Photos by Alan Lessig / The Detroit News Hospice nurse LaDawne Whitely checks her patient, Michael Cunningham, in his Detroit home. Like many of her peers, she quit her hospital job because of stress. Many RNs say hospital administrators are putting profits over people.

Weary nurses find jobs, joy in other professions

Many turn to related, but calmer line of work

By Sarah A. Webster / The Detroit News

    DETROIT — Registered nurses say working conditions are so bad in some hospital medical-surgical units that many RNs are looking for non-nursing jobs or downgrading to part-time status if they can.

    Some RNs refer to their work now as “drive-by” or “hit-and-run” nursing, a cutting reference to the lack of time they have to spend providing quality care to patients.

    “There were a lot of us that left in a relatively short amount of time, and I would say 90 percent of the reason for leaving was the stress,” said Maryann Trombley, who worked for 22 years as a hospital nurse before leaving in 1998 to become a legal nurse consultant. “I can remember coming in and being assigned to do three jobs in a shift’s time.”

    She said she left “very frustrated, very hurt.”

    Testifying on Capitol Hill recently, Carolyn McCullough, national coordinator of the Nurse Alliance, a 110,000-member nurses union, said poor working conditions are “the real problem” behind the growing nursing shortage.

    Disillusioned with the tension, low pay and other drawbacks of today’s cost-conscious health care environment, more and more nurses are searching for new jobs. And many are finding good opportunities in related fields.

    A nursing degree, many weary RNs have found, is valuable in less stressful and sometimes better-paying fields, such as the law, insurance, pharmaceuticals and other business roles. Most have little trouble making the transition.

    Even though the number of nurses leaving the field increased by 51,668 between 1996 and 2000, only 1 percent of nurses said they were unemployed in 2000.

    Barbara Redman, dean of the Wayne State University School of Nursing, said those figures demonstrate how demand for nurses is swelling outside of traditional clinical roles. She said many nurses aren’t abandoning their public service role of caring for patients.

    Ann Mandt, a Detroit attorney and registered nurse, agreed: “I’m doing the same thing I did as a nurse. I’m taking care of patients.”

    Those who remain in nursing full-time are seeking out less stressful jobs. Home health agencies, where nurse-patient ratios tend to be lower, are among those considered a refuge.

    “That’s my reason for coming to home care,” LaDawne Whitely said.

    She took a cut in pay to move from Detroit Receiving Hospital to Hospice of Michigan in 1997 after RNs were put in charge of 10 patients each. She felt that was too many and that mistakes would be inevitable.

    “I felt like my license would be in danger,” said Whitely, who also worked as a licensed practical nurse for 10 years before becoming an RN. “Pay wasn’t an issue for me. It was the peace of mind.”

    With home nursing, she rediscovered the joys of nursing. She said she has time to really care for patients now and explore their health needs.

    Even some energetic new nurses are finding they can’t take the pressure and find themselves quitting or downgrading to less stressful nursing jobs.

    Emily Minard, 23, of Livonia graduated from the University of Michigan School of Nursing in April 2000. She went to work for an Oakland County hospital, where she said she was met by a chaotic environment that wasn’t fair to nurse or patient.

Ann Mandt, a Detroit attorney, trained to be a nurse but went back to school to become a lawyer, which she says still allows her to care for the public.

    Oftentimes, she had to decide which patient needed care the most at a given time, meaning that someone was usually getting shortchanged.

    “One night, it was just me and another nurse, and I had a patient in pain, and I couldn’t give her medication because I had another patient having trouble breathing and another patient bleeding large amounts,” Minard said.

    There was little to no time for calm and caring moments.

    “Someone would ask for a glass of water, and I would have to ask them to turn on their light and ask for an aide because there were five other things that needed to be done an hour ago,” Minard said.

    It didn’t take long before she grew sour.

    “What would go through my mind all the time was: ‘I went to school for four years and racked up $20,000 in student loans for this?’ ” Minard said. “The most frustrating part was not giving care I thought the patients needed.”

    Minard found no shortage of opportunities when she began looking for a new job.

    This June, Minard said she was pleased to find a position with the Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan, which allowed her to preserve her pay while still providing care to people in a less stressful environment. Once assigned to care for as many as 12 patients per shift, she now cares for about five people a day.

    “I don’t have to worry a patient is dying in the next room,” she said.