Anxiety creeping in - what gives?

Nurses General Nursing

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So a friend and I are about to begin our BSN program - 16 months then were done.

Our stress levels have elevated as we are just a few weeks out from starting.

I find I come to this board for wisdom, curiosity, and to help out where I can. Sometimes I feel like this place is like watching the news; in regards to the theme of negativity.

I am starting to get anxious, not only about school but my pending future. Granted I am not green, I have a previous bachelors, and I am well aware of what I am signing up for.

With that being said is this career field as negative as it seems?

Or is it that in our culture people are more likely to come here to vent and complain (which I fully understand) rather than share their victories? I feel like people save the victories for intimate relationships, like friends and family, and they share their bad days with strangers, like us on this board.

No this is not a homework assignment.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

People are more so likely to complain about the bad then praise the good. It's human nature.

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I wonder why this is - I've actively gone out of my way for about 10 yrs to reverse this in myself and when presented with an opportunity, no matter the effort I have to put in, I do praise where I can.

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I feel like it is like the news here as well but nursing has been very good to me, I enjoy it, I really like the work, I make a nice living, and my admin treats me well. We're not all wired the same and some nurses would rather have a root canal than my job but there are good fits out there.

I believe that there are some rough situations out there, the LTC ratios and what I read about of med surg is disturbing but I have had a good career and what I do is still attainable to those who are interested.

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Specializes in CCRN.

Sadly it is human nature, and it's not just in nursing. In general people are more likely to share and remember a bad experience than a good one. I love nursing and have no regrets about choosing this career path. I have far more good experiences as a nurse than bad ones.

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Specializes in PACU, pre/postoperative, ortho.
Sadly it is human nature, and it's not just in nursing. In general people are more likely to share and remember a bad experience than a good one.

Which is why pt satisfaction scores will never reach acceptable levels for administration....

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Specializes in Psychiatric Nursing.

I have had a great career in nursing. However there are not-so-good situations you can get yourself into. School would be a time to figure out where you want to start and how to make it work for you. This board can give you an idea of some of the pitfalls and when to not stay in a job. Best wishes to you!

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Specializes in Neurosciences, stepdown, acute rehab, LTC.

This is really hard work and it pushes you to your limit every day. You can see how this can be a good thing / or a bad thing. It's a lifetime of challenges that you won't see elsewhere. If it's human nature to complain than there are plenty of imperfections and injustices to note in this field. But victories often feel like really big victories. I could go on a while on this. This forum is a really good outlet for venting , I think the negatives are skewed bigger than they are. You can't ignore them though, you have to know that you're up for this. For some reason reading the venting posts often motivates me as long as they aren't too helpless. I like the success stories too.

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Honestly, the contrasting vents ranging from no time to pee to coworkers spending excessive time playing on their phones is making it hard to know what to believe.

Are posters exaggerating? Nurses on their phones all of the time? Every unit has nurses consistently arriving late? Gossipy cliques? Are there that many crappy nurse coworkers?

People may typically only post negative experiences but there sure are a lot of following comments echoing the OP on every one of these threads.

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Specializes in Psychiatric Nursing.

I worked one place as a travel nurse that was so dysfunctional the charge nurse did not have a patient assignment and spent all day online shopping or writing up one nurse she didn't like. I survived my assignment by focusing on patient care.

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