Specialty within the Nursing feild that requires little or no contact with blood?

Nurses General Nursing

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Can I get these positions as a new grad? What specialties work less with blood and vomit and all of the other yucky stuff? I dont mean to sound ignorant or childish, but I just can't handle certain things!

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Specializes in Peds, ER/Trauma.

Why would you go to nursing school if you can't handle being in contact with bodily fluids??? Any hospital, clinic, or home-health nursing job is going to involve some contact with body fluids. You might be able to do an office job, like working for an insurance company, but most jobs like that will require you to have clinical experience first....

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Can I get these positions as a new grad? What specialties work less with blood and vomit and all of the other yucky stuff? I dont mean to sound ignorant or childish, but I just can't handle certain things!

Well, nurses care for sick people and sick people puke, have diarrhea, cough and sneeze all over you, bleed, and many more things that are "yucky". Unless you want to be a paper nurse, management or head of nursing in a nursing home,law office going over medical malpractice complaints, that type of stuff.

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Specializes in Peds, ER/Trauma.
Well, nurses care for sick people and sick people puke, have diarrhea, cough and sneeze all over you, bleed, and many more things that are "yucky". Unless you want to be a paper nurse, management or head of nursing in a nursing home,law office going over medical malpractice complaints, that type of stuff.

I agree- and all of these positions (management, head of nursing, etc...) will require several years of hands-on clinical experience first...

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Specializes in ED, ICU, Heme/Onc.
Can I get these positions as a new grad? What specialties work less with blood and vomit and all of the other yucky stuff? I dont mean to sound ignorant or childish, but I just can't handle certain things!

Besides what everyone else said with regards to needing a few years of clinical experience before moving away from bedside nursing, there is no escape from all sorts of bodily fluids and such when you are a nursing student. In fact, I think they make you wear white so you can point out what you came into contact with during post-conference!

Just to let you know, I can stomach anything in real life. The bloodier, gorier, poopier - sometimes all three at once - but I can't watch that stuff on TV or the movies at all. Even those Mosby videos that they would show us in Nursing School would make me a bit green around the gills (the one with disimpaction especially....) - but I can do it in real life and just move in with my day - eat my lunch, whatever. (Just thought I'd share)

Blee

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Specializes in Gyn, dermatology, aesthetics, wellness.

I agree with Blee. I thought I was the only one who would get grossed out watching blood and guts on TV but then handle like it's no big deal in real life. I guess it's because when you see it for real, it's just not really that bad. Anyway, back to the original question....I've worked some nursing jobs that may give you some ideas. Right now I work for a company that develops and implements wellness programs. I review lab results for high risk patients, explain them to the patient, and then develop a plan with him/her to improve their health. I've also worked for a dermatologist where there is little blood, but then again, if you do a little skin biopsy on someone who denied that they were on a blood thinner, then woooooooooooo there comes the blood gushing out of that little incision. And then I had a job where all I had to do was a fingerstick to get cholesterol readings and talk to the client their results. If you work at a nursing home, there is not that much body fluids to deal with...at least not as much as the hospital. But I think the important thing is to realize that although there are many jobs where contact with blood is minimal, you never know what may come up on the job, and you have to be prepared to deal with some unpleasant things as a nurse. Once you have gotten experience, you could consider case management, claims review, QA, school nurse, etc.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Okay, here are some jobs with limited body fluid exposure:

1. Office nursing.

2. Occupational health nursing - in some settings.

3. Case Management.

4. Risk Management.

5. Utilization Review.

6. Management - in some settings.

7. Instructor.

8. Advanced practice nurse - in some settings.

However, the caveat to all of these is that these positions usually require several years of experience. Maybe if you could tell us what exactly is bothering you about this, we might be able to help. Also, if you are still in pre-reqs and haven't reached clinicals yet, you may find that you can tolerate body fluids. What you may not tolerate is: high staffing ratios, poor management, child abuse, elder abuse, and generally too much work for too little time. These, like aversion to body fluids can be overcome though.

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Specializes in ED, ICU, Heme/Onc.
(snipped) I If you work at a nursing home, there is not that much body fluids to deal with...at least not as much as the hospital. (snipped).

Seriously?? I only did a rotation through a LTC facility while in nursing school, but while there was less blood, there was just as much - or more - fluids of an.. excretory nature...

Blee

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Can I get these positions as a new grad? What specialties work less with blood and vomit and all of the other yucky stuff? I dont mean to sound ignorant or childish, but I just can't handle certain things!

Okay, there is someone in my Chem. class that is going into nursing also. She has a BS in another field, so she is bridging into the MSN program at for Nurse Informatics. From what I have read, it sounds like she will be working on computers. I personally don't see the point in going into nursing if all you are going to do is be behind a desk. Just thought I would share.;)

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Okay, there is someone in my Chem. class that is going into nursing also. She has a BS in another field, so she is bridging into the MSN program at Vandy for Nurse Informatics. From what I have read, it sounds like she will be working on computers. I personally don't see the point in going into nursing if all you are going to do is be behind a desk. Just thought I would share.;)

Which is why nurses like this are completely clueless about the real world and are usually not very good staff advocates becaue they do not have hands on experience.

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Specializes in Travel Nursing, ICU, tele, etc.

I hear your concern about body fluids. But, I promise you can get used to it, if you have the commitment to being a nurse. Human beings are very adaptable. It really depends on your attitude. If you concentrate on helping the person who is vomiting or bleeding, you don't even think about the gross factor after a while. You can do it!

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Can I get these positions as a new grad? What specialties work less with blood and vomit and all of the other yucky stuff? I dont mean to sound ignorant or childish, but I just can't handle certain things!

Before I went to nursing school I prepared myself for two things.

1) I would probably be really grossed out for awhile, and this would feel overwhelming.

2) I would eventually get over it.

It's normal to be grossed out and overwhelmed the first time you have to give a complete bed bath or help someone with a bedpan. Especially from where I was comming from: no NO experience with health care, entering a clinical heavy nursing program (by the 3rd week we were in the hospital). I remember the first patient I was assigned; a morbidly obese diabetic heavily sedated on morphine who I was supposed to give a complete bed bath to. I mean it was probably the worst patient to give me: male, huge, disoriented and unable to assist at all (:angryfire instructor) . I'm like 5'5 and 115 lbs, weak as hell, and bathing this guy was going to be quite a challenge just physically (nevermind emotionally).

I nearly freaked out and broke down. I thought about quitting that day.

Well it was my first day and my instructor let me get off without doing the bath (I said I needed too much assistance and I would let the nursing assistant handle it... ).

The first bath I actually gave was a nursing home resident admitted to the med surg unit for I think an infection of some kind ... she was totally end stage alzheimers, emaciated, contractures of all joints, *incredible* bed sores like a stage 4 on the sacrum, and totally unable to communicate all she could do is like bite if you came close to her. That was one of the most difficult patients because it was the first time I saw one of those nursing-home veggie type patients you know?

Yes it was difficult but I did it. And I have done pretty much every "gross" nursing thing so far except deal with vomit (vomit is a pretty rare fluid because nursing students usually aren't given patients that are actively vomiting due to more intense observation and care being required )

I didn't think it would be possible but I got over it.

You will get over it too, but only if you force yourself to go in there and do it and be a professional about it.

After awhile, you think about it differently. When in that room you feel less like yourself (pretending to be a nurse) and more like a real nurse... it comes with greater experience in the hospital, and greater knowledge clinically.

But the only way to get over it is to actually get out there and do these skills; this is the foundation of nursing, and you really can't be affective at higher level positions (away from the bedside) until you've at least mastered the bottom rungs of direct patient care at the bedside.

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