I've been coming to allnurses for a while. Mostly lurking. I have been a nurse for about 6 years and I am curious if nursing is really as bad as everyone says it is. We all know its just "nurse nature" to come here and write about an awful day they had then it is for a nurse to come on here and say there day went smooth.
I've only worked as a nurse in one state and my personal opinion of floor nursing is really negative, but nursing is my livelyhood. I don't think I've spoken with a single nurse that has been floor nursing for any period of time that has felt good about the proffesion. I have run into the occasional Florence who is on a mission from God, but I don't really count those since they are in the very small minority.
My personl concensus on floor nursing (Having worked pretty much every speciality except general peds inpatient med floors).
Pros (going to try and start off positive)
1. Pay: I don't know any other proffesions where you can compensated for two years education and make >50k a year. Yes some nurses work in small rurual hospitals, don't want to travel etc. but if you really wanted to, and were willing to move and work any unit you could approach near 6 figures in some areas with overtime and agency work.
2. Job security: I am the consemate job hopper. I could find work in
3. Variety: There are so many different fields you can work in, everyday brings something new.
4. Independence: Depending on where you work and what your speciality is you can have a large of amount of indepedence, especially if you are like me and work nights. No supervisor breathing down your neck telling he needs the tps reports yesterday. You make informed decisions alot on your own etc.
5. Respect: I know this one is debateable, but there is a certain amount of respect received from lay people being a nurse. Alot depends on enviorment though, if all your friends/family are CEO's and PhD's you may not get much lol.
6. Meaninful work: We see people at their worst and through proffesionalism and knowledge are sometimes able to alleviate concerns, save a life or get warm fuzzys from thankful pts./family.
7. Schedule: We aren't tied to a 9-5, we can work 3 days a week and take 4 off, or like some work 6 in a row and get a mini weeks vacation between shifts.
8. Comradery: As nurses we share a lot of the same burdens and experiences, were sort of a dysfunctional support group for eachother lol.
Cons
1. Patient ratios: Health care providers continue to lay tons and tons of paperwork and double/triple, sometimes quadtruble charting on nurses to be JCHAO compliant, yet excpect nurses to perform "customer service."
2. One mistake away from loss of livelyhood: One unfortuate mistake and you can loose your ability to ever practice as a nurse again. If a CPA messes up in a calculation he may lose his/her job, but as long as nothing illegal was done he will still be a CPA.
3. Were disposable: Hate to say this, but were immently replaceable, if we weren't, hospitals wouldn't treat us in such ways. They know there will be another new grad, foreign or travel/agency nurse to take your spot.
4. Egos: We work with the most egotistical, ill tempered, god complex proffesion on the planet. Physcians...yes there are some excellent ones but in my experience for every physcian that treats me with respect as a member of the health care team there is one that ignores anything I say, yells, throws charts and just generally acts like a spoiled child on their birthday. Then we have the egos of the supervisors/DON's and other such people that haven't worked the floor in their life, or worked the floor back when the BeeGees were #1 on the charts. They have no idea what the average floor nurse is expected to do. They won't get in the trenches for a shift or two either to get an idea, however they will tell you its perfectly reasonable for you to take on 8 patients in a primary care setting while they attend the 4th meeting of the day to discuss the increase of bad marks on the patient satisfaction surveys.
5. BON: I have never had any issue with my license (knock on wood), but from what I have read and the experiences of other nurses that have there tends to be a holier then though attitude. Mitigating circumstances don't count, reality of the hospital doesn't count. All that counts is that you, the nurse on the frontline did something 99.9% of floor nurses do, but you were unlucky, too bad so sad...next.
6. Responsbility: The buck stops at the floor nurse. You would think it stopped at the physcian, but in reality it doesn't. Things can be twisted. Oh you called the physcian about the patients critical PTT, he didn't give you any orders? What did you do about it? Oh, the physcian says you never mentioned that, your word against hers, of course its your fault the patient has a brain hemmorhage now. Would you like us to schedule your BON hearing now?
7. Lack of respect: For as much respect as we do get, there is still heaps of disrespect, especially by those in our own proffesion.
8. No one has the time: More and more nurses such as myself are getting burnt out. No its not agency nurse_01's fault our unit is a revolving door, its still frusterating for me to have to train a new nurse every other shift though, especially when I am overloaded as usual.
9. Nurses can be cruel: They can be hateful, burnt out witches that should have left the proffesion 10 years ago. They trudge on though and make sure everyone knows they have been a nurse for a 100 years and you know nothing as they walk right past a room that has an IV beeping in it, because it isn't "their patient."
10. Hospitals in general despise us: We are a neccesary evil, if they could fire us all tommorow and still run a unit they would...don't doubt it. I'm sure there is some lone Non-profit (not "not for profit") hospital in some rural town that truely loves all its employees, gives a xmas bonus in years that they can afford to and in years they can't afford to the executives don't get a bonus either.
11. Jack of all trades: I'm not sure if I came up with this on my own or heard it somewhere else but its a true quote none the less. "A nurse can do everyones job, but only a nurse can do a nurses job." We play unit secretary, CNA, Housekeeper, dietician, accountant, pharmacist, central supplier, receptionist, social worker, security, therapist, QA, etc. etc. To top it all off were expected to do such things on a regular basis, and if we don't were negligent and might end up answering to the BON.
12. Constant changing policys, new "systems" Policys change constantly in a hospital, one day what you were doing was right, the next day its punishable by termination, its chaos. Not to mention complete new ways of doing things, to "improve." Computerized charting and the new med administration systems which make you scan ten different things come to mind.
I could go on with negative, but I think you can guess my general concensus of front line floor nursing 04 (soon to be 05).
Why am I still here? I'm asking that of myself more and more everyday. I have decided I'm going to get out of nursing all together or get as far away from bedside nursing as I can. Infection control sounds sort of groovy, or maybe diabties educator lol.
To all those floor nurses out there, you aren't alone. Merry Xmas.
