Nursing

I have practiced nursing for 37 years and cannot hardly wait to get out of it. While I would not trade my experiences the current climate is suffocating and brutal. The majority patients have life threatening problems from years of lifestyle abuse like untreated diabetes, obesity, drug use, etc, but lifestyle is the last thing anyone ever changes and it certainly is a rare topic for any pyhsician( there are some MDs who deal with it but they are not popular) . It's always medicating and treating people with stuff that will ultimately kill them because the lifestyle is the issue and the last thing to ever be addressed, if it is ever addressed.

You give someone a pill to address one problem but that pill causes 3 other problems so you give them 3 more pills to address the other issues caused by the first one, and it progresses from there. You do the math! Perhaps, instead of giving the first pill someone just talked to them about making a small lifestyle change and they would not need the first pill. If you make one lifestlye change and are successful, it becomes easier to make the next one! Years ago I started having difficulty sleeping, of course I could have "taken something" to help me sleep. But I looked at my lifestyle, I was a moderate coffee drinker, did not get enough exercise. I started walking 1-2 miles a day outside of my work and chores. Just walked for the fun of it (the dogs loved it), I started drinking half-caf, but being a real coffee lover did not give up totally on my beloved java. Secret was a really good quality brew. I don't have any trouble sleeping anymore, my total cholesterol came down, my weight loss and endurance improved and do I ever love to walk. I feel cheated now if I cannot do at least one mile/day. It frees up my brain and helps me sort through things in addition to the chance to wave at the nieghbors. A pill would have helped me, only temporarily, I got years of good results from 2 simple things.

Every work unit I have ever worked treated my workload as if patients were widgets on an assembly line. These are humans we deal with not widgets. How do you make a difference with another human, when all you do it pass pills to them, patch up what you can and go on to the next one in line? I came into nursing to make a difference, I no longer feel that I do that. This issue might be my primary concern but there are lots of others. Untreated mental illness is another, homelessness, nurses who might pass state boards but don't know how to or care to get their "hands dirty" with difficult work or challenging situations (there for the paycheck only).I feel like I've banged my head for 37 years, it's sore now.