I disagree. It
is a weakness to not be made of stone... for this job.
Feelings cloud our judgement. We need to be able to make the right decisions for the people under our care based on all the facts, not just how we
feel. The most competent of nurses (of any group of professionals, for that matter) are the ones who can do the delicate balancing act of leaving their problems and feelings as well as their thin skin and tender, easily bruised hearts, at home and taking their thick-skinned, strong, logical and compassionate hearts to work.
Burn out is a symptom of job dissatisfaction as well as over-work, and it does not sneak up on you. You're complaining, dragging your ass and experiencing mysterious illnesses the whole time. It's the
snap!, the climactic mental breakdown that occurs at an arbitrary moment, perhaps triggered by the most insignificant event. The proverbial "last straw". One thing is for certain, once you've burned out once, subsequent break downs require less and less stress as a trigger.
Nursing has drastically changed in the last two decades. However it's romanticized notion hasn't. The worse thing that ever happened to nursing is it becoming a
profession. Nurses wanted to be counted and considered healthcare professionals, equals with the likes of physicians. Well, we are. We have all the credibility and responsibilities bestowed upon us by our newly defined profession. The people responsible for bringing nursing out of the dark-ages made irreparable damage. By lobbying for, and adding onto our job-description autonomy and decision-making authority, they forgot that we already had our hands full taking care of the 'people'. Nurses were originally nuns and unmarried women, for very good reasons. It requires 'vocation', and putting others' needs first. They had no lives outside of caring for the sick. Historically, young women were stripped of their status as nurses and ordered to leave the hospital if they got married. Hospital administrators of the time realized that a woman could no longer give a 100% if she is splitting herself between her husband and children and the sick and elderly. Nurses were expected to followed the physician's orders and care for the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of their patients (not to mention the housekeeping, laundry and meal preparation...).
They worked for a pittance.
No one was concerned about their welfare or feelings. You can't be whining about your needs not being met when you choose to care for others in this kind of setting. It's oxymoronic.
Most of us became nurses because something inside of us needed to care for people out of loneliness, a need for approval and appreciation, whatever. Thanks to the many advancements in our profession, we no longer have the time nor opportunity to do so, and a lot of us end up with responsiblities in the workplace beyond the scope of what we can or want to be doing. Minus the self-esteem pay-off.
We have no one to blame, except the members of our own profession, that we allow to represent us and who were in the position to exact these changes.
And finally, we are responsible for our own health and happiness. If we don't feel well doing what it is we do, then we need to apply our
nursing process to our ailing lives, both personal and professional..
We can do this by collecting the the
data, applying it to our
knowledge,
assessing the situation,
planning the changes and
implementing them. I assure you that upon final
evaluation, you will indeed feel good about yourself again.
« Okay, that's it.
