This past week I passed the CCRN test. Now I have my critical care professional certification. And I also realized, that after just two years, I am well on the road to burnout.It's only been six weeks since I came back from vacation and all the bad feelings are building up again.
I feel like I'm in a box that keeps closing in on me. The box is shrinking all the time, and there are no windows or doors. I see few opportunities for growth. I can't help thinking that the self-serving short-sighted interests of a few people who have a fragile grip on power in our department are contributing to that. I am sick and tired of tripping over one in particular, the one who is on the edge of seizing an even more powerful position by default. She gets under my feet every chance she gets and nit-picks at things that are in my opinion, totally unnecessary to get uptight over. She does this to everyone, but lately I feel like I've been under the microscope.
It also seems that the powers that be are totally unprepared for what will eventually, and probably sooner than later, happen, and that is when one or more of the People in Charge of Crap (called PCCs, patient care coordinators, most of whom don't seem to have the coordination to chew gum and walk) quits and they are left with trying to fill those positions. My boss appears to be on another planet. She has no idea what our days are like.
No one is being grown, no one is being given the tools to succeed or advance their skills, and we have few people with much experience, knowledge, capability or maturity to lead the others. And I feel reviled, I am still treated like the village idiot, and I still get all the hostility. I am sure there will be even more resentment now that I have the CCRN, because I am one of just 8 nurses who have their CCRN. That's out of about 35 nurses on the unit.
And if you say anything that is critical of the way things are, like expressing any criticism of the one unit assistant who is completely worthless, they turn it around on you. Like it's something you're doing wrong and you need to look at how you can change.
Just last week I got a thrashing from one of the doctors, the one who is so intense. I asked a legitimate question at the wrong time and she blew up at me. She vented at the charge nurse about it, who of course didn't back me up. All that happened was my new admit, who came in to the ED in respiratory distress, came to the unit. I got him settled and he was breathing well by the time he arrived, stable vitals, not in any distress, and talking my ear off through his mask. He just had an ABG when he left the ED and I got the results. They stuck a mask on him and sent him up to us.
He was going to need lots of antibiotics and transfusions, and I asked if the doctor wanted him to have a PICC. Apparently the question I was supposed to ask at that moment was when she wanted the next ABG. Well I knew he would need another one but having just arrived, and all the infusion orders coming at me, I happened to ask the question about the PICC. Excuse me but why stick the guy a million times if he needs a line, and I wasn't sure of her plan for him. So I asked.
Add that to being sick and tired of the millions of little details and growing numbers of details we have to be concerned with every day as we take care of our patients and try to get our job done, while neglecting ourselves. Working 13 hour days and by the end of the day you are even less able to deal with the little details, not eating or drinking, and never finishing a task, and being criticized but never praised and never thanked.
I hate my job when it's like that and days like the other day make me not want to go back. The little comments that erode at your confidence. The nastiness of a small number of doctors, and the snotty comments from the other nurses, including those in charge, who feel they are superior to everyone. Or at least want to let you know that they think you're inferior to them.
I feel like the box is shrinking. Like I'm being suffocated, and that is precisely their intention for me.
So the village idiot gets her CCRN. Amazing. I can hear the snippy comments already...
