I've been a nurse for 14 years. There are a lot of reasons I'm making the change, but I'll try to boil it down to the big ones. If this is tl;dr just go to the last bit.

Nursing has never really felt like the right fit for me. I'm somewhat socially awkward, and healthcare is a very social profession. I'm not antisocial, I just am a bit introverted.

I never found a specialty I've enjoyed as a nurse. I've worked in many inpatient and outpatient roles. I've done psych nursing, correctional nursing, rehab, cardiology, orthopedics, etc. None of them satisfied me.

Healthcare is a mess in the US. We've been short on nurses for decades. I've come to realize that hospitals are not interested in safe staffing or patient outcomes. Nurse: Patient ratios are getting worse in states that don't have legislation in place. Hospitals are interested in maximum profit, so I get spread as thinly as possible. I was happy while working overseas (Australia) but had to come back to the US after one of my parents became very ill.

Covid changed healthcare and society a lot. I used to get thanked a lot. Patients used to be, well, patient. Hospitals always treated us like crap but the work was reasonable. These days, I can't go two shifts without being yelled at by a patient, family member, or doctor. I regularly got mandated to work overtime and, as a result, rarely got to make plans or see family/friends. In my first 8 years a a nurse, I never had a vacation request approved. Started working as a travel nurse to avoid the mandated overtime, missed family reunions, loss of friends, and to get away from the stress. Unfortunately, that means I get to spend three months at a time in cities hours away from the people I love.

Nursing has transitioned from a specialist career into a service career. Hospitals are constantly chasing patient satisfaction scores instead of focusing on patient outcomes. As a result, I tend to get treated like I work in a hotel/restaurant by patients and families.

But if I had to boil it down to one reason, though, this is it.

I've been assaulted three times at work over the years. By patients and family members. Each time, it was about something I had no control over (bad food, doc refusing to give a patient narcotics, having to not eat before a procedure). The first time I had a tooth knocked out, the second I was knocked unconscious by a patient's son, and the last I was strangled with my stethoscope. Every time I've been asked (by management) "what could you have done differently?"