What is causing burnout and how can it be addressed? Anyone out there work for an employee who is helping mitigate burnout?

I am 61 RN, BSN and have worked in healthcare/nursing for over 25 years. I moved from one specialty area to another and found that my basic problem with nursing is our messed up healthcare system. As a profit driven business, there is an inherent conflict of interest when a business that profits from illness is tasked with healing. Why would they want to do that?! Insurance, medical technology, pharmaceutical, all benefit from our illness. If there was no illness/people were healthier it would not satisfy their shareholders. This aspect of our society should be socialized. We should remove the obvious conflict of interest. What does this have to do with nursing burnout?! Nurses are called to help people. For most of us, it is a calling and when you see how your actions are not really about helping patients and no one cares about our well being either, it chips away at our souls. It is true for anyone who is called to do something based on passion and heart: when your values do not align with your actions your passion dies. We really don’t lose our passion for helping people, we lose our passion for being nurses in a soulless, profit driven healthcare delivery system where we actually end up feeling like we are just killing our selves to deliver the goods for the profiteers. We are like common drug pushers on a street corner lining the pockets of a drug lord knowing that what we are doing is actually just killing people so someone else can get rich.

Toxic management, short staff, and being overworked!

LACK OF PAY WITH TOXIC MANAGEMENT!!!

RN for 42 years, the vast majority of it in Mother-Baby. For most of my career, I enjoyed it. Learned a lot, enjoyed getting new families off to their best start possible, and developed some lifelong friends.

Sadly, this profession "eats" it's own. It's become so 'corporate', that we find it Very difficult to be able to actually do our best possible for our patients! It's all about the charting, being "Perfect" and having NO overtime, even when emergencies occur! We are expected to so much more with so much less ... staff, supplies, resources, etc., all while being constantly criticized. Plus ALL staff members on my unit receiving reviews much lower than ever previously due to "budget concerns and cutbacks" ... and YES, that was actually said! Being put on call frequently or having your hours cancelled if census dropped .. or having your schedule changed, without warning, and without notice, and then getting in 'trouble' for not showing up when you thought it was your day off .. AND you had double checked your schedule the day before!! Yep, they got an earful from me on THAT one!

Combine that with being told we have zero voice in "mandates" and to accept it or be fired! So at that exact moment, when I got That 'message' from my manager while I was trying to do my charting, I turned around to my computer, wrote out my letter of retirement, and handed it to her! Retired 18 months early and have had exactly ZERO regrets! Once she had that letter in her hand, and said Okay, the cuffs were off my mouth, and I took full advantage of it! Never raised my voice, never got unprofessional .. there was no need ... just fully expressed my concerns and disappointments with her, the administration and the healthcare industry as a whole at the time.

I'm very thankful and grateful that I had the ability to leave that way. Many of my coworkers wished they could as well. I would have preferred to leave at my original date, but circumstances got to where it was no longer a viable option, and I knew I was never going to compromise my values, beliefs and convictions for an institution and industry that merely saw us 'disposable'. If they don't have loyalty to us, why in the world would I ever have loyalty to them?? It used to be a GREAT facility to work for. Sadly, like so many others, it's changed over the years, and not for the better. I couldn't change that and was no longer willing to accept it as it had become.

So, am I glad I left when I did?? 20 months later .. YES! Still NO regrets! I actually didn't realize just how much stress I was under until I wasn't anymore. It literally took me several months to 'decompress' from it all!

Would I ever go back to nursing in some capacity it the future? No Way In Hell! Ever! At the beginning I thought it might be a possibility on a very limited basis .. but now, nope. No way. In talking with some of my prior coworkers, not much, if anything has changed since I've left, other than staff .. a lot has left .. many for the same reasons I did. If I want to earn some extra money in my retirement, it'll be working with animals!

Am I bitter? I'd have to say no. More disappointed, sad, and disillusioned in what our healthcare industry .. and it IS an industry, has become. Employees are not valued or treated well, with very few exceptions. I have to believe that not all have succumbed to this corporate mentality that all care can be broken down into numbers! They literally take zero account that we are dealing with Real people with Real problems that don't always fit on a spreadsheet!

What can be done to improve this? So much!
Here are only a few ideas...
How about treating your employees like they are the backbone of your facility .. because they are! And it doesn't have to be 'gifts'! Being friendly goes a long way!

Actually acknowledging a job well done under difficult circumstances. Listening to your employees when they have a concern, and if something can't be done about it, be Open and above all Honest about it, as to why, and maybe offer something else that Can be done.

If your staff is "drowning" at a particularly busy time due to unforeseen circumstances, how about the nurse-manager actually come out and HELP us, even for a little while?? We had a manager who would do that .. not for a long period, but just enough to get us over the 'hump' .. and it was a tremendous help and very much appreciated! The new manager simply says "that's not my job and continues to sit in her office". She wonders why nobody respects her!

COMMUNICATION!!! If you do need to change someone's schedule after it's been submitted and approved, the one in charge of changing it IS Responsible for contacting that person and letting them know and why!! This is not rocket science .. it's communication and common courtesy! You may not be able to get away from having to change the schedule, but you ARE responsible to communicating that ... and a complete lack of professionalism and courtesy to just do it and expect them to somehow be able to read your mind!

I know I'm leaving out a bunch, but I'm sure others can fill in with examples from their own work-life.

Burnout is a multi-faceted concern. We are creative, we are humans, we are empowered to be the best at what we do and we are millions strong. Nurses must stand up for themselves, even if it means that the administration doesn't like it.

For example- you do NOT have to fix the staffing problems of your facility. Three 12 hour days is already full time! That is not nothing! Don't let them guilt you into extras- they are more exhausting than the scheduled ones~

You do not have to double chart: figure out where the info is pulled from and chart there. Don't be afraid of concise bullet points. Trust your peers and help them trust you. Revisit the social contract, the professional job description (which does not say kill yourself doing their bidding btw).

Remember your worth. You belong here WITH the dealmakers and solutions people. You do the work, make yourself heard! AND know how to budget your time, your money and your energy! Nothing is wrong with rest~ It is a joy to recognize the gift of rest- sitting around and snoozing while doing nothing recharges your battery.

Find JOY. It is there~ smile and explore.

Love and support headed your way,
Dr. Mary V RN