good nurse chicken soup...need an up lifting experience?!

fergus51 · Dec 15, 2001

There actually is a chicken soup for the nurse's soul book. I bought it for a friend of mine.

jschut, BSN, RN · Dec 15, 2001

I like that idea though... could be inspiring! Some days I just feel like giving up, and a thread like that could make the whole difference! I come here to blow off some steam and to get advice, and believe me.... I usually am fighting towards my goal again after these guys are done with me! It;s great to have someone who understands what I am going through. My husband tries, but he just doesn't understand the tension and worry and the "everything" that's going on!:)

Yes... I think an uplifting board would be nice too.... but I should dare say we've pretty much got one as soon as we get on here!

Julie:)

LilgirlRN, ADN, RN · Dec 15, 2001

I've been a nurse for a very long time (15 years in June). I work in the ER. The ER tends to make you cynical, we see so many people who are just looking for narcotics. I am not the friendly type nurse, I wear my nametag backwards because we get so many weirdos in, I really don't want them to know my name. We are so busy however, someone (the staff) will call my name and I will answer and then anyone in the department knows my name. There are patients that you hit it off with and there are patients that you just rub each other the wrong way. You can't be THE nurse for everyone. That fact used to really hurt my feelings when I first started, I thought I could make everyone think I was a wonderful nurse. I am a wonderful nurse, but I can't make everyone happy. Working in the ER, we are the first nurses that the patient comes in contact with, our hospital is built on the nurses reputations, people believe that they get better nursing care in our hospital than in any other in Birmingham, we try to live up to that. Patients send letters, good and bad, to let our administrators know about their visit. My boss got 3 letters from patients that I took care of all from the same night. It was a night from hell and that's all I remember about the night, I don't remember the patients that sent the letters but in all fairness, I don't hear about these letters until months after they are received. Two letters were glowing in compliments for me (remember the blanket warmer is your friend), the third said I stunk and it was from a nurse that had left the clinical setting and was now in insurance, she didn't just write a letter, she came and sat in my boss's office and told her how terrible I was. I didn't remember the woman, if I take care of 12 people in an 8 hr shift, am I supposed to remember each individual a couple of months later? My boss knows me, I get far more many compliments than I do complaints, so she chalked it up to the ER being crazy and the woman not being very ill. Why am I telling you all of this? Just as with anything else, you have to take the bad with the good. I love what I do. I love the ER, I couldn't work anywhere else. We have a high geriatric population, many times when they have to stay, they ask if I can go to their floor and take care of them because no one else could possibly do as good a job as I did. That is your goal, to make a patient feel like that. At my hospital, I am confident in telling them that they will get excellent nursing care in any floor or unit that they are admitted to. :)

rlouque · Dec 17, 2001

Congrats Danielle on deciding to go to nursing school! I wish you the very best! Just wanted to share this with you. At the beginning of this semester (Maternal/Peds) we had so much work to do, OB drug test, math test, etc... that i was really feeling overwelmed and wondering. why am i doing this to myself? But the first day of clinical i had a Labor and Delivery rotation, my patient and her family were wonderful and really encourage me and another student to stay and watch her deliver. When I saw that new baby come into this world, i took and deep breath and thought, yes, this is why im doing this to myself, this is what its all about!

Ortho_RN · Dec 17, 2001

aww.. :) Its amazing how a lil thing like birth, can make our goals and all the headaches worth it... It has always amazed me how much the family's tend to make the nurses and dr's seem like part of the family..

Danielle4 · Dec 18, 2001

Thanks jgiblet!

What a wonderful and inspiring story! I bet you are a really great nurse.

I just bought that chicken soup book. Maybe I will read it and find a good story to post here since I do not have one of my own. Hopefully someday I will have one of my very own. :)

I hope I will make it through school. It seems like it is so hard.

-Danielle

rlouque · Dec 18, 2001

Danielle,

Just wanted to send you a word of encouragment. Nursing school is hard, I'm not going to lie, its very hard. But, if you feel in your heart that your meant to be a nurse, then all the work is worth it. There is no other feeling in the world like knowing that you made a patient happy, they may not have a family or loved ones, and you may be the only person they come in contact with that day that makes the effort to talk and laugh with them. Just a few tips, 1. Go in to nursing school with your head held high, no matter how you feel the first few weeks, you are not an idiot or you wouldn't have been accepted into the program! 2. Make friends, my class and I are like a big dysfunctional family, but we are a family because no one else knows exactly what your going through. 3. It is okay to cry or get upset, throw a fit if you want to, hell you may even want to throw your books, whatever makes you feel better. 4. Have FUN! I am known in my class for always laughing and running my mouth, so just have a good time and enjoy it, or you'll begin to feel burnt out.

Have a great time in school and if you have any questions e-mail me at [email protected]