Leaving Healthcare: Breaking Up with a Toxic Relationship

An Excerpt from "The Cost of Silence: How Protected Leaders Undermine Nursing and Endanger Healthcare"

Working another PRN shift, I've realized something: I've become entirely intolerant of the chaos and dysfunction we call healthcare.

Am I too full of myself? Maybe. But am I a better, more creative, motivational, and genuinely inspiring leader than the current administration combined? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Do I have the right to bitch every time I walk into illogical assignments, zero critical thinking, or a complete absence of common sense when troubleshooting even the simplest problems?

Yes—I have every right to feel frustrated.

Should I always voice these frustrations aloud, though? Probably not. Clearly, I haven't learned my lesson. You’d think by now I would have learned the subtle art of being the quietly compliant employee—the "ideal" worker who nods and agrees with everything. Apparently, I never will.

Reflecting on how frequently and openly I complain about everything, to anyone who crosses my path, makes me feel a bit petty and embarrassed—but not for the obvious reasons. Instead, I immediately imagine my own eulogy as if narrated in a "Forensic Files" episode:

“She was the nicest, most giving person I've ever met...”
Nope.
“She was so gentle and would do anything for anyone...”
Again, nope.

While I certainly am those things, that's certainly not the impression I'm leaving behind these days.

But honestly, how am I supposed to make sense of nonsense? At my ripe age of 48, with extensive and genuinely effective leadership experience, how am I expected to quietly accept the chaos, incompetence, and poor supervision surrounding me?

Dear baby Jesus, please grant me more humility. Or quiet acceptance. Or complacency.

Or perhaps just give me the strength and energy to go back to school for another four years, enabling me to finally leave healthcare behind—like someone walking away from a toxic relationship, once and for all.