Hi all, I see a LOT of posts here along the lines of hating bedside, not wanting to be a nurse, regretting becoming a nurse, burnout, etc. I also burned out at the bedside for many of the reasons discussed at length here. I'm wondering if there are any nurses who actually love bedside, and if so, what do you like? There were aspects that I truly loved, but in the end the cons outweighed the pros. If you love it, what type of work environment do you have and what is your specialty? I'd love some positive and encouraging posts about bedside for new grads to read, but sadly I'm not the one to write them! I will say it can be rewarding and a huge learning experience.
Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
4 hours ago, LibraNurse27 said:
We need nurses like you at the bedside. Being tripled in ICU sounds terrible.
So nice of you to say, I really do love my job 99% of the time. Even tripled assignments can make for a good busy night, which I'm totally happy with. Our ICU acuity is far lower than many others, so while we do have vented patients and some are very sick, we don't have CRRT, balloon pumps, post open hearts, etc. Unfortunately, lately much of our unit is patients with detox complications. That can be a difficult assignment if they're hard to sedate appropriately and keep safe. Last night one of my patients was a little old lady who was a riot and we could make each other laugh at 2 in the morning, which I really enjoyed. Thank you for your compliment, there are many nurses I'm privileged to work with that also still love bedside.
I am thinking nurses may not have been as well respected, and one older nurse mentioned being viewed as a handmaid to the (almost all male) doctors.
I have never experienced that in my entire medium-length career. This is just my experience, but I feel that this handmaiden thing hearkens back to the days of nurses rising and giving up their chairs routinely and I'm dying to know what percentage of currently practicing nurses have ever experienced that. It's past time to let it go. Our ever-present emotional need to get a leg up on the docs has put us in bed with the most abusive of the abusive: the business clowns and their evil business circus. Hope we're happy now.
I felt many, many times more respected even as a new grad and all the way up to approximately 5+ years ago. The disparagement of nurses has never been worse in my career than it is right now with business people and wanna-be-somebodys running the show.
Specializes in Community Health, Med/Surg, ICU Stepdown.
@JKL33 I am curious too! I have never been mistreated by a doctor in my career. Some have been a little rude/cold but never anything like asking me to give them my chair or screaming at me or anything. Upper nursing management, now that's another story!
Specializes in Community Health, Med/Surg, ICU Stepdown.
@Kitiger and @JBMmom funny that you both mentioned 2 am chats with patients on night shift! I love funny little old ladies! I didn't work nights often, but when I did I also found that 2-3 am timeframe to be when patients who couldn't sleep wanted to talk. Kudos to you both for being there for your patients = )
I can remember back in the day we were expected to give up our seats so the Dr’s could sit down and chart. I drew the line at getting them coffee though! Some did so the Dr’s would be nicer to them. I’ve also been screamed at or talked down to in a condescending manner many times and my very first nursing position the older nurses would literally lie to us new ones then laugh when we got in trouble. It did zero good to report them as they just lied and said we were making it up. That was the worst experience of my nursing career. The second was working in the OR. So many surgeons yelled and treated us poorly and threw temper tantrums daily. The scrub techs all talked about each other and us behind their/our backs like they were in high school. Now I get yelled at daily by people furious I’m quarantining them and their families. I grew up getting screamed at by my father. He screamed loudly all the time about things like not being able to find ketchup quickly enough in the fridge to not talking loud enough. I told my husband if he ever screamed at me I was done. I’ve gotten better over the years at not letting it ruffle my feathers as much but it can still ruin my day.
Sorry I forgot to answer the question LOL. I do like bedside nursing even though I haven’t done it in a while due to needing a better schedule when my kids were young. I enjoyed the tasks, connecting with patients, being able to critically think, learn something new every day, not have to work every day, never had time to be bored, lots of variety, working as a team with other nurses (when they worked as hard as you), opportunities for different positions, etc.
I worked midnights Med/Surg float for my first year as an RN (1979). I was a diploma grad from that hospital, so I already knew the various floors. Around 2 or 3 in the morning was my favorite time. That's when the patients who couldn't sleep just wanted to talk. Often, they were trying to get their arms around a new diagnosis, or their worsening health. I usually had time to sit with them.
This was back when people came in the night before surgery, and stayed 4 or 5 days after surgery. Open heart surgery was at least a 2 week stay. We had one patient in almost 6 weeks for IV antibiotics Q6hrs. The cardiac stepdown unit was for patients who needed to be on a heart monitor, or someone with "Chest pain, rule out MI". (OK, it's "AMI" now.)
Our cardiologists were just starting to do a brand new procedure, "Balloon Angioplasty". Before that, we kept patients with an MI on bedrest/bathroom privileges, kept them quiet, gave them oxygen, medicated with Nitropaste (measured out on its crinkly plastic that we stuck to their skin), and meds like Quinidine, Isuprel, Indural, and Lidocaine. Vitals Q4 hrs, IV at keep open.
Now, they go straight to the cath lab. With angioplasty, they can go home without any damage to the heart muscle!
Some things truly are better. ?
Ha! I haven't thought about Isoproterenol in a long time (or Bretylium)!
JBMmom, MSN, NP
4 Articles; 2,537 Posts
So nice of you to say, I really do love my job 99% of the time. Even tripled assignments can make for a good busy night, which I'm totally happy with. Our ICU acuity is far lower than many others, so while we do have vented patients and some are very sick, we don't have CRRT, balloon pumps, post open hearts, etc. Unfortunately, lately much of our unit is patients with detox complications. That can be a difficult assignment if they're hard to sedate appropriately and keep safe. Last night one of my patients was a little old lady who was a riot and we could make each other laugh at 2 in the morning, which I really enjoyed. Thank you for your compliment, there are many nurses I'm privileged to work with that also still love bedside.