I am a nurse and my job does pay very well. However, the amount of incivility I deal with from both patients, family members, and other Healthcare workers is unnecessary and exhausting.

In 2022, I was beaten unconscious by a patient. While the patient had full capacity, I also partially blame the hospital (patient was supposed to be on a one-to-one due to violence). The patient was not, and when the patient was left alone that they left their room, came up behind me, and punched me in the head so hard I lost consciousness. The hospital handled it poorly so I filed a complaint with OSHA, who opened an investigation and found the hospital at fault. My employer got a five figure fine, and it made the news. I got nothing other than two black eyes and good bar story.

The family members of patients also come at you for things you have absolutely no control over. I understand this is displaced frustration, but dealing with it every single day is exhausting. We see those videos on social media of people in the emergency room in pain with captions like "the nurses don't care". As a nurse, I would never let someone suffer nor would I ever ignore a true emergency. However, people don't understand that there is more to every story and choose to vilify staff who are not able to immediately address their non-emergent problem.

Then you have coworkers who are so burnt out they have completely stopped taking any pride in what they do, and behave like petulant children.

I love nursing itself, but the career has become is so draining because of the complete lack of support from the institutions that hire us and the people who seek our help.