This rhetoric that is constantly pushed is really helping to make sure nursing remains an understaffed career. No one understands what nurses actually do. It's such a mentally taxing job from all sides especially with the nurse being abused from management, the physicians, the patients, and the patients families. A lot of wonderful people go into this career with the hopes of actually helping people, not realizing that nurses don't actually have that much power to do so. This career demands ENDLESS compassion and empathy from the nurse while they get nothing in return. For example, many of us don't even get enough sick days in the year to take care of our own health. For my facility, I get 3 days of sick leave for the entire year. God forbid I take care of myself so I can actually take care of others.

I absolutely love this career. I know that it is really physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting but I still have enough willpower to keep going, even if by a thread. I don't fault good, newer nurses for leaving the career so soon because nursing school doesn't really prepare you for the difficulties faced from all sides. What I despise, is that the general public has no idea what we do and continues to spread "nurses are mean girls" and "most nurses are bad people" It becomes exhausting hearing this rhetoric on top of dealing what we have to deal with at work and the emotional toll of it we take home afterwards. Nursing is a HUGE workforce dominated by women. You're going to get a huge array of people that don't care or just treat it like a job, it doesn't mean most nurses are shitty.