Well, as expected, my first shift back after being off for a week (most of it sick) was absolutely horrible. Isn’t that always the way? You feel rested, relaxed, recharged, energized and newly excited about your profession. Then you walk in and within ten minutes you are reminded of exactly why you keep getting burnt out. 

Some of you are thinking, “what? You haven’t even been out of school a year and you’re using the ‘B’ word?” However, for me, burnout isn’t an end of the road situation for me. Instead, I find that it is a cycle that ebbs and flows over time. 

Last night I had fresh post-op patients, new ICU admits, a psychotic patient, a total care patient, a patient that needed excessive toileting (ARG! I hate walking little old ladies/men to the bathroom several times a night when they are sloooooow!), two others that kept me busy by frequently asking for menial tasks. Yes, there’s nothing like that desperate call from a patient because they need their perfectly fine leg moved two inches to the left! We had one of these conversations:

“Nurse Sean, can you move my leg two inches to the left?”

“Why don’t you try adjusting it yourself?”

“Oh! OK, is that allowed?”

I had two patients on tubefeeds, almost all the patients were on q6h sliding scale insulin, one had a heparin drip that needed to be titrated, three were having low blood pressure issues, two others had low urine outputs, one needed discharge paperwork started, another needed to be prepped for a CT scan. On top of all this, administration insisted that we start lining our halls with new patients even though we were short staffed.

I think if I could choose one factor that contributes most to my burnout, it would be a complete lack of control over my environment at work. I have no say in my patient assignment (I can request a change, but it isn’t likely), so if I feel I have too many patients and feel unsafe I have no recourse. If five nurses call in sick but they still insist on filling up our unit far past capacity, we don’t have the ability to stop admissions because we just can’t handle more. I can’t tell doctors that certain procedures will have to wait until morning because I have too much on my plate. In situations like these, I am simply told, “too bad, deal with it.” And usually very rudely.

So, last night my mind was filled with the question of how can nurses  regain control of their own work environment. The only resolution I could come up with was regarding our union contract. I firmly made the decision that I will never say yes to a contract unless it includes some way for nurses to refuse dangerous workloads. Until nurses have the ability to say “no,” I will not be agreeing to anything.

Sure, this may mean that I never vote yes on a contract again, but I believe nurses have massive pools of power that they never use! Instead, they sit around the break room and complain about their jobs without taking action. Imagine if every nurse decided they would never sign a contract or work in a job unless it gave the nurse more power over the safety of their environment! 

Come on nurses, use your power! If you don’t like something, find a way to fight it! Even if the only recourse is to withdraw your yes vote.