This is my last day as a nurse. I handed in my resignation four weeks ago, and today will be my last shift on the ward. It was a tough decision, but it's the right one. In the end, the reservations I had about the job outweighed the good.
The primary factor is night shifts - I just cannot do them, they wreck me for days. As soon as I'd finish a set, I'd start dreading the next ones. Even if everything else about the job were perfect, the night shifts are a no-go for me. And not everything else is perfect. The heavy focus on documentation is a drain on enthusiasm. The mantra of nursing seems to be 'If it's not written down, it didn't happen' - not exactly the stuff to get you revved up for a 12.5-hour shift.
Shiftwork has been a surprising negative as well. At first, it sounds great - only working 3 days most weeks. But those three days are total write-offs as the workday is 14.5 hours with the commute, and the days before shifts are pretty much lost as well - there's not a lot you can do in an evening when you have a 14.5-hour day starting early the next morning.
The caring aspects of the job, looking after patients and their loved ones - the aspects that drew me to nursing - were wonderful and I loved them. I had many moments of gratitude and privilege. I don't think anything could feel as worthwhile as when you are able to make someone's utterly horrific reality a little less awful.
It's hard not to feel a sense of disappointment and loss, or to reflexively think of the past 2½ years as a waste. I know logically that it wasn't, and my heart is catching up to that. This was something that I wanted to do in my life, and I did it. It didn't turn out the way I'd hoped, but I won't have that nagging what if following me around for the next life chapters.
When I was talking about this with a classmate (who declined to take a nursing role after our course, and is veering into the NGO/public health realm), she pointed out that most of our training was during periods of covid lockdowns; if we hadn't done this, we probably would've been doing our previous roles from home. Instead, we used that time to do something life-changing, and were also a real part of the NHS's frontline response to the pandemic. Not wasted years at all.
With unconditional positive regard,
Shaun, MSc Adult Nursing
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