Nurse with Disdain

Nurses Relations

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BrandonLPN, LPN

3,358 Posts

I sympathize with the OP, but I can't help but wonder, what exactly did he think nursing was? It always surprises me when I see posters here who have invested so much time and money in pursuit of a career that they clearly knew nothing about.

grpman

172 Posts

Your post could be seen with a fair amount of irony. Your reason for being sarcastic is due to spending a lot of time (shift from H E L L) with the same people the OP is tired of dealing with. I think you might be able to relate to him, although just a little, if you tried to forget your horrible shift filled with needy people.

Change your major to Healthcare Administration. No, and I mean NO! proximity to pts. and you get to make pie charts and line graphs all f'in day. Goals are set and you get to make rules up as you go along. You will stay clean and dry, keep lysol in your bottom drawer in case a c-differ walks by, though if you keep your office door closed you can avoid it all together. You can explain all these serious medical conditions to the foundation members who, if you spin it just right, can donate a new player piano for the lobby.

Seriously, I just had a shift from H E L L and the thought of a grown adult getting into a NP track and not knowing that their would be sick, needy people on road to his "goal" floors me. PAY YOUR DUES...............then go NP.

I promise to apologize for this post tomorrow, but the way I'm feeling right now it stands.

Streamline2010

535 Posts

There appears to be one thing missing in all these posts. The problem my friend in fact might not be the job, but that you have an unrealistic expectation and seem to be egocentric in your search for "the job". You want excitement, purpose and interest, but it has to be on your terms, interesting that you have found ANY job to meet your expectations.

Perhaps you would be better served by looking inside, if in fact you are able to see that you may have faults, and start there.way, I co

I dont think it is the profession......its the person.

Bah. I think it's both. Nursing just may be too much futzing around without any clear "wins," for most of us who came to it from some career other than wife and mother. Closer to a motherhood role is how I'd describe it. The confines of the nurse role are one of the things I struggled with in RN school, and perhaps because I was in a diploma program that put me into the bedside nursing role in the first term, I was getting the same vibe as the OP but within 3 months, lol. I quit after 1 year. I thought nursing had evolved and finally empowered RNs, but it is still too a women's profession. One of the things I found tiresome was, like the OP said, constant barrage of needy people. It's a HUGE change from working with the well-educated and very self-reliant and successful, and the decisive, if that's what the OP was used to.

I think what the people (women, in particular) who have spent long or entire careers in nursing don't realize is that careers outside the medical field, professions like business and manufacturing, do offer and in fact require much more autonomy of their employees. Nurses lack power. Period. And patients too often see nurses as servants or mamma. A subordinate role. Subordinate to the MD/DO, subordinate to Administration, subordinate to the patients. Heck, to everyone. There was a male nurse on here who also said the same thing: Nurses have no power. Adult males who come into nursing identify that problem with it immediately, because that situation is so different from other workplaces.

If you look at sales, or engineering, or half a dozen other things, they are goal-oriented. They turn well-trained employees loose to get their jobs done. And rude and abusive clients get shown the door, or the police are called.

I got no satisfaction from nursing. I've done engineering process design, QA/QC for the metals industry, and some positively menial jobs while living in small town rural America. Nursing school was the only occupational role that ever annoyed Hail out of me, because it put me into the servant role constantly and more importantly, I never went home with a sense of "winning."

Probably the OP would have been happier with med school and becoming a doctor. Most of the engineers and chemists I know who went into med became DOs, actually. And they are quite happy with that career choice, if not with the downward pressure on wages, lol.

Fiona59

8,343 Posts

The issue, now and when you become an NP is that if patients do not perceive you as warm and fuzzy at least a little they will give you bad reviews and that will cause you problems.

Have you thought about the military? It would not be a huge issue there I wouldn't think.

Can you be a little warm & fuzzy and work in urgent care or somewhere like that where you see them once and quickly?

My first thought was he's retired military! OK, read more and he is military. Reading between the lines he was a medic in special ops. Totally different outlook to life/work.

He's going through a huge change in his life and doesn't know how to deal with it.

Has he thought of working in military hospitals?

Streamline2010

535 Posts

I'd like to also voice my understanding for the OP. While I may not feel the way he does every day on the job, I get what he means.

Sounds to me like he's a ex-military guy who bought into the BS nursing schools sell, telling us nursing is an "applied science" that utilizes all kinds of deep technical skills & hard scientific knowledge. Then he got into the real field - and discovered what so many of us have, that nursing has devolved into a role of overpaid babysitter of people with zero personal accountability who widely abuse the system. That would rub ANY person with a military background the wrong way.

It's too bad. I think he could reconcile his value system with this profession if he found the right job. I GTFO of bedside and into case management purely so I'd never have to answer a whiny call bell or play beverage servant ever again.

^ Amen. I bought into that, too. Then after a year of RN school, and I still hadn't seen ANY use for my tech and science backgorund, except pharma and its calculations, I began to suspect I'd never get to use stuff anymore. Science? What science? What deep breadth and depth of knowledge? The people in my cohort have just graduated and passed the NCLEX. *Most of them didn't even read the textbooks in the library, much less buy them.* I asked them how they got passing test scores all the time, because I was knocking myself out trying to read it all and assimilate it all, and it was burying me. They said they just went over and over their Powerpoint handouts from class. And got Cs all the time. One of them even said that as soon as she takes the test, she forgets all about whatever she just crammed for, and moves on to the next exam content. Short-term thinking. But they passed exams, and passed the NCLEX, and now they are new-grad nurses.

Silly me! I thought I was supposed to actually learn it and understand it all thoroughly, and be able to apply it, because I might have to use it in the future. I could not reconcile my standards and value system with nursing school, even. To me, a string of Cs was um, not good enough. lol

Hi I signed up with this site just to reply to you. I have been in this field for thirty years and this is what I know. There is room for a wide variety of personality types in this business. I myself loathe nursing and spent my entire career getting away from patients. Did 16 years working nights and weekends in neonatal intensive care. Patients don't talk back and if you work in a large state referral unit few parents. Don't work in the town baby factory lots of patience intensive upwardly mobile types there. Someone suggested Workmans comp case management. You have to listen to a lot of malingerers telling you why they can't work anymore because they lifted a box. However, in insurance there are plenty of positions that are brain intensive in regulatory, compliance and my personal favorite fraud. You never talk to patients in those positions. You rarely talk to providers and you are contributing to the good of the country at the same time by identifying waste and fraud. With a Master's I would go into education, not nursing basic education but continuing education. There you say your piece and then leave. Another avenue would be public policy. That is a great field for a bright analytical person.

Bottom line don't give up. If I can be happy in nursing anyone can be. Just look for anything nurses can do that involves the education we have. Leave the bed side nursing to the nurturers and the refrigerator RNs. Cassie RN BS

macawake, MSN

2,141 Posts

StuckInTheMiddle, I appreciate you coming back and clarifying/answering some of the questions i asked. I now find it easier to relate to where you're coming from. I'm sorry you miss the job you used to have and that you've now chosen a path that doesn't seem to give you much happiness.

When I wrote my previous post I was amazed that anyone could launch into a nursing career and be unaware that it comes with perks like bodily fluids. Reading you last post #51 it sounds like you never had any personal experience with serious illness. You mention taking a few notes, explaining a course of treatment and passing meds. Sometimes that's enough but often the human being needs more. Comfort, reassurance, hope and the sense of being seen. When you describe how you attained your Bachelors Degree in Nursing you only mention syllabi, school websites and texts. No clinicals?

I guess the thing that bothered me before and still does is the lack of empathy you displayed when you wrote that needy patients infuriates you and that you say that you dislike patients and mention their incontinence and vomiting, and that lose your patience with people who can't be independent (by no fault of their own). Nobody (that I know of anyway) enjoys faeces and vomit. I've frequently found myself silently revolted, but for me the compassion for the sick person is the greater concern. If I find it a bit on the icky side, I can only imagine how a previously able-bodied and independent adult feels like when they are not only sick with all that that entails but also dependant on another person to take care of such a basic thing as toileting and their personal hygiene. For me, my discomfort is overshadowed by my compassion for their plight. We don't have to be lovey-dovey and warm and fuzzy in the extreme, but I think we need to have empathy. Disease can be such a humongous insult to a persons dignity and identity, and I think that we as nurses should try to help our patients restore/preserve what they can. That said, I myself have chosen to work in an area with minimal contact with aforementioned bodily products, so I can understand your point of view.

I guess you need to find a specialty that you find challenging and rewarding. The best of luck to you!

OCNRN63, RN

5,978 Posts

Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.

I don't enjoy holding a basin while someone is puking or cleaning up someone who's had diarrhea all over the place. I think the difference is I see those situations and know it could be me or someone I love. It doesn't mean I don't get frustrated, esp. when you've cleaned someone up for the _____th time and you have to go clean them up again. But you suck it up and do it because it's part of the job.

I do wish the best for the OP.

Susie2310

2,121 Posts

Bah. I think it's both. Nursing just may be too much futzing around without any clear "wins," for most of us who came to it from some career other than wife and mother. Closer to a motherhood role is how I'd describe it. The confines of the nurse role are one of the things I struggled with in RN school, and perhaps because I was in a diploma program that put me into the bedside nursing role in the first term, I was getting the same vibe as the OP but within 3 months, lol. I quit after 1 year. I thought nursing had evolved and finally empowered RNs, but it is still too a women's profession. One of the things I found tiresome was, like the OP said, constant barrage of needy people. It's a HUGE change from working with the well-educated and very self-reliant and successful, and the decisive, if that's what the OP was used to.

I think what the people (women, in particular) who have spent long or entire careers in nursing don't realize is that careers outside the medical field, professions like business and manufacturing, do offer and in fact require much more autonomy of their employees. Nurses lack power. Period. And patients too often see nurses as servants or mamma. A subordinate role. Subordinate to the MD/DO, subordinate to Administration, subordinate to the patients. Heck, to everyone. There was a male nurse on here who also said the same thing: Nurses have no power. Adult males who come into nursing identify that problem with it immediately, because that situation is so different from other workplaces.

If you look at sales, or engineering, or half a dozen other things, they are goal-oriented. They turn well-trained employees loose to get their jobs done. And rude and abusive clients get shown the door, or the police are called.

I got no satisfaction from nursing. I've done engineering process design, QA/QC for the metals industry, and some positively menial jobs while living in small town rural America. Nursing school was the only occupational role that ever annoyed Hail out of me, because it put me into the servant role constantly and more importantly, I never went home with a sense of "winning."

Probably the OP would have been happier with med school and becoming a doctor. Most of the engineers and chemists I know who went into med became DOs, actually. And they are quite happy with that career choice, if not with the downward pressure on wages, lol.

Yup, no clear wins and not a position of power. In bedside nursing, if you don't find satisfaction in nursing sick people and doing your best to take care of them and their families, there aren't a lot of external rewards. Your win is if you help save the patient's life, or help the patient's health improve and support the patient's family in the process. No-one's going to give you a medal, or promote you to CEO. In fact, you'll be lucky if your voice is even heard. Not a place for someone who needs to be in charge, be highly independent in their actions, and have their voice heard. Before you started nursing school, what persuaded you that a nursing career would fulfill these criteria?

Specializes in FNP, ONP.

I stopped reading after page 2, forgive me if I missed something pertinent. In a nutshell I am just like you and I am extremely successful in my present position. Patients self select. If they want warm and fuzzy they gravitate elsewhere. There actually aren't any warm and fuzzy providers at all in our clinic, but there are others in town, lol. We are all direct, to the point, no nonsense. We run on time and don't tolerate shenanigans from our patients. If they don't like us they are free to keep going down the road, and they do. Sometimes with a great deal of drama. One of my peers had someone hauled out in handcuffs for mouthing off to him today, lol.

My point is, the qualities that you feel you lack are unnecessary to be a successful NP, so don't sweat it. Finish school and look for a position in the right environment with colleagues that will support you. You don't want to work with a touchy feelly type or you would kill each other, lol. And I agree that ED, urgent care and some of the specialties might be perfect for you if primary care is not your gig.

Susie2310

2,121 Posts

I stopped reading after page 2, forgive me if I missed something pertinent. In a nutshell I am just like you and I am extremely successful in my present position. Patients self select. If they want warm and fuzzy they gravitate elsewhere. There actually aren't any warm and fuzzy providers at all in our clinic, but there are others in town, lol. We are all direct, to the point, no nonsense. We run on time and don't tolerate shenanigans from our patients. If they don't like us they are free to keep going down the road, and they do. Sometimes with a great deal of drama. One of my peers had someone hauled out in handcuffs for mouthing off to him today, lol.

My point is, the qualities that you feel you lack are unnecessary to be a successful NP, so don't sweat it. Finish school and look for a position in the right environment with colleagues that will support you. You don't want to work with a touchy feelly type or you would kill each other, lol. And I agree that ED, urgent care and some of the specialties might be perfect for you if primary care is not your gig.

BlueDevil, did you not say on a previous thread that "Compassion is the difference between your board being full or empty" or words to that effect?

barbyann

337 Posts

Your post could be seen with a fair amount of irony. Your reason for being sarcastic is due to spending a lot of time (shift from H E L L) with the same people the OP is tired of dealing with. I think you might be able to relate to him, although just a little, if you tried to forget your horrible shift filled with needy people.

The shift was hellish because I was surrounded by staff who will find ANY excuse to not answer a call light. Basically, they just don't like to attend to the sick needy people.

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