I don't like nursing school :( will I hate nursing?

[Lucidity]

I am doing well in school - I have gotten a 4.0 in the last two semesters. I loved learning pathophysiology and pharmacology and the skills. But as I go through the program, each continuing semester involves having more clinical time and less class time, and I dread going to clinical sites. But clinical is what nursing will be like, isn't it? If I hate clinical, will I hate nursing? I'm starting to believe I belong in a research lab or something since I am a pretty shy person, which I feel like makes it harder to enjoy nursing...

[IloveNursing2214]

I hated clinicals too !!! The getting up early , some classmates , some mean floor nurses and the witches of clinical instructors !!! Is true , it is way different than working on your own . You will become confident at the end , just wait . I used to cry in fundamentals and by the 4th yr I aced my preceptorship .!!! Good Luck, we know how you feel !

[CSULBNurse]

Dear lucidity,

I know exactly how you feel. When I was in nursing school, I love learning new knowledge (patho, pharm) from lecture but I hate hate hate clinical. I also know a lot of nurses who don't like their job. I can picture myself dreading going to work at some boring med-surge unit where I am being asked by the patients to bring them a cup of ice or heat up their food if the CNA is not around (Okay, I know that that's not all you do, but sometimes when the CNAs are not around, nurses have to do these). I didn't sign up for a bachelor degree to do these things. One big regret that I have was not having the experience of shadowing a nurse and see what they do before decided to go into nursing. If I know what they do, I wouldn't go for nursing at all. And I hated some of my nursing clinical instructors, they can be very nasty, mean, and they enjoy seeing student fail just so they can say nursing school is hard. I am a person who never cries, but I cried several times after clinical because of the harsh words those clinical instructor threw at me. I graduated with magna cum laude from one of the best nursing school in California, and decided to use this bachelor degree to obtain a higher degree that's not related to nursing, medical school. Yes the school will be brutal but once I graduate, I won't be asked to go get someone some blankets or pillow or a cup of ice. So, if you don't like nursing, especially clinical, there's an 80% chance that you won't like nursing at all. Now that you have a good GPA, maintain that great GPA and study on and be something else. There's med school, dental school, pharmacy school that requires a bachelor degree in order to apply. They say there's a lot of options when you're a nurse; it's true that there's a lot of options, including those that are not related to the field of nursing. If you find nursing is not for you, just think outside the box. Life is too short to do something you hate for the rest of your life.

[cheaplabor]

Clinical rotations are highly important. On the other hand, they really don't prepare you for the working world - not even close. And this is part of the reason some students dread them. You often go in (and come out) feeling ill-prepared. Give a few drugs, maybe start, or help start an IV, give some injections, ambulate a patient,... Now try doing triple this (on 8 patients) during a 12 hour shift. I don't totally regret being in nursing. But I can tell you this. There are at least a dozen other professions that take about the same time to complete, pay well, and have nowhere near the stress and outrageous responsibility that a nurse deals with. We chose our battles - some of us not so wisely.

[Purple_Clover]

I hate most of my fellow nursing students and especially the clinical instructors (the evil witches), but I do think "Real" Nursing is far different from nursing school.

:roflmao: