Student nurse dismayed by bedside nursing attitude

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Hello all, I am a student nurse currently in my first year. Before this I was a paramedic for a about a year and then decided to go the nursing route and get my feet wet by working as a CNA. I am the type of person who likes to research all aspects of what my next adventure will be. So as I am researching different aspects of nursing, I was a bit floored by the amount of people that hated bedside nursing, in particular on the Med/Surge floor. I get that the work load is high and that can bring stress as well as all the intricate details about day to day nursing, but is that any reason to hate bedside nursing? I thought that is what the nursing profession was all about. Getting right in there, getting your hands dirty and providing the best patient care possible. What exactly are some students thinking nursing entails when they get into school?!

Oh I know, no disrespect taken, just trying to get more in depth information on the topic. Thank you

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

Super tough job, but so many people will love you if you do it well.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

I haven't read through all the replies yet, but I have worked a job I truly hated. It was an LTACH job. It was great in that these people are way sicker and way more complex than short-term med-surg pts, so I learned a lot. Plus it gave me some insight into what my current ICU pts have in store, as many of them go to LTACH when well enough to leave the ICU, but too high-acquity for the floor.

Do you know why I hated it? It had nothing to do with me not wanting to work hard, and everything to do with being stretched too thin to take GOOD care of my pts.

Most med-surg nurses who hate their jobs -- to the best of my knowledge -- do so for similar reasons. They are not lazy, but very frustrated at having to do more with less, plus feeling the pressure to meet unrealistic "customer service" demands.

I would encourage you to get through school and a year or two in med-surg, and then talk to us about your dismay.

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Im not stressed lol....ok i guess I could have worded what I truly meant better. As far as bedside nursing goes, what is it about it, that makes nurses dislike it the most? From what I gather it is the patient to RN ratio

My reasons for strongly disliking bedside nursing were multiple, and some were compounded by others. I worked two different floor jobs before coming to the OR. Both were the same patient populations: neurosurgery/neurology progressive/stepdown and floor, with a variety of patients on our units because we could put nearly everyone on tele. The interpersonal situation on each unit was vastly different. My first unit? I could count the people I could trust to help me on one hand (very scary as a new grad). The politics were unbearable, and there were a lot of issues in that facility that scared me. My second unit? My coworkers would pitch in and help. Made all the difference. The interpersonal and work unit culture issues were far worse than the workload in my first job.

I had anywhere between 3 and 7 patients, depending on my acuity mix (in general less patients if higher acuity). On my second unit, we had LPNs, no big deal, except that RNs had to cosign some things, handle care plans for the LPNs they were "paired with", and handle the tasks requiring RN licensure (IV push meds, etc). Our LPNs would pretty reliably take tasks from us, that wasn't the issue. The workload, in terms of the types of patients we cared for was a challenge. I learned a LOT, literally a TON.

I decided a year or so in, that the floor wasn't for me. I had offers and could have went to the ED or an ICU. I went to the OR in a different facility, being offered a potentially once a career opportunity. I've been here for several years. I've learned more than I ever imagined I'd learn. I like having one patient at a time, though when things are crazy in my environment, well, it's a totally different kind of crazy (and hard for me to explain). I have the best relationships with surgeons and anesthesia providers, the teamwork is wonderful.

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Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.
I think that shadowing is a good idea. It will offer some insight into nursing duties. What you will likely not be able to get/observe is the "full nursing experience". In my opinion you can't really get that until you're actually doing it yourself.

I remember from my own "recently graduated" days and later from precepting many students is that as a "rookie" or "outsider" what you tend to see are all the tasks that nurses do. And the tasks alone can certainly be enough to keep you quite busy. What you probably won't appreciate is how much of a nurses' work actually happens in her/his head. You see her/his hands but what you don't see is the constant assessment, reassessment, prioritization and reprioritization that happens throughout the shift as new orders, new information and change in patient status keeps being added/changing.

This is BEAUTIFULLY stated. Very well put!!

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Im not stressed lol....ok i guess I could have worded what I truly meant better. As far as bedside nursing goes, what is it about it, that makes nurses dislike it the most? From what I gather it is the patient to RN ratio

I'll give you one great example, there will be days, for the whole entire shift you can't even find a second for a potty break! Sounds small and petty right?! You can go figure or ask someone yourself. :sarcastic:

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This has nothing to do with your post as far as helping it, but I just wanted to say that I enjoy reading your writing. It's impressive!

I bet you made a 100 on your grammar and reading comprehension scores...

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Specializes in rehab.

For me beside nursing is a love/hate relationship. I love caring for the patients. I know a desk job in management is not for me- paperwork for hours kills me inside.

So I love caring for the patients, seeing them get better and go home. While dressing changes aren't fun I can do them easily enough and I have no problems. I happily will walk with a patient- when I have the time. And I can talk with them about stupid stuff. I love watching them get better and teach them about their health and help them learn and grow from whatever illness they suffered.

However, at the same time! You are expected to do unsafe ratios, and don't you dare tell that one patient that the reason her meds are 20 mins later than what she wanted was because you had 6 other patients that needed their meds, a dressing that fell off, an IV that died and needs to be replaced, a code brown. On my unit each patient, and with night shift you get 7-9 patients, you easily have about 15 pages of charting. Along with quality checks or audits that are expected while trying to take care of everyone.

I love bedside nursing, I don't like doing administrations job. I don't like having patients yell at me because I can't be there within 30 seconds of their light going off. I don't like having administration breathing down my neck because I can't get to the call light within 30 seconds but instead in 45 seconds. But I do love caring for the patients and doing the actual bedside work.

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Once you have actually been a nurse for a while you may come to understand that high stress and high work load lead to burn out and mistakes. Accepting these things as part of the job is a huge part of the problem. Until nurses stop accepting these conditions hospitals will have no motivation to change them.

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I think most people come into nursing with the right intentions. I also think we come into nursing with the view that by caring for sick people, we will be making a difference and it will be rewarding. Only to find that, in reality, many times it is much different. I only occasionally have moments where I feel like I have really contributed to a patient's wellbeing. Most of the time, you are constantly trying to meet each patient's demands, never really succeeding, and never really satisfying anybody. You have management that makes things difficult and are not afraid to through you under the bus. I understand where you're coming from as I once thought the same thing myself, though.

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For me beside nursing is a love/hate relationship. I love caring for the patients. I know a desk job in management is not for me- paperwork for hours kills me inside.

So I love caring for the patients, seeing them get better and go home. While dressing changes aren't fun I can do them easily enough and I have no problems. I happily will walk with a patient- when I have the time. And I can talk with them about stupid stuff. I love watching them get better and teach them about their health and help them learn and grow from whatever illness they suffered.

However, at the same time! You are expected to do unsafe ratios, and don't you dare tell that one patient that the reason her meds are 20 mins later than what she wanted was because you had 6 other patients that needed their meds, a dressing that fell off, an IV that died and needs to be replaced, a code brown. On my unit each patient, and with night shift you get 7-9 patients, you easily have about 15 pages of charting. Along with quality checks or audits that are expected while trying to take care of everyone.

I love bedside nursing, I don't like doing administrations job. I don't like having patients yell at me because I can't be there within 30 seconds of their light going off. I don't like having administration breathing down my neck because I can't get to the call light within 30 seconds but instead in 45 seconds. But I do love caring for the patients and doing the actual bedside work.

Is California STILL the only state with staffing ratios? It was nearly 20 years ago we passed safe staffing guidelines and bedside nursing is still a nightmare as hospitals increased acuity and decreased ancillary staff however this would have likely occurred anyway as 'the powers that be' require those 7 figure bonuses. I am merely surprised no other state has followed suit...

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Specializes in ED, Pedi Vasc access, Paramedic serving 6 towns.

Hi,

I too am a paramedic, and I did EMS long before getting my RN.

Personally any of my dissatisfaction with nursing has been the lack of autonomy, short staffing, and the needy patients and families that sometimes are just ridiculous with their request and expectations.

You will not get the whole experience as a CNA because when a family member has a problem or the patient has a problem, you go get the nurse. Everything falls on the nurse's shoulders and for me it added up to the point that I was burnt out of full time ER nursing within a year and part time ER nursing within another year after that, and I went right back to the ambulance full time. I now do nursing per-diem, which makes it for the most part tolerable and it's IV nursing, which in a way is similar to the ambulance. You see the patient for maybe 20 minutes, sometimes longer, and you leave.

I am at the point where my joints and the rest of my body are not very fond of the ambulance anymore, although I still love it after 19 years. I am trying to obtain a full-time nursing job that is tolerable. I would love to work in pediatrics or NICU, but unfortunately another issue with nursing is it is VERY hard to find a job in those areas, especially in the northeast where I am. So understand that if you go get your RN, a job in the area you want to work in may not be easy to come by.

A lot of EMS folks who go to nursing tend to veer towards ER nursing. Just know that the frequent flyers, drunks, psychiatric patients, families that can get on your nerves, patients that get on your nerves, bariatric patients, and any other patient we just don't really look forward too will now be yours for hours instead of minutes, and it's a whole different ball game!

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