Exploring the Pathways: How Transitioning Nursing Roles Can Combat Burnout

Across the United States, burnout is a serious affliction that negatively impacts the mental health states of countless nurses working today. While there have been many attempts to curb this problem, the truth is that no single solution has yet presented itself as completely effective.

At the heart of this disheartening problem in the healthcare space is a healthcare worker shortage plaguing many facilities across the country. As a result of most facilities being understaffed, a saddening number of nurses must work in stressful, burdensome, and hectic work environments.

However, for nurses currently facing this acute challenge, there is hope. Specifically, stepping into a new nursing role can help one diminish the burnout they feel and achieve a better sense of mental wellness. Understanding how exploring new nursing roles can help with this problem is key to gaining perspective on how the American healthcare landscape must evolve in the modern age.

Here is how transitioning nursing roles can combat burnout.

Seeking Organizations That Value Nurses

Unfortunately, not all healthcare organizations are created equally. In particular, some healthcare organizations out there regularly engage in practices that cause their nurses to experience burnout.

Some of these practices include:

• Not managing schedules well
• Overburdening nurses with duties and tasks
• Not providing advancement opportunities
• Not providing mental health support

Essentially, these organizations take their employees for granted and expect them to take on herculean amounts of work on a regular basis. For nurses working for these types of organizations, work life is anything but sustainable. As a result of these types of working conditions, nurses often develop a range of mental health ailments, including experiences of burnout.

Luckily, not all healthcare organizations operate in this unstainable manner. In fact, there are many healthcare organizations across the country that take a committed approach to ensuring that their nurses aren’t overworked and have access to a variety of resources that can help them achieve and maintain optimal mental health states.

Nurses who find that they’re currently experiencing burnout should take a deep look at their employers and their organizational practices. If one finds that their organization is engaging in operational practices that promote burnout among nursing staff, it’s probably time to start seeking a new employer.

By seeking out organizations known to value their nursing staff, all types of nurses from FNPs to AGACNPs can find better working environments that are better suited to maintaining good mental health.

Finding Room to Grow and Advance in One’s Career

While there are many factors that contribute to nurse burnout, such as understaffed facilities and hectic work environments, one less explored and recognized factor is a lack of opportunities to advance professionally. In other words, when nurses feel like they aren’t working toward a greater career goal, this sense of not evolving can make working as a nurse feel unrewarding and draining.

As a result of consistently feeling unfulfilled in their roles, many nurses develop feelings of pervasive burnout. This can be incredibly taxing for nurses and is one of the biggest reasons that healthcare organizations have trouble retaining nurses.

Fortunately, there are incredibly effective solutions for nurses in these types of unfulfilling positions experiencing burnout. Specifically, finding ways to grow professionally can help nurses bolster their mental health and avoid pervasive symptoms of burnout.

For nurses, the process of growing professionally can take many different forms. For some, this will mean finding employers that will give them opportunities to step into leadership positions. For others, this will mean furthering education and becoming qualified for more advanced nursing positions.

Ultimately, each nurse must decide for themselves what type of professional growth and evolution they’re looking for. By gaining clarity on this, nurses have an opportunity to put an end to the burnout they’re feeling and find more fulfillment in their nursing career.

Pursuing Less Stressful Roles

Within the nursing field, there is a wide variety of different types of roles. Beyond this, each role can typically be found in a variety of different types of environments with its own unique benefits and challenges.

Nurses struggling with burnout can minimize the negative impact that their healthcare career is having on their mental health by exploring less stressful roles. In many cases, this process can involve finding less stressful environments to work in. For example, this could include finding employment in smaller cities or better-staffed facilities.

Though it can sometimes feel daunting to seek out a new role, nurses experiencing burnout can benefit their mental health significantly by undergoing this process.

Nurses Shouldn’t Have to Experience Burnout

While burnout is a pervasive challenge that many nurses have to face, it doesn’t have to be for everyone. By exploring new nursing positions, all nurses experiencing burnout have a chance to better their mental health states and put an end to experiences of nursing-related burnout.

This being the case, many in the healthcare space are hopeful that more nurses will make the effort to seek out better employment options that are more conducive to good mental health.