Yup, I can definitely identify with you! The worst (for me) was the stress of working short-staffed. The problem is the company I worked for only allotted so many employees per shift and so they didn't view it as short-staffing. But when you're crazy busy and don't even get a chance to sit for lunch/dinner during your shift that tells me that you're working short-staffed! Since I'm not naming names here, I can say that the company didn't give me the impression they valued their employees. It seemed quite the contrary. In all honesty the only incentive for me to do the job to the best of my abilities had to do with the patients. Everything I did was with the idea in mind that if this was myself or a loved one, I would expect no less. In any other situation, I wouldn't have cared as much because I didn't feel my employer cared about me or my co-workers. But as you said, this is a field with a lot of responsibilty. If you don't do your job right, it could either harm a patient, or worse, cause their death. This is something I am always acutely aware of.
In last month's Reader's Digest (Canadian version) there was an article about employers who place a high value on their employees and show it through incentives, benefits and flexibility. One of them was the Toronto Western Hospital as told through the eyes of one of the nurses who works there. They paid for ordered in meals when overtime was needed, they have an on-site fitness centre, stress relief classes, on-site daycare and more. The company that runs the hospital said they have "discovered that investing in staff is good business." It means happier, more productive staff and less turnover. Wish more places would think like that!
I can certainly relate to your comment about the expectation to not have a life beyond your job. Fortunately for me I seldom got called in, because I was the most junior member, but it was expected I would be available. The schedule they give you doesn't allow you to plan much of a life. The only people who had a set schedule were those who worked the graveyard shift. (At least at one hospital it was that way. At another one - same company - no one had a set schedule.) I never knew very far ahead of time what shifts I would be working. At the last hospital I worked at, you would usually find out the following month's schedule about two days or so before the end of the month. Crazy! And I also ended up having to work at a small, isolated, rural hospital every so often to cover for an employee that had retired. It was usually several days in a row, being on call 24 hours a day. You couldn't do anything during those times. I would stay at a bed and breakfast place and just watch t.v. or read during my time away. I wouldn't get call backs all the time, but I remember once being awakened early early in the morning and having JUST enough time to race back to the b & b afterwards to shower and then go back and work a full shift. The compensation wasn't much either. But one of my co-workers told me that if something came up just after my shift was done, I should claim it as a call-back rather than overtime since it paid more that way.
He knew all the ins and outs.
It was definitely a good way to go, turning down the job. If it didn't feel right that early on, it likely wouldn't have gotten any better, as you had said.
I know different areas of the country differ in their needs, but when I check different job sites, I
always see nurses in demand. It makes me think I should go back to school and become an RN! *L* I already have a degree in a health care field, so getting an RN would likely take only two years. But I know how hard nursing is and I don't think it's for me.
Good luck on your job search! I know how much it sucks to look for work. But if you hold true to your standards of what you want in a job, I'm certain you will find a good fit!
It seems so many places expect loyalty and to accept whatever situation the employer hands you because you are, after all, receiving money from them. 
I don't think it is fair at all for an employer to expect loyalty when they do nothing to foster that sort of relationship with their employee. Health care especially seems to demand more from an employee for less. I have no objection to hard work and I have no objection to helping out my fellow employees when there is a crazy time at shift change. But what I hate is working understaffed and using short-cuts (something I refused to do) in order to save time. I'm dangerously close to launching into a rant, so I think I'd better stop now. 
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