Only charting?

Nursing Students General Students

Published

I'm a first year nursing student and to be honest, the majority of what I've seen nurses do is charting and give meds. Is this all I will do?

Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
Oh cool, so you work in the home setting. Im speaking on my experiences so far in the clinical setting. Being a nurse is just very unappealing for me and I have no idea why so many people are jumping on my back like that. And yup- Im going into a REAL profession, where i will ACTUALLY help people out.. Not just babysit and call the doctor when there is a problem!

Based on your posts in other threads, you seem incredibly motivated to get a high GPA and take relevant extra classes that will make you competitive for, I presume, grad school. That's great.

But you must realize that the reason people are "jumping on your back" is because you are implying that their career is not valuable or important. Come on.

0 Votes

Lightning, how a person speaks, how he presents himself is vital to establishing a professional relationship and being thought of as being a professional. The problem you are having on this thread is that you do not come off as even remotely interested in professional discussion and your dismissal of nurses is astoundingly narrow-minded, short-sighted, and downright ignorant.

You cannot tell people that what they do is of no importance (when everyone who holds these jobs knows more than you do, and knows it IS important) and expect to come out of it unscathed. You are being called out not for "speaking your mind" but for speaking foolishly and out of utter ignorance of the topic.

It's a good idea to keep in mind that faculty, professors, clinical instructors FILL these forums and sometimes recognize their own students here. It does not bode well for them in the end. Much of nursing work is subjective, and whether you pass your clinical assignments may be determined in large part by the image you present. A high GPA in a classroom setting does not mean you will be cleared on clinical rotations if you are deemed to be patronizing, condescending, dismissive, without compassion, and without professional courtesy. In other words, everything you have shown here on this thread. Consider that, and whether you will be able to overcome the obstacles you yourself have placed in your way to get to graduation. You cannot become an NP without becoming an RN and there is considerable evidence indicating why you might not finish your program. Can't say you weren't warned.

0 Votes
Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.

I see a lot of people on this thread saying, "come follow me in the ICU and you'll see how complicated nursing can be!" Sure, ICU is definitely complex. But I would encourage the OP and other students to also look for the complexity of med-surg nursing - they also, as another poster described, like a duck paddling under the water! Its not easy to manage and coordinate the care of 6-7 med-surg patients at once! Every specialty can be challenging. Oh, and by the way, there are some nurses who challenge themselves more than others. If you want to, you can try to be that nurse who does the bare minimum...it probably won't be very satisfying and you won't get far in your career. Or you can be an excellent nurse, and those nurses are the ducks - they do so much more than meds and charting.

I remember my first clinical semester, in a LTC facility. I'm sure the nurses were doing a lot, but I had no idea what it was because I didn't even really know how to distinguish the nurses from the CNAs from anyone else in scrubs. We students all just kind of walked in (confused and awkward), tried to find our assigned patient's chart to look up info for our care plan, and then went to see if they needed help eating or something. I had NO IDEA what I was supposed to be doing, let alone what the nurses might be doing. Each semester, you see a little more, but you still don't really get it all till you've graduated and been working for a little while.

OP, please don't perceive the answers here as people jumping on you. I don't think that's the intent. It's hard to see the forest for the trees at the beginning of nursing school. I'll be honest, I hated nursing school because most of the clinicals felt tedious, uninteresting, and basically like I was just trying to make care plans for no reason. I spend the ENTIRE program thinking that I probably wouldn't want to work in the nursing field for long anyway. But then I got my first job (in nursing, because you gotta make money, right?). Guess what? I actually have really enjoyed my career, and I'm glad that I did it. The first year was HARD, but then it got better. And now that I have some years of experience, so many doors are open to me. If you find that beside nursing isn't your thing, there are tons of other ways to use your nursing degree! Basically what I am trying to say is, try not to feel too discouraged yet - you are just starting to dip your toes into the pool.

0 Votes

Sooo many people are hurt lmao. Some peoples just cant handle the truth :)

0 Votes
Sooo many people are hurt lmao. Some peoples just cant handle the truth :)

Well it's not the truth.

0 Votes
Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.
Sooo many people are hurt lmao. Some peoples just cant handle the truth :)

Everything else aside, the truth is that even as a nurse practitioner, you'll still be a NURSE practitioner. You're still going to be a nurse :-)

0 Votes

Oh i could care less what im called lol. Im only concerned about what Im actually going to be doing in that profession.

0 Votes
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
It's a good idea to keep in mind that faculty, professors, clinical instructors FILL these forums and sometimes recognize their own students here.

Not to mention managers and coworkers. I've seen posts here describing how someone slipped a copy of a post under the manager's door. AN isn't as anonymous as people seem to think it is.

0 Votes
Sooo many people are hurt lmao. Some peoples just cant handle the truth :)

I took an accounting course once. Does that qualify me to talk about what it's like to be a CPA?

Until you are a nurse, you don't know what it's like to walk in the shoes of a nurse.

Again I say, come to our ICU and see how long it takes you to flounder, get totally lost, and look like a complete idiot.

0 Votes
I see a lot of people on this thread saying, "come follow me in the ICU and you'll see how complicated nursing can be!" Sure, ICU is definitely complex. But I would encourage the OP and other students to also look for the complexity of med-surg nursing - they also, as another poster described, like a duck paddling under the water! Its not easy to manage and coordinate the care of 6-7 med-surg patients at once

Very good points. I only mentioned ICU because that's my background, so I speak to what I know. ICU nurses work as colleagues with the docs. The arrogant one and the OP might be surprised at how often our docs would say, "So what do you want me to write?" Or "so what do you think we ought to do for Mr. Jones? Do you need anything else I haven't thought of?" Yeah, waitresses indeed.

Now I work OR, and I'd like to see the arrogant one observe our RNFA and blather on again about how nurses don't do anything worthwhile. Our surgeons ask our RNFAs for advice from time to time. Which is NOT what they do to CNAs and waitresses. ;) No offense to CNAs or waitresses, but you get my point.

0 Votes
I see a lot of people on this thread saying, "come follow me in the ICU and you'll see how complicated nursing can be!" Sure, ICU is definitely complex. But I would encourage the OP and other students to also look for the complexity of med-surg nursing - they also, as another poster described, like a duck paddling under the water! Its not easy to manage and coordinate the care of 6-7 med-surg patients at once! Every specialty can be challenging.

Speaking as a med-surge nurse, THANK YOU! Everything I detailed in my post is just a shift in med-surg on any given day. :-)

0 Votes
Sooo many people are hurt lmao. Some peoples just cant handle the truth :)

What truth is that? That you have no clue what you are talking about and are unprofessional in your presentation? Yes, that is a truth. And it isn't the rest of us who are having trouble handling that, it seems that that particular problem lies with you.

Many people here have given you good advice, have even tried to help you to survive nursing school, as it appears you might not actually get through it the way you are going. Since you choose to disregard all of these experienced, well-meaning people, all I can say is good luck with whatever it is you eventually end up doing in life. I expect it won't be anything remotely in the nursing profession, and I think one day you will find this to be your own truth.

0 Votes
+ Add a Comment