Do you have to deal with these?

LPN1974, LPN · Apr 17, 2005

Any service type job that you go into you're going to have to study and work hard at it. It's going to require alot of study and alot of work at doing the job.

I'm sure pharmacists and optometrists don't sit on their butts all day either. Teaching would also be a difficult job. Teachers today have waaay too much to deal with and not enough pay.

But now listen, unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, and most of us weren't, you are going to have to work at something, to make a living.

You're going to have to grow up sometime and decide what you're going to do and make that your goal for life.

I'm not trying to be mean, you just sound really young, and naive.

CNAs are Certified Nursing Assistants. They take a course or a class, maybe a couple of weeks long, and become licensed to give care to sick people in hospitals or nursing homes.

They assist people with their needs, they help them bathe, in some cases they have to totally bathe the patient as the patient is unable to do so by himself. YOu would have to bathe women OR men, totally, even their most private parts. EVERYthing has to be washed. You could be washing off poop, pee, blood, or vomit.

They assist them with their eating and drinking, toileting needs, brushing their teeth, getting up into a chair, or walking down the hall. CNAs learn to take vital signs, that means blood pressure, temperature, respirations, and they may have to count and figure up how much a person eats or drinks in a day. You would be taught how to do all this in CNA class.

Anything that YOU personally do for yourself everyday for your own personal hygeine, eating, toileting, well.....patients have to have that also in hospitals and nursing homes. They just have to have help, in most cases. SOME people don't...they are totally self care, and all you do is take them their towels/wash cloths and they bathe themselves, toilet, brush their own teeth.

But that is generally what a CNA does......is assist the patient with anything he/she needs. It ain't glamorous either but it's CORE nursing. If you could take that you MIGHT have a chance at being a nurse.

And BTW, you do spend quite a bit of time here on this board....are you ABSOLUTELY sure you could not take some time, says 8 hours one day and shadow a nurse in a hospital???

I'm going to be very honest with you....you don't seem to have ANY idea at all about anything that nurses do.....if I were you, before I made any committment to any nursing program I would make me some arrangements and find myself a willing nurse and shadow her for at LEAST a day, maybe more than a day. You said something about a working in a clothing store?

I know you can't be working 24 hrs/day. There has to be some time somewhere, maybe on a weekend?

And that's another thing.....nurses work 24 hrs/day 7 days/week.

As a nurse you might be working LONG hours, on a shift you would hate.

I'm not trying to discourage you...just giving you all the parts that you might not like, you can't afford to get into it then decide you can't work 12 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Nurses are needed around the clock.

I don't know what other job opportunities to tell you about. To make any real money you're going to have to study and work hard. Pharmacy or optometrist, or opthalmologists would make good money.

Like you said about nurses, they do pretty good, but IMHO, not enough for what they have to deal with. But you could make a decent living at it, especially in a bigger city.

I am an LPN and I do decent, money wise. But I'm also topped out on the pay scale, probably won't advance much further, but I'm also just about 3 yrs away from retirement.

I think I would have loved becoming a veterinarian, but I figured that out too late in life.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I do....I am a Licensed Practical Nurse and I work with the mentally and physically disabled people for the state I live in.

But I love animals, also, and I think I would have been good at it, but I would also never have had the money to go to vet school. And their training is also very hard and difficult. They also do NOT make the money that doctors do who take care of people.

But its a rewarding work also, for people who love animals and love to try to help them get well, and get out of abusive situations.

What kind of careers are your girlfriends going into?

You know, all I can think of besides nursing, or veterinarians.....have you considered going into Real Estate? Those people make good money, selling houses and other properties. And what about becoming an insurance salesman....they do good.

And they don't have to clean up poop, pee and vomit.

If you think you still want to get into nursing......RNs can make excellent money being a travel nurse......they go to different places where they need nurses....to me that would be interesting. But ya gotta be a good nurse and KNOW your stuff. You get into situations without any orientation.....you have to know what you're doing. But for the money and benefits and the ability to travel to different places......to me that would be a great job. However, you would need a good base experience at being a nurse before becoming a travel nurse. I would say you would need at least several years at one job, in a hospital in Intensive or Cardiac Care, Emergency or Medical Surgical Nursing BEFORE even considering travel nursing. And if you are married with children, it might not work for family life, but for a SINGLE person who wants to travel and see more of the world, it would be a great opportunity.

The military, too, could take you places, and give you some experience. Ever consider that?

nursestudentx · Apr 17, 2005

im scared that if i choose a career where there is a lot of competition i will be jobless :chuckle

and i wrote those posts when i shouldve been sleeping. like at 2am. otherwise i wouldnt have been in front of my computer typing on this forum :stone

ive read about an ultrasound tech and they seem to make as much as nurses where i live (s. cali) does this career have a great outlook?

my girlfriends are going into architecture, ped. doctor, lawyer, one person who is also going into nursing but she seems to have no direction in life, pharmacist, dentist, and many who ive lost contact with who i have no idea are doing, probably stuck in a community college not knowing what theyre doing, and so on.

what do i really want to do? own my own business. :rotfl: but i need money first because my parents are not going to cough up money for me beyond what theyre paying for my car and insurance and my other little bills like cell, etc. actually they pay everything for me and the money that i earn from work all goes to splurging :uhoh3: my parents want me to work at least part time though. and that's what im doing right now. and studying full time. dont think i want to take the time to shadow a nurse. working at a clothing store is fun but tiring believe it or not and i want to focus myself on one career and just study my butt off but i have no direction career wise so i feel stuck in one place just doing my GEDs but the GEDs sort of change depending on what i choose as my career/major sooooo i hope im not wasting my time right now. im almost done with first yr of college. yayee.

redwinggirlie · Apr 17, 2005

Ummm, well, yeah.

Gotta deal with it anywhere in nursing.

nursestudentx · Apr 17, 2005

unless i work in clinics where all they do is do checkups on patients. but i doubt they make as much money as the nurses who work in the hospital settings and see everything

z's playa · Apr 17, 2005

Oh brrrrrooother! I'm sorry but you know what? It really ticks me off when I hear of someone trying to find the easy way out of a very dedicted career such as nursing.Face it. You WILL deal with pee, poop,,,EVEN in OB nursing. For pete's sake.....especially in OB in some ways.You say you've read enough in one of your posts? You need to do some more. Do you know how MUCH of the gross stuff you will need to deal with? In any area of nursing? You might go into research nursing but then you still need to get through clinicals. Major dumps there. I'm in nursing school right now and it takes a really special type of person to do this job as I'm finding out as I go along. It is NOT for the squeemish..which you obviously are.

I'm sorry if this seems harsh but I had to say it. Seriously go see a councillor and figure out a path. Not necessarily a career.

Good luck. :) and once again sorry if I sound upset. Real Estate sounds good though as one other person said.

Z

nursestudentx · Apr 17, 2005

Oh brrrrrooother! I'm sorry but you know what? It really ticks me off when I hear of someone trying to find the easy way out of a very dedicted career such as nursing.Face it. You WILL deal with pee poop,,,EVEN in OB nursing. For pete's sake.....[b']especially[/b] in OB in some ways.You say you've read enough in one of your posts? You need to do some more. Do you know how MUCH of the gross stuff you will need to deal with? In any area of nursing? You might go into research nursing but then you still need to get through clinicals. Major dumps there. I'm in nursing school right now and it takes a really special type of person to do this job as I'm finding out as I go along. It is NOT for the squeemish..which you obviously are.
I'm sorry if this seems harsh but I had to say it. Seriously go see a councillor and figure out a path. Not necessarily a career.
Good luck. :) and once again sorry if I sound upset. Real Estate sounds good though as one other person said.
Z

i said i did enough readings on the courses of that i would have to take as a nurse, not on the career of nursing itself. did you start off nursing thinking you will be able to squash all the nasty things that you would have to deal with or were you "squeemish" about it too? no one wants to deal with other people's unsanitary beings and i am shocked right now because i never knew nurses had to put up with so much.

z's playa · Apr 17, 2005

i said i did enough readings on the courses of that i would have to take as a nurse, not on the career of nursing itself. did you start off nursing thinking you will be able to squash all the nasty things that you would have to deal with or were you "squeemish" about it too? no one wants to deal with other people's unsanitary beings and i am shocked right now because i never knew nurses had to put up with so much.

Actually yes..I was aware of all the yucky stuff before going into nursing school.

(squash what by the way? :chuckle )

Of course there will be things that will make me squeemish I'm sure.... but I wont be going around trying to find an easy way through nursing. Cuuuuz...there isn't one!

Basically if you can't cut it........you can't cut it.

Z

Danianne · Apr 17, 2005

I totally agree with what the nurses have said. I am a CNA right now and in September I will be staring my 4 year program. I have seen it all pee, poop vomit, GI Bleed all down the front of my uniform, people who like to piant with poop. prolapsed rectums and uteruses, dead bodies you name it I have encountered it :uhoh21: . I have been a CNA for only 6months so I hope you get the point. Don't waste your time on trying to do swomthing that you don't know for sure you will love, because there are people out there who would give their eyeteeth to be a nurse, and they are sitting on some waitlist for the nursing program :angryfire . so in other words be sure before you try it. :stone

Fiona59 · Apr 17, 2005

Since I started working as a nurse, I've been pooped on by an old lady (I threw the shoes away). Somehow it just oozed out of the incontinence product as we were doing a 2psn transfer and I was the lucky winner.

I've been hit (on purpose) by the overhead TV by a patient who was upset when I asked her boyfriend to stand back while I was doing an in/out. Love those "professional girls"

Punched, kicked, scratched, bit (all while working on a geriatric unit)

And had to deal with a Mum who basically was so high that she OD'd her baby because she was freebasing while in labour (she didn't feel a thing)...

Somedays, the poop is the easiest thing to deal with.

I think you need to talk to an employment counsellor. What is it with people that today they all need to have "careers"? May I suggest becoming a paralegal? Get to wear nice suits, do your hair and nails, wear heels and check out lawyers all day??? They usually work M-F business hours?

nurse_wannabe · Apr 17, 2005

A good scenario for you:

First of all, I have a very strong stomach. I can count on one hand the times I've vomited in my entire life, and I'm 27 yrs. old.

Then I started nursing school.

My first BM clean up was on a very heavy male patient who, for some reason, was left by his CNA to poop right in his bed instead of being taken to the toilet or put on a bedpan. Since I had 3 or 4 other students in the room with me, 2 of who were CNAs and seemed to be "testing" my ability to clean up poop, I steeled my nerves and dug right in, literally. About 25 washclothes later, he was semi-clean. It was like a never-ending parade of poop, and it was not runny either so it couldn't have been diarrhea. We literally had to scoop the poop out of his rectum because it was all squished up from laying in it.

If that's not bad enough, after we washed all the poop off, we got the pleasure of going to the hopper room to wash out EVERY single washcloth and EVERY single bed linen that had poop on it. Now, I want you to picture this very carefully. You are standing there with a washcloth covered in poop, and you are using a very high powered spray of water to clean it out. Since you have almost a full year of college, I'm sure you can figure this out. No? Well, let me just say that that poop goes EVERYWHERE when the spray hits it. And by everywhere, I mean all over you.

Anyway, I did super at that time, and I was so proud of myself for not getting sick.

Then came my pregnancy-induced nausea period.

This particular clinical rotation was at the hospital. I had a patient with CHF, and I was trying to give her a bed bath. She told me she had to go potty, so my instructor suggested that I put her on the bedside commode and use the opportunity to wash her back. Great idea! So I did just that. Only problem is, as soon as she started going in the commode and the smell hit me, I started gagging. It was the worst thing I've ever smelled in my life. I had to run out of her room, my eyes were watering and I was fighting back vomit. I tried time after time to compose myself and go back in, but each time the same thing would happen. I ran in and out of the room about 6 times. Luckily, she was facing the wall and she wasn't really "with it" cognitively, so she had no idea the dilemma I was facing. Otherwise, I'm sure it would have embarassed her and I would have felt terrible. Eventually I did steel myself enough to go back in and finish her bath, even while she was digging disgusting gunk out of her teeth and showing it to me the entire time, as if identify it was our top priority. Then it was time to empty the bedside commode into the toilet and that got me to running in and out of the room gagging again.

Sorry to be so longwinded. I just want to give you a general idea about how your days will be if you decide to go into nursing. I didn't even mention the stage 3 decubitus ulcer that smelled like week-old garbage. You cannot escape vomit, poop, or pee in any medical setting, not even in a physician's office. And OB, are you kidding me? Have you ever seen a woman give birth? What do you think happens when she pushes down to get that little baby out? Think about it.

nursestudentx · Apr 18, 2005

you dont know what i meant by squash? :rolleyes:

is there a way to become a NP without going through bsn clinicals? :rotfl:

im going to have to think some more

thank you for all these WONDERFUL comments :chuckle now i can eat out with my friends for dinner :)

needsmore$ · Apr 18, 2005

It sounds like you want a high paying job-without the messy work--

You seem to have a lot of reasons why you "can't" follow the some of the most beneficial advice given- it seems you want the nurses here to give you the answer you want and you're not going to get one--- the best advice is to follow a nurse for a day-- call your local hospital, speak to their nursing dept- there are PLENTY of us who have no difficulty with "students" spending a few hours with us. I have high school students, nursing students, premed students, volunteers who are interested in finding out if a medical/nursing job is for them. There is no "easy" way ---it's work--tough, hard, messy, demanding. I've been a nurse since 1984- this was not my first field--I was an engineering major at first---but found through schooling, visiting engineers on the job,and guidance counselors that that wasn't for me.

I work weekends, holidays, nighttime, daytime- 12 hours-14 hours, whatever. I wear ugly scrubs with my hair tied out of my face so it doesn't get soiled. I bring food with me because meal breaks are a luxury (as are potty breaks as well on some days). I take care of the living and the dead, and the nearly dead.

ED nursing is GREAT-exciting but don't confuse it with the TV shows!!! I am the educator for our department and I think you need some guidance- talk to a career counselor about your concerns-- visit nursing homes, hospitals-watch what the nurses DO.

Right now it seems that you are not cut out to be a nurse.

Good luck

Anne