The pressure that being a nurse starts in nursing school. We have strict exams, high expectations and so much on our to do list because we have to navigate what is the most important task? It’s preparing us as nurses to prioritize who gets what first? The patient that needs pain meds, that patient who can’t void or the loud patient who is yelling about apple juice. News flash people, it’s not the apple juice. We would love to serve your every need; however, the person next door is actively trying to die so that apple juice is going to have to wait.

So can you relate to the pressure of a highly intense job? Sometimes it just feels like we nurses are expected to do everything and do it perfectly. Correction – not sometimes but all the time. We have to be this way because someone’s life is on the line. No wonder everyone in the hospital is always cranky. The pressure is surmounting and usually it’s your coworkers who know this feeling well because they are in the trenches with you.

You need their support when that jerk doctor stomps in and requests yet another ridiculous request like “straight cath that 72 year old lady after she voids every time, then bladder scan her for the residual, call me with the results, then do it again.” Excuse me doc…she is peeing every hour, sometimes even before her hour mark is up? Doc…in the words of Nike…”just do it.” Does it matter that she is my 5^th patient and every other doctor has the same ridiculous requests but maybe it’s 42 labs, or discharges or oh yeah…that patient in the other room is actively dying. Let’s save her too.

I get it. We need to be “perfect” to succeed in this job. We need to be “perfect” to get good grades so we can graduate, become that bad ass ICU nurse and become a CRNA. That perfectionism is what drives us to do well in school, to be great at our jobs and helps keep others alive. But it’s not sustainable. Perfectionism is not sustainable because it quickly turns into burn out. Plus, nursing is not a job that you can just give zero effs about. You have to care. Maybe you are a nurse who doesn’t care about her patient’s life story but you still care that the patient is alive. It’s your job.

I don’t have the answer to perfectionism and nursing but I do know that nursing can suck the life out of you. It can make you focus on just that and it will scream louder than anything else in your life to “choose me! It’s life or death.” I get it nursing, you are important. But so is my life, my marriage and my kids. I think if nursing is just that, a career or a job, then we as humans can treat it that way. Not everyone is going to appreciate all your hard work. Very rarely will you get that daisy award or a nice comment about the fact that you got someone their apple juice while you were transfusing 3 units of PRBCs in the next room. Maybe choose to put your life outside of work first. I think that is a healthy way to approach nursing. If you aren’t well and filled up, then you can’t do your job well. Let’s face it, we all have things going on outside of our job life and that is more important at the end of the day.