Do nurses hate nursing?

Nurses Relations

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I’m a second degree, second semester nursing student and I’m feeling really discouraged. Nearly everything I see online about nurses and nursing is negative. From the “all mean girls become nurses” trope to endless comments on silly tiktoks from nurses telling students to “quit while they can” and talking about how much they hate their jobs. 

One of the clinical groups in my program even had a nurse walk up to their group at lunch time and tell them it’s not worth it and they shouldn’t become nurses. What the @#$% is up? 

I know burnout is real, especially right now.  But should I be as terrified as I am to enter the field in 10 short months? I’m really concerned that I won’t have supportive professional relationships to help me succeed as a new grad nurse. 

Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
On 2/12/2021 at 10:20 PM, JKL33 said:

Then there is the fact that we don't individually bill for our services; there isn't a separate charge for nursing care. We're rolled into the general fees of the hospital room (that's putting it simply but the bottom line is that the hospital does not bill patients individually for our services).

I think this doesn't get talked about enough.  In the hospital budget, nursing is an expenditure, and one of the biggest.

Specializes in Pulmonary & Cardiothoracic Critical Care.

So in a word, no.

But I often come on here and find an inordinate amount of negative ranting, it kinda reminds of the site Glassdoor or apartment rating sites. Usually people seek out these forums to vent and identify a problem and rally those supporters behind them but it is not a reflective sample of the community at large. I’ve been in the nursing arena for about 16 years and despite all of the gripes, occasional 14 hour days have the slightly-more-frequent-then-occasion poo slung my way (literally and figuratively) still find my way back here.

My own recipe is to reinvent yourself every few years, it could be thru a job, education or something else, be bold enough to suck at something new. Too many are resistant to retraining because we don’t want to move from our comfort zone. Nursing and healthcare clearly have problems as anyone with a pulse could tell you, burnout is running rampant, and every time I turn around I read an article about resilience that makes me want to gauge my eyeballs out. I 

To help avoid burnout for me, I tend to work for a bit, save up, take time off and then do it again. I often rotate between, patient care, nursing education and consulting which in my view can help and you won’t feel pigeonholed to a particular setting. (I’m back at patient care after some time teaching for the last three years). For some reason, this works for me and it keeps me from becoming too jaded, although I still find myself laughing hysterically at Gomer Blog articles, so I’ll leave that for you to judge.

2 Votes
On 2/10/2021 at 3:10 PM, pandora1212 said:

I get that, but the extent of negativity I have seen is pretty shocking. I mean, walking up to a group of students and telling them to quit is pretty extreme no matter how rough of a day it's been. 

Nursing will be a career change for me, I worked previously as a social worker. It was a lot of complaining there too - not enough funding, heavy caseloads, emotionally heavy work - but at the end of the day there was always a "we are here to support each other and our work is important" sort of sentiment. I guess I'm wondering if that sort of comradery and support exists within nursing? 

 

Depends on where and who you work with..some places yes, but across the board? No.

But that doesn't mean YOU will have the same experience in YOUR career (whether this is your first, second or hundredth career change). How social workers interact is different than how nurses interact and how nurses interact is different than how accountants interact..each profession as it's own.."personality" for lack of a better description.

Nursing, under the best of circumstances is challenging - that doesn't mean it's negative - just a fact. 

Take the negative posts, videos, etc. for what they are..someone venting, someone who just has an Eeyore approach to life, whatever, but don't let their story/view become yours or cause so much anxiety for you that you question your nursing career before it's even started.

You will find out for yourself if it fits, if it doesn't and you will go from there. One day at a time.

 

1 Votes
On 8/21/2021 at 6:07 PM, SanDiFrangles said:

To help avoid burnout for me, I tend to work for a bit, save up, take time off and then do it again. I often rotate between, patient care, nursing education and consulting which in my view can help and you won’t feel pigeonholed to a particular setting.

Absolutely.  I only wish I could do the "take time off" part. The bills never take time off, unfortunately. 

As with any job, I think its a love/hate relationship. Sometimes you love it and sometimes you can't stand it!

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