What's the issue with med surg?

[BABYJADE06]

The title says it all! Everyone in my nursing program hates med surg and are hoping to have more option besides med surg when school is over. I extern on a med surg floor and most of the new nurses tell me that they only work med surg because they were unable to obtain employment in their specialty of choice. Even on this website it seems that a lot of nurses are interested in OB, ICU and ER and you never really run across too many that wanna work med surg. What is the issue with med surg?

[eriksoln, BSN, RN]

ICUitis. Other related psychosocial disorders include NICUitis, PICUitis, CVICUitis, BICUities, TICUitis... Primary symptom is overuse of call light. Other symptoms may include inability to independently pull up covers, reach tissues, or change tv channel related to an apparent loss of motor function of the arms.

I've said it before and I'll say it again (or, rather, ask it again):

How in the world did good "customer service" and safe healthcare get interpreted as............pretend you are a quadriplegic and have as much done for you as possible?

[martymoose, BSN, RN]

because its a no win situation when you have that many patients and are expected to provide exceptional customer service while praying that your insulin gtt guy doesnt go hypoglycemic, or confused patient with the unrepairable broken hip doesnt crawl out of bed because you cant watch him, or the other confused lady falls and breaks a hip because she "didnt want to bother you - you looked so busy", dont even go there with the etoh'er and the q 1 hour iv dilaudid drug seeker that some stupid doc wrote the order for.etc etc etc.a no win situation that puts YOUR license on the line each and every time you work.

[LouisVRN, RN]

Agree with the other posters on my med-surg floor we frequently get patients from the ICU as transfers with no change to their orders, Q1 hour CMS checks, Q1 hour neurochecks, Q2 hour accuchecks, pain meds ordered q1 hour with 4 other patients. And then everyone acts like anyone can do med-surg and that its nothing special, the time-management alone makes us a specialty.

[rn/writer, RN]

I firmly believe the med/surg is one of the most demanding, least appreciated specialties of all. Too many people believe it is nothing more than the default setting if you don't have something more exciting picked out. They are sooo wrong. Med/surg is a marathon and a sprint and a stake-out and a juggling act (with chains saws) all at the same time.

MED/SURG NURSES ROCK!!!!

[Five&Two Will Do]

I am so grateful that I worked on a regular floor before coming to the ICU. As has already been stated, time management is the number one skill I took from it. There is no way to care for 6 -8 or even 10 patients withouit it. Now I come here to the ICU and my job is sooooo easy compared to that. Some of the nurses I work with came right out of BSN programs that had an internship in the MICU so they were offered jobs. They have NEVER had to manage more than 2 patients. A few of these nurses are perpetually behind in their work. Med surg requires crazy skills. It is hard work. People for the most part do ot want to work as hard as is necessary therefore medsurg gets a bad reputation. This reputation incidently has nothing to do with the level of nursing skill in assessment and pharmacology thta is required to care for 6-8 patients all of which may have different reasons for being in the hospital.

[Mommy&RN, BSN, RN]

I love being a med/surg nurse. Our unit is typically staffed at 1:5-6. I do weekend nights, and our charge is great about splitting up isolation pts. We do mostly GI illness, GI surgery, bariatrics, mastectomies, thyroidectoy, vascular surgery... Etc

So in the post surgery world, we don't fluff pillows. The goal is to get you ready for D/C. We having a saying on our floor for people who wont use IS, walk, or TCDB. "if you think it hurts now, not complying can lead to pneumonia or clots" they usually get moving after that.

Of course we do medical overflow, too. So you have to be on your toes and know about most diseases.

We also get PCTs that are usually nursing students, so they want to do a good job and assist in anyway they can. (love our current techs).

[Tait, MSN, RN]

because its a no win situation when you have that many patients and are expected to provide exceptional customer service while praying that your insulin gtt guy doesnt go hypoglycemic, or confused patient with the unrepairable broken hip doesnt crawl out of bed because you cant watch him, or the other confused lady falls and breaks a hip because she "didnt want to bother you - you looked so busy", dont even go there with the etoh'er and the q 1 hour iv dilaudid drug seeker that some stupid doc wrote the order for.etc etc etc.a no win situation that puts YOUR license on the line each and every time you work.

I firmly believe the med/surg is one of the most demanding, least appreciated specialties of all. Too many people believe it is nothing more than the default setting if you don't have something more exciting picked out. They are sooo wrong. Med/surg is a marathon and a sprint and a stake out and a juggling act all at the same time.

MED/SURG NURSES ROCK!!!!

@jrwest I have had all of those in one day! Talk about a work out!

@rn/writer: "Here! Here!"

Med/Surg is hard, unpredictable, and in the end pretty darn fantastic if you can handle it!

[RNTOBE_1970]

I think that all new nurses should work in Med Surg before being allowed to specialize. It is a great foundation to build on.

[jesswus]

All these posts are sooooo true. I have never regularly worked m/s but float there quite often. My fellow icu nurses are always bewildered when I tell them the nurses I have the utmost respect for are m/s nurses. The only advantage an icu nurse may have is in running a code and assisting with intubation, everyhing else a m/s nurse blows us out of the water. I can already hear icu nurses chirping about " critical thinking" on a unit. M/s nurses critical thing every bit as much or more, they have 5-6 pts try have to do it on. Nothing but love for m/s nurses from me.

[LifesAJourney]

I'm not a nurse yet, but I work as a cna on a 50 bed med/surg floor. I start the nursing program this fall. I've had a nurse as me if I still wanted to pursue nursing. She and many of the other nurses are stress to the max with unrealistic patient ratio that do not reflect the type of care needed. I work nights, so all of our patient loads increase dramatically from the day shift ratio under this mythical theory that these patients WILL sleep at night, thus equaling less care which increases patient load. This can't be further away from the truth! Very few can sleep (unless medically assisted) due to change of enviroment, status, am/pm vitals, 2am lab draws, etc. Since they are not asleep and uncomfortable, these patients tend to ride their call lights for any and everything. There are times when we only have 3-4 nurses starting off with 9 patients, including the charge nurse, and we are still taking admits from ER. On my floor, we self schedule and our manager reviews it, makes adjustments if needed, and signs off on it. My manager sign off on the schedule okaying only two nurses for one night! With our patient load, I can't imagine why she did that!. Ultimately, one of the night nurse changed her schedule ON HER OWN, to help out on the night we had two. The only reason why my floor survives at night is because we are all a close knit group and help each other out, never letting one of our own fall behind.

My heart and apperication goes out to all of you med/surg nurses!!!! You guys work so hard and it goes unnotice by management!!!

[healthstar, BSN, RN]

When I first started nursing school, I said to myself, I want to be a OB nurse and nothing else. However, the more rotations I went through the more interested I was in other floors. I loved my medical surgical rotation, and I am probably the only one in my class who can say this. I can see myself working in any floor but hospice or oncology( maybe later in life bc I know I can't handle it as a new grad). I believe med surg is the best opportunity for one to build the skills they have learned throughout nursing school. You get to see variety of patients and I love that. I love to learn more and that's why as soon as I graduate I want to work in med surge. Everybody knows their limits and they should choose to do whatever their heart desires.

[MJB2010]

I think that all new nurses should work in Med Surg before being allowed to specialize. It is a great foundation to build on.

That used to be true. Now with 10+ patients it is scaring off the new grads and burning them out. You really can't take "good" care of your patients with that many.Instead of learning a good foundation you learn short cuts. You run your butt off and still feel like your just putting out fires all night. I can honestly say if I had to stay in m/s I would have left nursing. Many of my colleagues have done just that. The lack of staffing and regulation of nurse/patient ratios is getting WAY out of hand as the hospitals try to penny pinch and milk out every last cent. All you hear about is budget cuts and such, you never hear about patient care.