Why I Decided To Leave Bedside Nursing After 8 Years

Holy wow. I can’t even believe I’m writing this post right now. I’ve been back and forth about the idea of leaving/taking a break from bedside nursing for so long. The fact that it’s finally a reality is in-freaking-sane.

Let me warn you that this post is long and it’s not all nicely put together like many of my other posts. It’s basically a journal entry sharing my thoughts and giving you a little insight into my life and why I made this decision. It may be super boring to some people, but there are others who are in similar positions that I think need to hear someone else’s story so that’s what I’m sharing.

Nursing is my first career. I went to nursing school straight out of high school and got my bachelor’s. While I love taking care of people, I can’t say that’s the reason I chose to become a nurse. I chose it because I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew that a nursing degree gave you a lot of options. I get bored doing the same thing for too long, and I knew that as a nurse I could change specialties or even do something completely outside of clinical nursing if I wanted to. I also loved the idea of travel nursing and getting to see the country while still having stable employment. It was a job that allowed me to connect with people, it gave me a lot of flexible options, and it paid the bills.

I started out as a new grad on a Vascular PCU, and while I loved my manager and the people I worked with, I wasn’t happy with the patient population. I was appalled by the way patients treated nurses and CNAs. PCU is where I learned that patients are basically given free reign to be physically and verbally abusive to staff with no consequences whatsoever. I even witnessed some things that would be considered sexual assault outside of the hospital, but if a man masturbates in front of you or asks you to hold his penis in a urinal while he’s in the hospital, it’s just fine. Yeah, not for me.

A little over a year later I transferred to labor and delivery and found my absolute love, my passion, my niche. When I left PCU my coworkers told me I’d be bored out of my mind on L&D and that I’d come running back. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect, but let me tell you this adrenaline junkie thrives on labor and delivery. I was never bored. I got to be a triage nurse, I got to circulate and scrub in the OR, I got to learn the PACU, I got to take care of really sick pregnant people, and of course I got to help bring new life into the world. There’s nothing boring about L&D. I love it.

When I got my first L&D job I was so obsessed that I went above and beyond to do everything I could to be a valuable member of the team. At the time, I was the only person on the floor trained to work in every area of the unit. I also acted as a preceptor for senior practicum students and new nurses, and I was trained for relief charge. I also (along with one of my coworkers) handled the community outreach for our unit and coordinated things like March of Dimes fundraisers and monthly volunteer nights at the local Ronald McDonald house.

Despite everything I did to be an amazing nurse for that unit, I wasn’t appreciated. Within a couple of years I was making significantly less than the people I was training because new grad pay was going up every year. While I was happy that new grads were making more than the $19.50/hr that I started at, I was unimpressed when my annual raise was less than $0.50/year. Management declined to give me more than that and threatened disciplinary action for discussing pay with coworkers. Hospital culture is cute like that – they don’t want the staff to share pay rates because then they would have to pay everyone fairly. Pro tip: talk about pay with each other. Demand what you’re worth. Anyway, that’s a soap box for another day.

After two years at my first L&D job, I’d had enough. I knew that I deserved to be making more money and getting more appreciation than I was from my unit. I was tired of giving everything I had to a hospital that couldn’t care less, so I left to travel.

Travel nursing was great for a little while. I loved working at different hospitals and learning new ways of doing things. I loved meeting new people. Obviously I loved the travel aspect of it most of all. I got to go places I probably never would have seen if I had stayed in Southwest VA my entire life and I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything.

During my travel career, I found a hospital and a city that I loved, so I decided to stay. I expressed interest in leadership and quickly worked my way up the clinical ladder. Within six months of signing on as a staff nurse, I was promoted to management. I thought this was what I wanted, but after giving it a solid year of my life and continuing to tell myself it would get better, I realized it wasn’t for me. That’s also a post for another day, but what I will say is at 28 years old I wasn’t ready for 80 hour work weeks, keeping secrets from my team, and being way too involved in hospital politics that I wished I hadn’t even known about.

I stepped down from my leadership position to go back to the floor, and eventually I came back to travel nursing. That decision was due in part to family circumstances, but it was also partially because once you’ve seen the leadership side of things it’s really hard to go back and pretend like everything is fine when you know otherwise. It’s difficult to keep your mouth shut when you’re being told things that you know aren’t true.

By the time I jumped back into traveling, COVID was in full force. Needless to say the travel aspect was much less exciting given that everything was shut down. I also got a really interesting picture of how badly hospitals were abusing their staff and putting them in unsafe circumstances while calling us all heroes in an attempt to make up for it. I thought maybe that was worse at the hospital I’d just left, but truth be told it was everywhere. There wasn’t enough PPE, there wasn’t enough staff, and people were getting exhausted.

The combination of knowing way too much about how hospitals run and the working conditions during the pandemic completely did me in. I loved taking care of my patients, but I didn’t love working in the hospital anymore. Everything I felt I should be able to do to give my patients the best care was limited by the resources I had and what was allowed. There’s so much red tape and bullshit, I can’t even begin to tell you. It was exhausting to go to work every day. Mentally, physically, and emotionally.

I was on assignment at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore when I decided that would be my last contract, at least for a long time. I was so burnt out, I hated going to work. I would sit in my car and cry on the phone to my boyfriend before I walked in. I had so much anxiety about leaving the bedside and no idea what I was going to do, but I knew that I had to prioritize my mental health. The way I was feeling wasn’t sustainable.

I spent my free time applying for every work from home job that I thought might look at my resume with such specialized experience. I must have applied for a hundred jobs and from most of them I heard nothing. Until one day I got a call back from a telephone triage company who wanted to interview me. I went through the interview process, and I got the job! I was so relieved. I had no idea what to expect, but I was thankful to know that I wouldn’t have to go back to the hospital after my contract was over. I had something to fall back on while I figured out what the hell I was going to do with my life. It was like a weight had been lifted off of me.

I’ve been working my new triage job from home for about three weeks as I’m writing this. When I first started, I told myself that once I got settled in I would get a per diem job on L&D at one of the hospitals in town. I just knew I would miss the bedside and I wouldn’t want to lose my skills. Just over one month out from my last day at Hopkins and honestly I don’t miss it at all. I’m not sad about not going into work and delivering babies. I don’t worry about losing my skills. Honestly, I just feel relieved.

I am so happy in this new role. My company has been extremely supportive through my training. So many people have checked in with me and welcomed me. They have scheduled breaks and they will not let you miss them. The morale is good and people are happy. I get to work in my pajamas and have my coffee at the desk. I don’t end the shift with every muscle and joint in my body hurting. And, to my surprise, I actually find the job really fun and interesting. I still get to have patient contact and help people, but I don’t have to worry about all the BS of working in the hospital. It’s actually amazing.

At this point, I don’t know that I’ll ever go back to the bedside. Sometimes it’s hard to realize how bogged down you’ve been when you’re under a lot of stress until you come out on the other side, and I feel like that’s where I am. I’m spending time with friends and family. I’m not worried about work when I’m off. Overall my anxiety and stress level is significantly improved. I don’t have any desire to go back to the way I felt before. I’m enjoying the flexibility that this gives me and I’m honestly really happy.

It felt like a huge leap to leave the bedside, and maybe one day I will decide to go back, who knows? That’s the nice thing about nursing, it’s flexible. You can always change your job, do something different, try new things, or go back to something you love. Right now, I think leaving the bedside was the best thing I could do for myself.

If you’re a nurse and you’re thinking about moving into something other than bedside, I highly encourage you to go for it. I know it can be scary and I know that you may have feelings of anxiety about being “less than” if you’re not working a bedside clinical role. Trust me, I was there too. But when you allow yourself to prioritize your health, you’ll realize there’s nothing better. It’s so worth the change, and honestly the hospitals deserve to lose every single good nurse that they have until they start treating their staff better. If you want to chat, my email inbox is always open, or you can find me on instagram. I’d love to answer questions or just let you vent.

I hope this post was helpful in some way. Whether it helped you gain understanding of why me or another nurse you love left the bedside, or you’re a nurse looking to make the same move. I’m so thankful that I took the leap and I want to help anyone else who may be struggling or even just toying with the idea so please feel free to message me!

@Adventuresofarealgirl 👇🏻