Most stressful and least stressful nursing specialty in the hospital?

Nurses General Nursing

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Medsurg, surgical/ ortho floor, cardiac floor, l and d, mother and baby, ICU, ER etc...Let us hear your opinion!

I found L&D very stressful. Between the scary fetal heart tones, babies having breathing issues right after being born, moms hemorrhaging, stat C-sections, moms ready to deliver with no dr available, demanding moms or those that cared more abt their pain med than their babies, stillborns,etc it was stressful. I found every delivery stressful until the mom and baby made it through it safely.I found the OR extremely stressful too. There is so much to learn under stressful situations and the patient's lives can hang in the balance of how long it takes you to go find a certain needed item at the last second.Med-Surg is stressful just due to the sheer volume of patients and things needing done and praying you don't miss any important patient changes.School nursing can be stressful due to the fact you're on your own in a non- medical setting. Also having to deal with parents not doing what you have asked like taking their sick kid to the dr or treating their kid for lice before bringing them back to school. There's also the 40 kids a day needing to see you but it does seem less stressful then other types of nursing due to the fact most of the time you aren't dealing with anything super critical.I wish I could find an area that doesn't stress me out every day! I sometimes dream of just being a check-out girl at Kolh's! If only they paid better...

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Specializes in OB/GYN/Neonatal/Office/Geriatric.

L & D is a great place to work, but it is not stress-free. You have to make very quick judgements that affect one adult patient and at least one unborn patient. Bad outcomes happen all the time. It is considered a high-risk area. Placental abruptions, eclampsia and pre-eclamsia, loss of fetal heart beat, preterm delivery, HELLP syndrome. When you have just minutes to cut and deliver things get really stressful. And sometimes it ends with either a dead baby or a dead mother. I burned out because I worked in a very busy, high acuity unit where we did not receive much support from management. We had travel nurses walk off the job. Like someone else said: a lot of things factor in and each department has its own stressors and problems. I think nursing is a stressful job no matter what you do.

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I float around so... I've been to pretty much every floor

personally I found the busiest to be a short staffed medicine floor, an express unit and sometimes the cardiac floors (eventhough 9/10 they're my fav)

The slowest would DEFINITLEY have to be rehab. It's like night and day comparing the too. (too slow for me)

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Specializes in OB, Women’s health, Educator, Leadership.

I agree with the previous poster re: L & D but my reasons are because you have to change roles at a moment's notice. One minute you have an antepartum patient just administering meds and watching the strip and the next you are circulating in the OR because the patient crashed. After that you are in PACU recovering the patient. Only to go back to your unit and now triage patient's one after the other because your unit is busy. Or helping catch and recover a baby - including exam and meds, I feel like I never know enough!! As much as I love it, It can be so frustrating and I see how nurses can burn out.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

The most stressful is the one where either one (or both) of the following 2 things are present:

1. You have unsupportive co-workers and/or management

2. You don't enjoy working with that particular population (what that is)

The least stressful is the one with the supportive co-workers / management and you enjoy working with that particular patient population.

People have different preferences and skills ... and each work environment is different.

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Most stressful- Long term acute care. Least stressful- private duty pediatric nursing. Some kids with trachs/vents. Other times I've had only a baby that needed a cath every 3 hours or g-tube feeding!

Most enjoyable (for me)- NICU. Never boring, but it wasn't too stressful- all of us nurses were in one big room so if your baby needs help you can get it quickly.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

Med-surg, ICU/ICU step-down and ER. Probably L&D, too. I would consider Postpartum as one of the least stressful, imo.

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Specializes in 1.

Thanks for all your input!

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Specializes in LTC/Skilled Care/Rehab.

I haven't worked on many units but the least stressful for me was Mother-Baby. Yes, you can have 8 patients but I felt like I actually had time to do education. This was my final semester during nursing school so I wasn't technically a nurse yet. And most of them didn't take many medications. Most difficult was LTC. Try to handle 30 patients at a time. There would be times I would have to send several patients to the ER during my shift, plus try to give everyone meds at the same times, AND make sure no one falls! I really think that job is impossible!

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Most stressful would be physical demanding care of overly obese bed bound patients who are max assist without a helping hand. Did I mention lady and attitude tech too? Between that with multiple discharges and admissions.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.

Anywhere where there is little to no paperwork. You know, actual patient care?

A girl can dream, can't she?

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Specializes in 1.

I don't think I could ever do LTC. The idea of 30 plus confused old patients with risk of falls stresses me out. Dealing with one at night is usually enough to make my good night turn bad. Hat off to LTC nurses!

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