
Learning the ropes of any new role after graduation can be difficult. However, for new nurses, this transition has been particularly challenging in recent years due to the pandemic.
This disaster has brought about a staffing crisis and in turn, a lack of mentors and support for new grads. Further, it has increased nurses' workloads while wages have stayed stagnant. Within my first year of practice, these factors forced me, like many other nurses, to leave the bedside.
Without serious reform in staffing, compensation, and training to combat these issues, many bright minds will continue to leave inpatient care —and perhaps the profession altogether.
In this blog post, I dive into why I left bedside nursing as a new grad and how I cured burnout with a remote nursing job. I also discuss changes needed in healthcare to retain nurses.
5 Reasons Why I Left Bedside Nursing

After graduating amid chaos in 2021, I faced several hurdles in my first nursing job.
The barriers I encountered include the following:
1. Unsupportive culture
Although my hospital boasted a robust new grad residency program to support new nurses, leadership's actions accomplished quite the opposite.
During one class six months into my program, other nurses spoke about their discomfort acting as unit resource nurses or precepting due to their inexperience with patient care. They also shared their anger with the rollout of a 10k sign-on bonus for new employees—which excluded all current staff.
Rather than validate these feelings, our educators’ response was to laugh and curtly say “That’s life!” They also may have hosted a few pizza parties here and there, but these gestures did little to support me as a new grad.
2. Lack of mentors
Another serious issue that drove me away from inpatient care was the lack of mentors.
According to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (2023), approximately 100,000 nurses have left since the start of the pandemic. This “Great Resignation” has resulted in an immense loss of nursing knowledge and veteran preceptors to teach new nurses.
Moreover, many hospitals have moved towards a contract model to fill staffing gaps. This shift has resulted in experienced nurses leaving to staff other hospitals, further leading to a loss of mentors.
As a new grad, these staffing changes were especially tough in unfamiliar patient scenarios as there was often no one to turn to for advice.
3. Lack of resources
Besides lacking mentors, my hospital also lacked resources.
I can recall one overnight shift in which management forced our floor to continue taking admissions despite being above our normal nurse-to-patient ratio and only having one care assistant for 30+ patients. To make matters worse, we had only one unit vital signs cart tied up in the room of a patient receiving blood transfusions.
Unfortunately, these scenarios were all too common on my understaffed unit. Given these struggles, many nurses quit, exacerbating the issue. And, after 10 months there, I was one of the two core staff remaining on the overnight shift (everyone else was a travel or float nurse).
4. Unsustainable workload and burnout
With dwindling staff and increasing care tasks for patients, my workload as a nurse soon became unsustainable. Helping patients with daily activities and performing advanced interventions was virtually impossible.
Eventually, these conditions led to staff burnout and patient safety issues such as falls and hospital-acquired infections. These problems are not unique to my unit or hospital, though; studies have found that higher patient-nurse ratios and growing care tasks generally correlate with increased patient deaths and worsened health outcomes.
5. Stagnant wages
The last concern that compelled me to leave was stagnant wages unequal to the labor and liability my job involved.
Although pay and inflation issues are not exclusive to nursing, flat wages—combined with demanding conditions in healthcare— made working in this environment unrewarding.
In the hospital, nursing involves intense intellectual and physical effort that leaves little downtime for eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom for 12+ hours. While caring for others, nurses not only neglect these basic needs, but they also risk litigation and even imprisonment for errors made while doing so.
Overall, this high-risk-to-low pay ratio, along with poor institutional support, motivated me to find a job with a better work-life balance.
Where I Am Now and What to Do If You Don’t Want to Be a Bedside Nurse

After leaving the bedside, I did find this balance through hybrid remote nursing positions.
I first worked as a public health nurse responsible for:
Telephone triage and wellness calls
Contact tracing for COVID-19 cases
COVID and Flu vaccinations
Despite the fast-paced nature of this role, it afforded me much more flexibility in my everyday life than my old job. Instead of being at work in person, most days I could telecommute and work right from my couch. I could make meals, enjoy time with my family, and walk my dog between patient phone calls.
This role was eventually eliminated due to lack of funding, but my experience there continued to inspire me to find a nursing position that fits in with my life.
Currently, I work in another hybrid remote position as a research nurse coordinator and freelance nurse writer. Both roles have provided me with outlets for creative writing and behind-the-scenes health promotion which I have so enjoyed.
If you are looking to leave the bedside, consider a remote nursing job rather than changing industries. Your mental health — and the nursing degree you paid so much for!— will thank you.
How Healthcare Needs to Change to Retain Nurses

Even though some may find solace in remote nursing, it would be disastrous for every bedside nurse to leave their position.
So, how do we achieve a better work-life balance and retain these inpatient nurses—and all other nurses, for that matter?
To motivate nurses to stay in the profession, we must:
Improve staffing: By working with unions, healthcare organizations, and state and federal legislatures, we can ensure better staffing through mandated patient-nurse ratios. Such was the focus of the National Nurses’ March in May 2022.
Provide institutional support: Healthcare organizations need training programs that provide a network of mentors and encourage learning. Additionally, they must give nurses a “seat at that table” on decision-making committees and incorporate their input into policies.
Raise wages and reward employee loyalty: Institutions should raise wages to match job duties and the cost of living. They should also offer retention bonuses to reward employees for staying with companies. Lastly, to offset the burden of precepting new grads, they should pay employees extra for training others.
In short, under this current health landscape, neither new grads, veteran nurses, nor patients benefit. Instead, burnout and poor patient outcomes result.
Remote positions may offer respite to nurses experiencing the effects of this burnout. However, an overhaul in our healthcare system, especially inpatient care, is needed to help nurses transition to practice and to retain nurses as a whole.
The onus is on us as healthcare professionals to demand better working conditions for ourselves and our patients. If we don’t speak up for change, who will?
References
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