Neonatal Nursing Jobs

Every job has it drawbacks and burnout occurs in virtually all professions. A good example of this are postal workers who are evidently subjected to enough on the job stress that the final breaking point where everything comes to a boil and often leads to violence is termed ?going postal.? Another recent example of an employee snapping is the airline attendant who after dressing down a particularly troublesome passenger grabbed a beer and slid down the plane?s emergency exit ramp.

The field of nursing has its own type of burnout. Nurses are responsible for the very lives of their customers or patients. Nurses must be ever vigilant for signs of change in the patient?s condition or new order that must be carried out immediately. Most nurses feel their work assignment far exceeds the hours they are given to perform it. Nurses feel time constraints prevent them from giving proper patient care, which leads to guilt and dissatisfaction.

Many ex-nurses describe burnout as the reason they quit the profession. I know nurses that work as real estate agents, medical transcriptionists and waitresses. While I definitely understand and have experienced that same feeling of burnout I don?t think giving up nursing is the answer. The nursing field offers a wide variety of practice settings both clinical and non-clinical. Often it takes no more than a change of scenery to get over that burnt out feeling and regain pride in your career.

I have been a nurse for over twenty years. Clinical nursing and hands-on care is my preference but there have been times when I am just physically and mentally exhausted from the demands of the job. I literally don?t want to touch another sick person. The first time that I felt this way I took a job as a care plan coordinator at a nursing home. The job entailed significant responsibility, as the nursing home was reimbursed based on the information in these care plans and assessments. It was nothing more than a paperwork job and actually pretty easy. After two years of this I had recovered from my burnout and went back to hospital work.

The second time I got wanderlust I checked out home health. The third time I worked at a dialysis clinic. Each time I left the hospital I swore I would never return but I always went back. I really love being a staff nurse and all that comes with it but I?m not immune to burnout. Because of the many opportunities within the field I never had to leave nursing to get away from my job.