately, I discovered I did not have such a skill. I was not able to acquire that over many years. That's the problem.

NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENT

I mentioned above that because I am a Nurse, I am dealing with different emotions. Which goes down to dealing with the Negative Environment.

You might be wondering why I say that Being a Nurse means dealing with a negative environment.

When You work whether in a hospital or at home, you are taking care of patient's whose prognosis are unknown. Most of them have been receiving medical treatments but were to no avail. Some of them are on the state of severe pain and discomfort.

Guess what, as a nurse, You gotta deal with those negative emotions. You can then be spit out, hit at or worse yet verbally abused. You cannot appease them by saying "calm down" because they are just expressive human beings. Most of them do not care about what you feel after they blow all their frustrations towards you.

In my case, I am fed up already with my patients throwing their tantrums which mostly delay my "have-to-do" nursing interventions.

Administering medications to a difficult toddler or elderly while a call light goes off from a "close-watch" patients is never easy. I could not leave that patient when I am just in the middle of administering the meds in the process.

The nursing environment has this subtle negativity no matter which way you look at it. For me, You are dealing with sick people whose illnesses brought them chronic pessimism in their minds. You have no idea whether that patient will make through the day so you have this vague anxiety throughout your shift.

Based on my experience, I get uptight over the 12 hour shift. From heading to the workplace to the moment I close my eyes to sleep.

You can pretty get my point if you have worked in a very busy hospital.

Working as Nurse you gotta have a resilient spirit after receiving all sorts of negative vibes from the environment. Including the patient's family members who put high expectations on you that you should be giving your patient's the optimum nursing care.

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This decision of mine may seem lame for others. But to me it looks I am going to make a sound decision. Since I came up with this with at NEUTRAL emotion. I did not regret the whole experience as a NURSE since I got to contribute to humanity and to know myself more. That's the beauty of it.

Choosing this career in the first place was a RIGHT decision.

But at present..

it looks like it is no longer in line with my values and ambitions in my life.

I would rather invest my efforts onto something more worthy of my time while enjoy doing other things outside of my daily job.