The Great Resignation of Nurses | Amie Varley and Sara Fung (The Gritty Nurse Pod) | Knock Knock Hi! 

During Covid for nurses week, we got a magnet and a roll of toilet paper. They thought it was a funny great gift.

When I passed my boards, Grandma Millie grinned, and called me Nurse Ratchet, which was a nod to my mischievous personality. I told the love of my life about this at the time, 2016. Fast forward to 2022, when I was helping take care of my love while he was in hospice: He said one day "okay, Nurse Ratchet...", and I said "Grandma Millie called me that", and Chris said "I know. That's why I said it". Still the greatest compliment I've gotten, and from two of my most-loved people.

I've been an RN for over 43 years. I left hospital nursing 30 years ago because of poor staffing. Nurses would be furloughed because of low census, but they never did it to anyone else in the hospital. I can't imagine what it is like now. I've told everyone that I would be starving in the street before I'd ever work in a hospital setting. Fortunately I am now retired.

As a recently retired RN I understand the exodus of nurses. I’m in Canada and it’s the same, too much management not enough nurses to do the work

The Hospice nurses who helped with my mother all said they'd left hospital work because they needed either more pay or the pandemic changed their family's needs. I'm happy they were available to me for palliative care.

I’m in California and it blows my mind to hear that other states don’t have ratios. The horror stories I hear from travelers with 8-10 patients for 1 nurse in an ER, including critical patients.

Been icu nurse x 30 years. The expectation of perfection is at the root of my frustration. I cannot do a perfect job when shortstaffed. I dont mind the agency cuz im not strong enough to lift and haul by myself for 13 hours anymore. But using them to placate staff and then leave staffing down is cruel. Inconsistant mgmt, 'you can do it' 3 and 4 icu pt assignments, AND YET its totally expected you did all the care and charting. Stroke pt? Hope you did all those 15 min complete neuro checks! Pt only speaks spanish? No extra time for translation! Sorry, not possible. I was demoralized and depressed, but it wasnt until short staffing nearly killed one of my pts THREE TIMES that i had to leave. If I'm in an covid room, I cant hear other alarms. If no one else is around to hear the alarms...these pts are dependant on second by second care and cannot tolerate a single drip or vent interuption. I couldnt live with that. So i left. Our hospital never fired the unvaccinated, so no excuse there. They did lose a lot of moms when school was at home and no day care would take your kids if they found out you worked in a hospital. My fav mgmt insult? Its a tie between the 2K pay cut cuz they decided not to give longevity bonus out and the christmas our cno went to Hawaii for 2 weeks after declaring a staffing emergency and mandatory OT. Even per diem. Even if you were visiting family in another hemisphere. Still required. Took me 9 months of therapy to work thru. Im doing infusion therapy per diem thank goodness my husband works and has insurance. I have 1 more year to early retirement.

Thank you. For most of my life I was a proud strong nurse. I'm now looking for an escape, hating every day. I'm at the top of my profession. 34 years dedicated. Starting as a nurse's aid at 16 years old. No heart is broken.

ER night shift nurse (South Carolina 🙄) I retire in 10 months and I will NEVER look back. I already have a job lined up at Barnes and Noble 3 days a week 😂 I am DONE.

I listen to KKE during slow work hours. If case load takes pity on me, I'll finish this episode before my shift ends as well

12 hr shifts need a deep dive and review. Conclusion will be yes the most complications and risks to patients are at shift change but imagine if administration was willing to schedule 3 shift changes a day instead of two. Oh no that would cost too much money to consider saving lives and working conditions for providers. The current system is unsustainable and the people in charge know it. Rip the band aid off now fire half the administration now; and when we notice we never needed that many administrators to begin with then fire another 50% of them. Either that or fine the ceo every time the hospital is understaffed then they will leave on their own.

Even on the west coast, RNs and staff are treated horribly by certain companies. My experience with HCA was awful and that’s in the BAY AREA. It irks me when we’re treated like we’re idiots, nurses (and patients) deserve so much more

This happens with nursing assistants too, in house staff gets paid much less than agency staff. The animosity is there with the CNAs too and the respect is even less, even though facilities *could not function* without the CNAs. Long term care is in *real* trouble.

There needs to be an ASMR episode with Will reading Dr Seuss books & Chinese food menus.

Are you guys going to have a pharmacist on sometime?? It’s very exciting seeing you diving in to other kinds of medical professionals! I work in pharmacy so I’m very biased, but I think there’s so much to explore between retail and clinical pharmacy!! 😊

Aime & Sara are really awesome, I'm so glad you are amplifying their message and bringing in other medical disciplines

I’ve found there is little ill will toward the travel nurses but the administration that okays stiffing their loyal staff decent pay and conditions. My hospital ceo (base salary $1.5mil) was delighted in his Q1 report to tell us all his efforts to worsen staffing ratios and reduce the nurse compensation budget. Nonprofit health service btw, Parkview Health. There is no support to give the good care we are disciplined for being unsupported in giving. You can’t eat a calling. Get paid what you’re worth and go where the money is travelers!

I am so happy to be listening to nurses from my own province on this podcast!!! Thanks Dr & Mrs Glauc for listening to nurses talk. I almost cried when I heard the nurses say Bill 124! I subscribed to Gritty Nurse Podcast

I’m so glad to see fellow nurses coming forward with their stories! Plus a physician taking the time to listen to and participate in the conversation. We’re all one big team, there is certainly some hierarchy as far as titles go, but it’s all semantics at the end of the day. We’re here to take care of patients, and it’s only fair to expect some basic human decency and kindness while providing that care. It makes me all the more hopeful for a better future in nursing everywhere.

I am a long time listener, and am glad to see more interdisciplinary input on the podcast!

I'm about halfway through, so I don't know if this is discussed later on, but I just kept thinking "unionize, unionize, unionize!" in my head listening to all of these problems that really come down to labor exploitation and a lack of strong collective bargaining. If someone more informed on the nursing labor situation reads this, how strong are nursing unions, and how many nurses are members of them? Individual nurses leaving can be replaced, but threats of large-scale walkouts would scare the healthcare industry and politicians a whole lot more.

Thank you for having us! It was a great time with you both! Next time---we have to stump you! Haha those last questions were hard!

omg hotlips hooligan!! watching it right now!! (like i did in all hard staged of my life). best series ever.

Thank you for having Sara and Amie as guests. They are great, and I will check out their podcast. As a nurse, I hope you will bring more nurses to the podcast. And by the way , please come to Iowa on your tour.

Hey doc will you do an interview with some of the brave doctors who are coming back from months of working on kids in gaza?

it’s not strange for bullying to be the cause of people leaving jobs, to the point that being tough enough to endure sabotage is considered a basic expectation

My childhood friend was a nurse and quit because of low pay and stress due to the pandemic. Hospitals and clinics should be doing right to retain their staff. I’m not in the field myself, though.

I have one complaint. Your interviews are too short! I want more, why is it over already? 😭

YES I DO USE YOU TO FALL ASLEEP!

Hmmm, here in the Midwest we have talented trained ER and ICU nurses taking pay cuts to work in the urgent care and outpatient settings. They are choosing work life balance over higher salaries. Sadly, new grads are barely hanging on for a year before leaving the bedside. They are climbing the inpatient mountain of learning, then bailing out with a parachute to land in the clinics where they can take a breath! 😢

CA ICU RN for 22 yrs I can’t wait to retire, I will alway love the work but the conditions are changing for the worst. We are not respected there is more violence directed towards nurses and it seems there are many that do not take pride in nursing. It is just a job to many and the money is the driver. I admit we all want to be paid fairly me included but nursing is more complicated than passing meds and charting.

yessss nurse interviews ☺️☺️

Y'all should totally interview @steveioe Tips from the ER guy!!!

Will there be an audiobook version of their book?

12:13 Bill 124 has cost the Ontario provincial government billions because of the backpay they owe the unions.

👍🏼, enjoyed it.

I'm 25 mins in, so excited to watch this (I'm a licensed practical nurse in a clinic in the same town where Will did his residency.) There already have been so many topics in this video that I've felt compelled to comment on. So many relatable things--when Amy said "we've been talking about this since I was in nursing school...", same for me. And I asked the question in nursing school--"you're telling us that we are to turn the patient every 2 hours to prevent skin breakdown, but how are we to do that with the staffing levels? (2016)" The answer from the professor was "you [the class] are going to be the change in the system". So much of that language at that time, and yet, it all feels like a salmon swimming upstream. But they feel as I feel: I want to provide the best care possible, and I don't need to be so so comfortable, but staffing-wise, I'd like to not feel like I'm drowning to even provide shitty care. Patients don't understand the staffing complexities; they only know that they are not getting responses, appointments, etc. in a time frame and manner that is acceptable to them, and that this has drastically worsened and is still not recovering since 2020. Thank you for producing this episode.

OMG hullo fellow "Outlander" fan!!! I fell in love with the books many years ago and the series is GOLD! Maybe it'd actually be fun to have someone come on who advised them and/or the author on the medical details!

0:30 lol, she broke you seconds in 🤣

The number of staff providing direct patient care continues to shrink but the number of nebulous administrator position grows. Thats where all the money for staffing goes.

What about Clara Barton?!?! 😁

🙏

It would be illustrative to do an interview with a medical historian who can cover that period in the late 19th and early 20th c. where hospitals were charities or were mutual aid societies and how the transition was made to municipal hospitals to the neoliberal gutting of public medical centers (like University of California) that we've seen in more recent years. Unless we as a people get serious about resisting the rich, I think we're going to need to look back to those mutual aid workers' hospitals and such to be able to break free of the horrible systems we have now.

Leadership from physicians and administrators acting in interest of clinical staff- following physician and nurse direction.

Patients sleep at night? Please…

Angels never complain.

pretty woman

Good discussion. Amie and Sara, thank you for publicizing your experiences as nurses on the front lines. Lady G, if you're talking about "men making decisions about women's health," are you talking about abortion? Unborn children need to be protected by men and women. Look at the humanity of the unborn. Step up and protect innocent life.

I love him. Is natural star ⭐️. Is better solo you don’t need her. Believe me I know

Thanks for discussing this. I am very fortunate to work for the VA. We have better staffing ratios most of the time. I left long term care when my patient ratio was 28 patients for 1 nurse.

25 year crohns survivor I spend a lot of time in doctor's offices hospital rooms ER rooms and infusion clinic rooms. I am infamous for riding on the dry erase board before I leave. This is what I write: Hellooooo beautifuls you are all rockst🌟rs we ❤ you. Familiar then you probably taken care of me and I want to say thank you to those that haven't gotten this message before well this message is for you too! 🤗❤️❤️❤️🫶