Nurses don't have a hard job

Nurses General Nursing

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I literally had a guy have the nerve to tell me that nurses don't have hard jobs. When I said I was tired, he asked "from what? All you guys do is sit behind a desk and write" I was so outraged I don't think I could even answer with a coherent word. I went thru alot of the things we have to do to ensure our patients health, assessment, and safety ( not leaving out cleaning up after incontinence) and he shut up quick. I asked him if he though putting on hip waders and elbow length gloves to clean up a patient who has had massive diarrhea incontinence sounded like an easy job to him. :madface:

Kellie

Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

I have had a few patients like this, and basically I tell folks it is like being a mother to 6 sick kids all needing your compassion, time, LTC, and not to mention all the hoops one has to jump through just dealing with the healthcare system! That usually gets them thinking!

One time, I had a pt that thought we just sat around gossiping...knowing she was caring for a parent at home with dementia...I changed the subject to how hard it was to care for them...by the end...I said...add 5 more people to that and you have PART of my job! She caught it fast!

Sometimes I choose to educate folk on the profession of Nursing...some times I don't have the energy or time..LOL!

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
Yeah...my husband, of all people made a stupid comment like, " How can you say you're tired?" "All you do is pass pills and sit at a desk." Never mind that I was 9 months pregnant and working 12 hour shifts on a busy tele/ stepdown unit, day shift. He changed his tune after eating Banquet TV dinners for a couple days. LOL!!!!!:lol2:

Someone said this to my husband once ("so she stands there and hands instruments to a surgeon all day, anyone can do that"). He said "That's not all she does 10, 12, or 16 hours a day, and if i even thought of saying what you said, i'd have to duck so my head would missing the flying waffle iron aimed at my head."

Specializes in cardiac.
Someone said this to my husband once ("so she stands there and hands instruments to a surgeon all day, anyone can do that"). He said "That's not all she does 10, 12, or 16 hours a day, and if i even thought of saying what you said, i'd have to duck so my head would missing the flying waffle iron aimed at my head."

Support from the homefront carries a lot of weight.:lol2: :lol2: :lol2: I can just picture a waffle iron flying through the air!!!!!!

Specializes in ICU, CCU, Trauma, neuro, Geriatrics.

Hummm

Specializes in ICU, CCU, Trauma, neuro, Geriatrics.

I find sometimes patients are idiots, and then after further investigation their parents are idiots, and then again I find that they just need to be further educated on what the heck landed their loved one in the hospital.

Ah, I love those people that think they KNOW what I'm doing!! How about having two post-op patients vomiting at the same time, plus another having major pain - and the supervisor picks that moment to want to ask some stupid question about something that wasn't even relevent. And couldn't understand why I was short with her!

Now at the LTCF (I thought it was going to be a low-stress job - I can't believe how hard they work!!!) an occasional aide will think MY job is easier than theirs - and physically, sometimes it can be, altho I do my share of physical care, but they don't understand the years of education that I had to have, both during and after school. And they get to clock out and go home when the shift is over - I seldom do.

Specializes in ER/Trauma.

People keep under-estimating our role as patient advocate...

There are, unfortunately, people who think that all we do is push pills and bedpans and write. Those people will never change their minds about us.
At least you got "push pills and write".

My cousin thinks all I do is take the blood pressure and temperature and get the Doctor when he's ready :rolleyes:

He's 13 though. One day, I'll clear it with my supervisor and take him along for one 12 hour shift. He doesn't have to do anything - just needs to be able to keep track of ONE of us for any stretch of time.

That'll change his opinion real quick ;)

cheers,

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

We don't have a hard job, at least it doesn't seem that way to me. I have had two jobs before I was a nurse. Combat medic in army infantry, shot twice, stabbed once, and blown up once. I dairy farmed for 9 years. Nine years of 16+ hour days, brutal hard physical labor, constant strees related to the weather and milk prices, and a VERY dangerous work enviroment.

Nursing is the easeist job I have ever had and the safest.

For me the hardest part of nursing is the emotional part like when the 22 year old girl you have been taking care of for months dies of ovarian ca.

Specializes in ICU, Research, Corrections.
How about the family of an 1:1 ICU pt that had the nerve to tell me that I must love my job because I only had one pt and the floor nurses worked SOOO much harder with several patients. Now I know how hard floor nurses work, don't get me wrong, that was not the point. I did not bother to point out that this persons MOTHER was on triple strength epi at 100 ml/hr (no not a typo), Levo-reg at an equally high rate, plus an insulin gtt at an enourmous amount plus we were boulsing with epi and atropine at routine intervals. This person also had a balloon pump and was on CRRT which the ICU nurses run. Quite frankly the pt should have been a 2:1 (yeah right) and I was WORKING my tail off. I did not even have the time to respond to that comment...I just said.."All nurses work really hard on the floors and in ICU" any more and I would have gotten FIRED.:nono:

:rotfl: OH, I can so relate to this! Except throw in an additional patient on sepsis bundle and 20 visitors for the original pt in a unit with open visitiation rules. Questions like, why can't grandpa eat? Is he better yet? Grandpa is cold (on cooling blanket with temp of 40.4), Grandpa just moved his leg - why? Grandpa's chest is moving (ventilator). Came real close to saying, "I am trying to keep Grandpa alive, please stop asking me STUPID questions"! Instead, I said every minute I talk to you Grandpa is not getting taken care of......I will answer when I have time and Grandpa is not so critical :trout:

Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
I literally had a guy have the nerve to tell me that nurses don't have hard jobs. When I said I was tired, he asked "from what? All you guys do is sit behind a desk and write" I was so outraged I don't think I could even answer with a coherent word. I went thru alot of the things we have to do to ensure our patients health, assessment, and safety ( not leaving out cleaning up after incontinence) and he shut up quick. I asked him if he though putting on hip waders and elbow length gloves to clean up a patient who has had massive diarrhea incontinence sounded like an easy job to him. :madface:

Kellie

:lol2: A friend of mine got reported by a family member for "doing her nails at the desk" while her loved one's hair had not been washed....Point 1---she was doing the tele strips....Point 2-the patient was a frequent flyer that lived in a dumpster (well-ok,not really in a dumpster but her living conditions were horrid)-we were sure tha her hair had not been washed in 4 months.Never mind that we had 8 patients apiece with no cna and the usual med-surg nightmares ) ..People used to pizz me off-now I just laugh at the ignorance...(ok -not always-sometimes it gets to me too.I'd like to bytch slap someone,you know?)
Specializes in Med/Surg, ER.
We don't have a hard job, at least it doesn't seem that way to me. I have had two jobs before I was a nurse. Combat medic in army infantry, shot twice, stabbed once, and blown up once. I dairy farmed for 9 years. Nine years of 16+ hour days, brutal hard physical labor, constant strees related to the weather and milk prices, and a VERY dangerous work enviroment.

Nursing is the easeist job I have ever had and the safest.

For me the hardest part of nursing is the emotional part like when the 22 year old girl you have been taking care of for months dies of ovarian ca.

I just love this web site

What ever job we choose in life we can make it the best or the worse. I think that it is 99% attitude and 1% other... But ask me in 8 months when I graduate... I hope that I still feel the same way or help us all!!

And that much more is said about night shift nurses. They do not realize that we work with less staff, less resource individuals and departments, no doctors on hand (sometimes a blessing), no one to call in to take the place of one of our folks who call in, and on and on. Sometimes the only satisfaction in my wonderful years of nursing was going home and knowing I did my best even if no other human being knew or recognized it. One needs to walk in the shoes of the nurse on one of those nights (or other shifts) that we packed 16 hrs. of work into 8 hrs. and then had a head nurse come in and the first question might be, "Why didn't you get that ua on patient so-and-so?" When there was bad weather and nurses called in, our HN would be on the phone at 4 p.m. making sure we night people would be in. Yet, when we are there at night and day shift calls in, no one was there to help us find replacements so we could go home. It only happened twice but in my years of night shift nursing, I ended up having to stay over and work a day shift because there were no replacements for me so I could go home. I wonder if this could have been a legal complaint? So my comments have gone beyond ungrateful visitors or patients and even into those of our own profession. My memories of the positive moments are with me and I will always love my profession.:nurse:
Amen sister, I feel ya!! I am currently on nights too, as well as have been a supervisor who managed nights, and I understand completely when you are talking about the understaffing of night shift and the extra responsibilities
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