Nursing is pathetic...

thewhip · Nov 1, 2001

Okay, I know I have no experience (being a student) and I am definitely sure I will get my fair share of what is negative in the nursing field. I'm sure it can make a person bitter when the working circumstances are rough. I'll see when I get there... Hopefully I won't get to that point. Students DO want to investigate what we are going to have to go through, the positive AND the negative! True- a person never knows until they get there. Hearing a lot of negative feedback doesn't help students who want to come in and try to change the current problems with the system. TRY I SAY, but not let it embitter us. Someone has to keep a positive outlook! A person can vent without being nasty. I don't want to get to that point. It is okay to be firm without being NASTY! Nasty attitude is NOT nursing, the system, or whatever else. Being smart, sarcastic, and nasty rude is a personal problem. NOT nursing, admin., or anything else the person wants to blame it on. A person can be in a rough situation and endure without being a smart mouth and a sarcastic orifice! It is all in discerning how to handle the situation.

tiger · Nov 2, 2001

come on whip. were you really that offended by a couple of sarcastic remarks that were not even directed at you? i have been at my current job for 11 yrs and am just now (since we are changing bosses) realizing how bad admin. can screw you. they do not care about loyalty or how good you treat your pts. i hope that you will find a good job that appreciates you. but then again you will be a nurse so that is not too likely. sorry that i am negative too but have been in health field since 1983 and really wish i had done something else. janet

thewhip · Nov 2, 2001

Thanks Janet. No I guess not offended, just surprised at HIS replies! I know I have alot to learn! Kristy

A_Nightingale55 · Nov 3, 2001

This is my first time posting but I feel very strongly about this topic. I've been a nurse for 14 years, 11 as an LPN and 3 as an RN. My entire career has been working in Med/Surg. My answer to your question, ABSOLUTELY NOT!! Nursing is a physically and mentally exhausting job. I don't know about anyone else, but the powers that be just keep adding more "paperwork" and there is no time to actually spend with the patients. That is the reason that I originally chose to become a nurse, to care for patients and families in need. Hospital management does not have a clue as to what goes on out on the floors on a daily basis. They should have to shadow a nurse for a day and then maybe they would realize how hard our job really is!! Not to mention the low pay, considering all the responsibility we have and all the time we must spend away from our families. Thank you all for letting me vent a little. I would really like to hear from other nurses on this subject.

CareerRN · Nov 3, 2001

Thewhip,

Ok, confess. you are one the ones who see nursing as a calling, right?

You believe that in order to be a good nurse, you should make personal sacrifices and allow your self to suffer, right?

In some way, you see nursing as a religious and/or spiritual order, right?

You really do not want to hear the facts about nursing. You want to hear a fairy tale of ministering to the sick, lame, and dying. You look at nursing as a religion and do not want to hear anyone bad mouth it.

Sorry, but nurse dude speaks the truth. He does not soft soap it or try use tactics which would deemed as putting a nicer spin on it. He gives the cold hard facts. He faces reality. He is not politically correct and that is the best thing about him. He calls a lemon a lemon and a terd a terd. There is very little room to mistake what he says.

We need more people like him in this world and if nursing had more people like him then it would not be as bad today.

You say that you will wait until you actually become a nurse to find out what it is like. That is ok. Keep your blinders on your eyes and keep living in the fairy tale world you have envisioned in your mind, disregard what nurse dude and a thousand other people are saying and find out for your self.

Let me just give you one clue here myself, nursing clinicals are nothing like the real world.

When you finally become a nurse and are in thousands of dollars in debt and have put in all the time and effort it took to get there, I hope you will be happy living the reality. It will be hard to escape from if you do not.

If I could turn back the clock, I would have taken a different path in life. That is a shame too. I am a damn good nurse, but it is not worth all the aggravation. The pay, aggravation, and treatment you get are not enough for the amount of responsibilities and personal rewards you receive.

If it were like this in a marriage, many would have been divorced a long time ago. In actuality, thousands have already divorced nursing with many more to follow.

Nursedude, keep spreading the truth in the way that you do best.

Brita01 · Nov 3, 2001

Nightingale, I agree with what you say about the paperwork. I enjoy making my rounds and treating my patients. In a typical shift, you always get at least one patient with some special needs that takes a little more time than the other patients. But has this ever happened to you? You're standing there listening, trying to take that extra time, then you glance at the clock knowing that you have to get back to the desk and finish that damn paperwork. Why? Because if you don't you'll be staying over after your shift trying to explain why you needed that extra 30 minutes or hour of additional pay. This aggravates me to no end. So you choose to ignore the paperwork for now and help your patients. Get on the phone to doctors, whatever it takes. Then you get an admit, which depending on where you work, involves filling out from 5 to 10 additional papers. So, it's now the end of your shift and you're left with this big stack of papers which must be filled out and charted on before you go. Does ANYONE appreciate the fact that you took good care of your patients during your shift? Of course not. All they care about is the fact that you're going to be costing them extra money because you have to stay over to finish your work. And when you try to explain the things that you had to do during your shift, somehow it never comes out sounding quite as bad as it actually was.

Do they actually believe that the more papers that are filled out, the better care the patient will receive? It's kind hard to care for your patient when the stack of papers in front of your face is blocking your view of him.

nursedude · Nov 5, 2001

Whip,

Sorry if some of my posts offended you in some fashion. All else, thanks very much for the votes of confidence.

11/3/01 - I work in a busy suburban ER... See about 35-40 thousand patients/year. Anyhow, yesterday 11/3/01 worked a little short staffed. 2 nurses - no aides, no LPN's, no volunteers... My co-worker(RN) and I worked from 7:00 am until 1:30 pm... 2 (two) freaking nurses and 1(one) doctor... I work for a supposedly "catholic" hospital(praise the Lord). We saw about 25 patients in that time period. How much "care" can 2 nurses provide? No this isn't the med-surg unit or the recovery room or even the psych unit - the freaking ER - the acuity and the numbers are completely unpredictable- there is no telling what could walk in the door next... Cardiac arrests, MVA's, CVA's, UTI's, DVT's, URI's, MRSA, BOM, TIA's, Vag bleeders, Spontaneous Abortions, earaches, overdoses, suicide attempts, multiple trauma, hemorrhoids, Diarrhea, flu, anthrax testing, sore thoats, dizziness, anxiety attacks, Amputations, Chest Tubes, Respitory Distress, Pneumonia, DKA, Corneal Abrasions, Constipation, Psychosis, Lethargy, Rape Exams, Child Abuse, Sore Throats, Gunshots...etc

It's simply bullshi*... The two of us were scheduled that way - normally there are 3 nurses by 9am, 4 by 11 am and sometimes a CRNP in at noon...

Tell me whip, what would you have done?

Embittermint -A.K.A-. Reality :)

OH yeah, no AMA's, or LBTC - not one complaint from 7am-1:30pm

thewhip · Nov 5, 2001

Okay, I know I am just a disillusioned fairy tale world student. I'm sure I'll feel the same way eventually. I believe what you people are saying! But there are others who feel the way I do about becoming a nurse and if they aren't posted on THIS subject, they are definitely on the student posts. Question, do you people interact with other students that are new in your area positively or do you say the same things to them about being disillusioned, fairy tale world, etc..? Do you rag on your new nurses who see it (nursing) as a calling? I never NOT believed anything anyone had on this post. It is just the nasty replies that are unnecessary to get your point across EXAMPLE: When nurse dude replied to someone's SINCERE post with YOU ALL MAKE ME LAUGH!! I just don't talk to people that way but maybe when I become a nurse I will pick up some pointers about how to be rude, demeaning, and sarcastic. Maybe those are the exact ways a nurse will make the workplace better. Who knows? I'll find out I suppose.

nursedude · Nov 26, 2001

Pa. nurses fed up with short staffing

Launch fight vs. mandatory overtime

By ROCHELLE BRENNER

Dispatch/Sunday News

Registered nurses face longer hours, sicker patients and more patients -- and the result is unhappy workers and a mass exodus from the profession, according to a survey released yesterday by a union that represents nurses.

In fact, 56 percent of nurses say they would not have entered the profession if they had to make the decision again, according to the largest statewide survey ever of registered nurses. The poll of 6,000 nurses was sponsored by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals and was released in Harrisburg yesterday.

"Watching the nursing profession is similar to watching a slow-moving train wreck," said state Rep. Dan Surra, D-Elk/Clearfield.

According to the survey, the No. 1 issue that makes a nurse's job hard is short staffing, followed by arbitrary management decisions, lack of input, lack of flexibility in scheduling and mandatory overtime.

Surra is sponsoring legislation to ban mandatory overtime, a move suggested by 64 percent of nurses in the survey. The study revealed that 47 percent of nurses were required to work mandatory overtime over the past few years.

"It means that when you go to work, you don't know whether you will be there eight hours or 16 hours, or whether you will be there to pick your children up at school, or take care of other critical personal needs," said Linda Uranosky, a nurse who spoke at the press conference.

The association presented 6,000 cards from RNs to legislators in a plea to support the ban on mandatory overtime.

Beyond that, fixing the problem requires mandating nurse-to-patient ratios, more state and federal funding and incentives to create a better pool of nursing school applicants --including minorities and men, said executive director of PASNAP Bill Cruice.

"Is it gonna cost more? Yeah, it will," said Cruice. He said money is needed in the right places --personnel, not infrastructure.

Remedy and cause: The president of the nurses' association blames the problems on the health care industry.

"The nursing shortage is a self-inflicted wound, the predictable result of years of cutting costs," said Teri Evans, nurse and president of PASNAP.

The survey found that:

A majority of nurses do non-nursing duties including answering the phone, transporting patients, and cleaning and delivering food trays.

84 percent of nurses have less time for their patients than they did "a couple of years ago."

25 percent of nurses say the facility is short-staffed "all of the time."

92 percent of nurses experienced increased levels of stress "over the past couple of years."

The majority of nurses that responded to the survey work in hospitals, and it was sent to 50,000 of the 180,000 registered nurses statewide.

While 31 percent of those surveyed said they were in the field for 26 years or more, nurses entering the profession now are expected to stay less than five years.

"If we can keep them five years, we're lucky," said Evans. One reason the nursing supply can't keep up with the demand is that women have more career opportunities and can find easier, better paying jobs, she said.

"Health care as a whole is not really appealing for anybody right now," Evans said.

http://www.allnurses.com/news/jump.cgi?ID=709

P.S. Good luck Whip...

ND

thewhip · Nov 26, 2001

Hey Nursedude! Thanks!

That's pretty sad information but I know its true. Wonder what the future holds??? Anyway thanks, it is a real look at what students are getting into... Hope we can hack it! There's good times and bad. I'll sure try to stay positive! Thanks! Good Luck to you! Kristy

Bobrn · Feb 3, 2002

Just spent a few hours reading most of this thread. I applaud Nursedude and the thread title "Nursing is pathetic". It seems that the thread title isn't to demean those working in the field personally, but rather the conditions in which nursing as a career has evolved to. The title itself catches attention, and stimulates emotion and controversy.

Being a young 25 year old male nurse, I don't have the experience of most of the posters here! I have never seen the workloads described, as I am fortunate to be in an area where the workloads are kept at a safe level.

I entered nursing as a transitional job, between restaurants and figuring out what I would really like to do. Eventually ended up in a open heart ICU, which is something I do enjoy. However....

I will not be spending my life doing this job. Halfway through nursing school, I realized that this is not going to be my career. Why? Read the other messages in this thread, I think most of them speak for themselves=)

Truly, if nursing is a field that one is called to work in, then by all means, stick with it and be happy.

Healthcare is a business. I agree, nurses deserve more money and better working conditions. To accomplish this, money is required, whether federally funded (not likely) or created within an organization. With nursing as the largest segment of healthcare providers, to drastically increase salary would take an incredible amount of money. To create this money, there would need to be increased compensation from insurance, HMO's and Medicare. I doubt you will get CEO's and executives to decrease their salaries. A good CEO can turn an organization around and create additional capital (e.g. Interventional Cardiology and referrals for thus are a big money maker in my area, as well as many others I am sure). By no means am I a healthcare business expert, these are just some observations by a nurse.

Safer working conditions seems to be an easier goal to achieve than drastic salary increases. You must prove to your organization that by improving working conditions and increasing benefits to a degree will increase long term retention, thus decreasing recruiting and training expenses, therefore creating long term savings. Another point is that by decreasing dangerous conditions, patient safety is maintained, preventing prolonged admissions and lawsuits resulting from errors due to dangerous conditions. There are two large hospitals in my area, that are private not for profits, that recognize this. Incidentally, the larger University hospitals are usually where you hear the horror stories=)

Personally, I will eventually achieve a MBA . And I will not be in healthcare organization. Nursing has not evolved into its current state of affairs overnight, and thus most likely will not change overnight. And I do not plan on spending my life, my time and energies attempting to change them. You won't see me picketing on the Congress lawn, but you can guarantee I'll support pro nursing legislation with my votes! My wife and I will have children someday, and my priorities will change. No longer will I want to work every weekend, holiday, rotate day and night, take call and miss out on the life of my children. I hope to stay out of similar situations in any career choice.

On the flip side, what I do now is ok by me. I see myself as a deliverer of excellent customer service to my service line (Cardiovascular). To deliver this service, I must do the best job I can. I develop the knowledge to take care of my patient population. I strongly advocate for my patients and am highly proactive. I do not take abuse, but try to remember to maintain professionalism and courtesy that can be so hard to maintain. Compassion becomes a side product of the above. For others, compassion is developed first. Perhaps it is just a more logical way of looking at things for myself. The gratitude from these mostly elective open heart surgery patients is very fulfilling. I do feel like I have made a difference at times.

I plan on travel nursing for a short period of time. And I am doing it mainly for money, with seeing the country as an additional perk. Then, I will pursue my education, and be able to work fulltime and attend school fulltime. While I am in this field, I plan on utilizing the benefits and flexibility of nursing while I can!

I personally would not recomend nursing as a career choice. Howver, if it is your calling, then follow your heart, maintain a positive attitude and enthusiasm, and seek out positive solutions to the many challenges of nursing!

Hopefully this makes sense=) A few hours of reading threads after a 12 hour shift is probably not the best time to post thought with clarity!

Remember: Life is a problem. Living is solving those problems!

SpecFuz · Feb 6, 2002

Why is so many non-traditional students (like myself) choose nursing as a second-career and re-enter school if it is so horrible? Isn't it strange?

After reading thru these posts, it seems the overwhelming majority feels at best, that it's somewhat worth it but clearly the working conditions in some hospitals make it unbearable.

As someone leaving a well-paying office job that does not have to interact with diseases or the responsibility of saving one's life, I question why in the world then, am I drawn to nursing?

Maybe it answers an age-old question that nursing has been around and will always be around because it's needed. People need to be taken care of, and people want to take care of others.

That's the main reason for me. Do I really care about if my computer freezes and I don't get that email out by the end of the day? Nope. And if I don't care, then what's the point in going every day to work?

So as a soon-to-be student re-entering college to go for nursing, I give you that as my thought. And for all the nurses that have been doing this for a very long time, I give you loads of respect. What you do is necessary, it's honorable, and it does make a difference. Be proud of yourselves. I will be if I am an RN one of these days.

BTW, I recognize this is all a little naive but, having worked in high-profile office jobs in Manhattan, I can tell you that every job has it's drawbacks, politics, and difficulties...hopefully nursing at least will make all that worthwhile. We'll see. :)