No I wouldn't recommend nursing

After reading all these posts I can't help but agree with something my EMT friend Paul said, since he's planning to go into nursing himself. I mentioned all the negative stuff I've heard and showed him this thread, and his response was that the largest complaints about nursing usually come from people who don't want to work and don't give a damn about their patients, healing, or any aspect of medicine. And after reading most of these posts, I can agree with him. Sure, you need to protect your right to fair work conditions and not let your employer, patients, etc. trample over you or treat you poorly, but there's a difference between keeping people from trampling on you and trampling on the entire profession of what you do.

I don't know how it is outside California, but in California there's a patient ratio law...my friend said it was 5, I've read other people say it was 4, but either way it sounds like in California a nurse can't be in charge of more then 4-5 patients so the horrible understaffing conditions that have been mentioned here don't exist atleast in California. I would be very surprised if most states don't have the same thing. Regardless though, the more you discourage hopeful nursing students from becoming nurses, the more you're /contributing/ to crappy work conditions, understaffing where there's no law against it, and patients not getting the care and attention they need.

I too am a nursing student, and I used to say similar things ... until I started working as an extern. Quite frankly, I was stupid.

I will never, ever accuse any RN of not wanting to work and not giving a damn about their patients because I now know how tough their job is. Just about everything that has been said on this thread is true.

And if you think the California ratio law is a panacea, you're wrong. For one, thing, they can give you ten patients, not five, if they assign you an LVN. And if that LVN isn't ... shall we say ... helpful ... that's makes the job incredibly tough, especially since you're not just responsible for ten patients, but everything the LVN does as well.

Even in facilities which give you only five patients ... I'd really like to see how you or any student/new grad would handle five totoal care high acuity patients with multiple diseases, and multiple things going on like TPN, blood tranfusions, etc. And if you are not favored by management, they will dump a bunch of high acuity patients on you. Just because California has a ratio law doesn't mean management can't make the job miserable.

When you're on your feet all day long, working your butt off trying to keep up, taking abuse from patients, their families, doctors and management, I'd really like to see how you would feel then. I wonder if you would come to realize, like I did, that there is a reason for the nursing shortage, and there is a reason why so many RN's have left the bedside.

Veteran RN's can run circles around us any day of the week. They know a hellava lot more than we do... and you're going to need their help when you do work on the job. They deserve our respect, not lectures. And other states do not have ratio laws .... so don't presume that others don't have legitimate complaints.

RN's are trying to warn students about what they're getting into before they go through the trouble of school. Read the first year of nursing section of this board, and see how much trouble new grads are experiencing. See how many of them are questioning whether nursing school was a mistake. Then, maybe you won't be so quick to judge.

I hear so many complaints about nursing, but I dont hear too many solutions. My wife is a RN and she tells me that the problems you face are dealing with lazy nurses, lazy nurse directors, and lazy directors. You wonder why there is such a nursing shortage. This problem needs to be taken all the way to congress, because a lot of patients are being affected by these problems.
God bless

I hear so many complaints about nursing, but I dont hear too many solutions.

Aside from Congress, what OTHER solutions do you have to offer?

And what specifically should they do?

It surprises me how many students are going into nursing. I had my BSN since 1992 and have worked in the hospitals since then. Nursing is back-breaking labor with the reoccurring role of cleaning poop. There is no way my back can last another 20 years until retirement. Pick something else to go into.

Manuel

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
- James Baldwin