Is Nursing as Stressful as Nursing School? - Page 5

I'm in public health, which is generally less stressful than acute care. Also, I did an accelerated program, which I found extremely stressful. The answer to your question, from my experience & perspective, is no. It probably won't be true for many other areas of nursing.

RN-MS

Nursing school is taught by stark raving madwoman who seem intent on driving you nuts. Nursing is physically and emotionally demanding and comes with great responsibility and little down time in the job. I think nursing is easier. There is the reward of providing good patient care and the sense of accomplishment from operating autonomously. There are still mad women in management but if you stay out of their way, they stay out of yours usually.

Much more so.

Nursing school was a safe environment set up to permit learning and catch serious mistakes before they can hurt anybody.

Now, it's my patient and my responsibility... mine alone. If something goes wrong, not only does the patient suffer harm, I will be held accountable for my actions or inactions. If I make a mistake, it's for real and can have serious or even deadly results, and I don't have anybody looking over my shoulder to help catch them... it's all on me.

Nursing is far more stressful than nursing school... and far more stressful than any other professional activity in which I've engaged (and there've been a number of 'em)

Being a nurse is more stressful, in my opinion, than being in nursing school ever was.

YES, but a different kind and level of stress. Although, I do think at the end of the day I feel I've made more of a difference than anything I've done in school. It's worth it.

I think it also depends WHAT kind of nursing you get into. Hospital nursing is going to be more stressful than school nursing, ICU/critical care nursing is going to have a different kind of stress than psyche nursing...it really depends.

Yes, nursing is much more stressful than nursing school. It's all on you as a nurse and you take the heat for you actions/inactions. You don't always have time to ask what you should do as in nursing school. I work psych and there are so many legalities that it's no wonder I'm not taking up one of the beds!