Today is May 12, which is also International Nurses Day.
According to a March 2023 report by the International Council of Nurses, the global nurse gap is expected to reach 13 million by 2030. Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued an appeal to encourage countries to train more medical professionals to cope with the "global shortage".
What about the mainland? The data of recent years show that there is a shortage of nurse positions in tertiary hospitals in mainland China, and it is increasing year by year. In a 2022 survey of 10,781 young nurses in tertiary hospitals across the country, the journal "Chinese Modern Nursing" found that 33.5% of them were willing to leave, which was at a high level.
On the one hand, the aging population and other problems are emerging, and the demand for nurses is rising, and on the other hand, the turnover rate of nurses is increasing. So why did these young nurses leave? What kind of dilemma are you facing? Combined with interviews with several former nurses, let's find out.
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That moment
I'm a bit "broken".
Lan Lan (pseudonym), 95 years old, undergraduate, resigned after 3 years in the nursing profession and is now an editor.
Choosing care is a matter of inconvenience. After the college entrance examination, I was transferred to the nursing major. Later, when I was recruiting, I chose a tertiary hospital in Beijing for an internship. After entering this industry, the biggest feeling for me is that as a low-level nurse, I will face extra pressure.
In the department, the nursing department manages the head nurse, and the head nurse selects a competent, experienced senior nurse as the head of the teaching team. In the absence of the head nurse, the leader of the teaching team can act as the head nurse. Nurses with more than three years of experience can teach interns.
In general, interns are required to receive instructions from any nurse in the department with the consent of the instructor. At that time, my internship rotation was transferred to the infectious disease department, and there was a rule at the nurse's station that only one paper towel for the sink could be used at a time. Some interns have also been severely criticized for this. Later, I learned that each department has a usage index for materials, and the use of consumables such as paper towels will affect the performance salary of nurses.
The work of a nurse depends largely on the management style of the nurse manager. After my internship, I was fortunate enough to stay in a department in the internship hospital with a low turnover rate. The head nurse of this department is managed in a relatively gentle manner. Nurses who are temporarily unwell or can be allowed to change shifts without affecting their work. In addition, the head nurse respects each nurse equally. When encountering some obviously "unreasonable" patients, the head nurse will help the nurse solve the problem, rather than simply thinking that "the nurse is at fault".
Once, during the night shift, I was slapped by a patient who had a hepatic encephalopathy attack. The next morning, when the head nurse took us on a round, he deliberately asked him to apologize to me. At that time, the head nurse said: "You slapped our girl last night, and our girl also grew up in pain from the family, you quickly apologize to her!" "When I think about it now, I still remember it vividly.
Later, the department changed, which led to a change of leadership. The new head nurse has a stricter management style. The shift system no longer exists, and even if you are not feeling well, you have to come to work in the department.
I also wondered if I should hold on a little longer. However, one thing that finally broke me was when one day I was on an infusion in the hospital room, and an uncle yelled at me, "Waiter! "I knew he didn't mean it, but at that moment, I kind of broke the defense. It didn't take long for me to resign.
On my last day at the hospital, I took a picture of the last truckload of liquids as a souvenir. To this day, every time I turn to it, I still think of that time in the hospital. But what I mentioned more to the people around me was: the uncle who was rescued was tearfully thanked before being discharged from the hospital, and a series of interesting stories caused by a colleague's misspeech during work......
After leaving the nursing profession for so long, it seems that I have long been relieved of the bad ones, if you ask me do I regret being a nurse? I think my answer is: no regrets.
Source: Provided by the interviewee
She has been a nurse for 8 years
For the sake of my family, I had no choice but to leave
Xiao'er (pseudonym), 89 years old, post-secondary education, resigned from 8 years in the nursing industry, and is now a kindergarten school doctor.
After the college entrance examination, I followed the advice of my parents and family and chose to major in nursing. At that time, I didn't know much about the profession.
However, when I officially stepped into the nursing profession, I found that this job was completely different from what I had imagined, and that nursing is a job that requires a high level of concentration.
I always have a notebook in my pocket to keep track of the work that needs to be done, because the work of a nurse is unimaginably tedious. In the ward, a nurse is in charge of seven or eight patients, and infusions, blood draws, medications/checklists, and vital signs (blood pressure and body temperature are routinely measured) are all mechanical tasks to be done every day.
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Sometimes when a patient is discharged from the hospital, it is necessary to admit a newly admitted patient, and it is necessary to prepare the bed, print the bedside nursing sheet, admit the patient (observe and check the physical condition, connect ECG monitoring and oxygen inhalation, measure the abdominal circumference and height, etc.), and finally fill in the patient's information into the nursing system. In addition to these patients, there are also patients who have surgery to be picked up and transported, and patients who need special care are ordered to do it...... Walking 20,000 steps a day is the norm.
The night shift was also not easy. Take the big night shift (working hours are generally 1:30~9:30) as an example, if a person has to take care of the entire ward (usually 45~50 patients) in the first half of the night, I need to go to the ward every hour. The busiest time is in the morning, sometimes more than half of the patients need to have blood drawn, and they also have to give medicine, take vital signs, count urine and bowel movements, and so on. Some blood needs to be stored at low temperature, and if it is not stored well without ice cubes, it may have to be redrawn. So, at 4:30 a.m., I'm going to start preparing.
The patients in the transplant department are more seriously ill, and the nurses need to take on more responsibilities and risks, which makes them more stressful. After transplantation, patients have a lot of fluid, some drugs must be flushed with normal saline or glucose before infusion, and some drugs must control the drip rate.
Especially in the morning, the doctor will prescribe medical orders in an "explosive" manner, and there is a lot of fluid, and the bell rings constantly throughout the ward, and the thoughts are easily disrupted. Just as I was about to go to change the 5 beds, someone at the nurses' station called you to take your blood sugar. During work, I need to be mentally nervous all the time, otherwise it is easy to forget.
During the night shift, if one does not pay attention, there may be a nursing accident. For example, when I accidentally fell and hit my head and bleed when I went to the toilet at night, I not only needed to disinfect and bandage him immediately to calm his emotions, but also had to fill out a fall/fall care record. In a few days, the department will hold a meeting to discuss and analyze the cause of the accident.
Especially when I had children, I couldn't balance work and life for a long time, which made me want to quit my job. My lover is a soldier and has been in the army all year round. When I was on the day shift, I spent a lot of time in the hospital all day. After the night shift, I was so tired that I just wanted to sleep, and I didn't care about the children at all. Although she has her mother-in-law by her side, her mother-in-law is old and can only take her children to walk around the community. If there is any urgency, I have to deal with it.
I'm a nurse, but I'm also a mother of a child. When my children go out and see other children accompanied by their parents, I don't want my children to be envious. But the nature of the job of a nurse makes me have to be absent from the growth of children. So, I decided to resign.
Now, I am a kindergarten nurse. As I gained more experience, I found that there is no such thing as an easy job, and it is more important to have an optimistic and positive attitude. It is very common to encounter problems at work, and the key depends on how to deal with them and deal with them. At this time, I always think about my days and nights as a nurse.
Medical Examination Nurse
Faced with 300 medical examiners a day
Li Chu (pseudonym), 95 years old, graduated with a bachelor's degree, resigned from the nursing industry for 3 years, and is now a township career worker.
After the college entrance examination, my parents felt that the nursing major was easy to employ and stable, and it was a very suitable career for girls. Naturally, I became a nursing student at a medical university.
In the graduation season, after failing the interviews of two hospitals, I summed up my experience and passed the written examination, operational examination and interview of the physical examination center of the provincial tertiary hospital with the first place.
The people inside the walls want to get out, and the people outside the walls want to come in. Compared with the ward, emergency, and ICU departments, everyone thought that I was very good in the physical examination department, clean and relaxed. But in fact, the physical examination center is not as everyone thinks, and there is nothing to do in the morning to draw blood.
Hospitals have a certain cost budget, and it is easiest to reduce the cost of nurse manpower, which leads to the work that should be done by several nurses, but it needs to be completed by one nurse. So, although there are no night shifts, we can receive 250 to 300 people per day.
In the morning, there are usually 6 nurses who are responsible for drawing blood, starting at about 7:30 in the morning, and they will be there until noon, when they eat, because they have been holding needles, and their hands are numb all morning. The afternoon was not easy, and there were still many things to deal with, such as entering information. From time to time, we have to work overtime until after 7 p.m., and we can work up to 12 hours a day.
And in the work of nurses, there is a lot of programmatic work. For example, there will be various types of large and small spot check exams every month and every week, which are the kind of operational exams that can occasionally be seen on the Internet. These exams are not only testing our mindset but also taking up our time.
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It is also one of the job responsibilities of nurses to interpret the physical examination report to the physical examiner, and a nurse will visit about 100~200 people a day. Although ordinary medical examiners can send text messages, the text needs to be carefully considered, and the editing content should be accurate and polite. Those who are in serious condition or VIP need to call to communicate. There will be some unexpected situations when I call back, the most common is being scolded or even complained, because the other party thinks that the tone of my speech at that time is wrong or unclear, and there are various reasons. If you are complained, you will have to deduct dozens of dollars at a time.
Now, through hard work, I have been admitted to the township career personnel. But if you think about it, the experience of being a nurse in those years has helped me subtly. Because of the particularity of the physical examination work, I have some empirical summaries, and I can always pay attention to the precursors of illness in my family and friends in time. So, maybe the path of the nurse is not easy to walk, but the road must be paved with flowers.
Write at the end:
According to statistics from the Information and Statistics Center of the Ministry of Health, 65.2% of clinical frontline nurses work more than 10 hours a day continuously. Overload will not only accelerate the resignation of nurses, but also may lead to a decline in the quality of nursing services, causing hidden dangers to the life safety and rehabilitation quality of patients. In a sense, this should be a must-break situation.
On the other hand, for every patient and their family, respecting medical staff, especially nursing staff, is not only a basic etiquette for treating workers equally, but also a protection for the safety and health of themselves and their families.
On the occasion of International Nurses Day, let's say "thank you" to the angels in white. At the same time, I hope to draw everyone's attention to the work of the nurses, thank them, understand them, and give them enough respect. They are the ones who carry the lantern, and this lamp is the health and life of you and me, everyone!
Planning and production
Interview arrangement丨Yinuo popular science author
Audit丨Qiao Jiange, Deputy Chief Nurse of the Department of Geriatrics, Shanghai Fifth People's Hospital, Fudan University
Planning丨Yinuo
Editor-in-charge丨Yinuo