Community Chat

[KKlim]

After reading all these inspiring posts from all of you hardworking , wonderful RN's I want to thank you for your hard work also!

[webbgarner1]

Thanks K Kim, that is so swee and thoughtful !

[nightnurse]

I retired last year at age 70 but keep my license active as I do freelance home care nursing and can show it to clients if they ask.

[YorkieonmyPillow]

I've often wondered if I don't have something similar to PTSD from nursing - any time I have a nightmare, I am back working in a hospital.

*shudder*

[MILKI]

Hello my fellow RNs! 

I too struggle with the "thoughts" of retirement, especially when I have newer grads telling how the "job" is to be done!! I just look at them, and smile, and politely do it my way! I am 65, and work full time for an outpatient Endoscopy center, doing preop, recovery and conscious sedation. I love my job! However, my physicians are being forced to close the center at the end of December due to financial /insurance reimbursements that are lacking! Been in this position for the last 5 years, prior to that I spent 30 years in the Operating Room, and I retired as a full Coloniel in the Air Force Reserves, after serving 26 years as a flight nurse and an OR manager. Facing retirement, NO! I just can't! Being an RN since 1973, I know no other identity! Starting a new job in a different Outpatient Surgical center, doing conscious sedation for Endo procedures and helping out in the OR. I can't see me not renewing my license ever! As long as I can walk and breathe, I will always keep it "active" !! MJ

[DiAnne]

I have a neighbor who is 75 years old and she still does relief work at several smaller hospitals as nurse manager or the lunch breaker.  She loves it. 

[Evie2004]

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@YorkieonmyPillow wrote:

I've often wondered if I don't have something similar to PTSD from nursing - any time I have a nightmare, I am back working in a hospital.

*shudder*

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@YorkieonmyPillow  I, too have that nightmare, in my dream, I am always late passing meds, & charting at the end of shift..guess it will always be with us! 😊

[YorkieonmyPillow]

@Evie2004   Glad it's not just me!

              

[GigiinVA]

Thank you for your kind words. You sound like a patient that I cared for in the early years of my career as a nurse. It was a time when a nurse could actually spend time with her patients and talk to them and really care for them. A time before computers and healthcare had become a "business", and before insurance dictated how the patient is actually treated and not the physician. So again I just wanted to say THANK YOU, YOU MADE ME SMILE TODAY!!

[blackhole99]

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@YorkieonmyPillow wrote:

I've often wondered if I don't have something similar to PTSD from nursing - any time I have a nightmare, I am back working in a hospital.

*shudder*

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You no doubt do. You are not the first RN I've heard express this concern. My friend who has been an RN for years mentioned one time that nursing is not all it's cracked up to be.