Experienced nurses - what is it like to be a nurse?

[Living_True]

If all nurses who come across my post could share what is it like to be a nurse. What are the pros and cons? Thank you.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Of course, all of our experiences will be different. This will be interesting to see. Anyhow, I was an LVN at a nursing home for the first four years of my career and it was stressful at times due to the workload.

I earned my ASN degree/RN license after my four-year stint as an LVN and ended up in physical rehabilitation, which involves helping debilitated patients recover after having had strokes, heart attacks, hip fractures, pneumonia, colon cancer, etc.

For the past few months I have been working from home as a nurse case manager for a large insurance company.

[roser13, ASN, RN]

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/whats-it-really-811236.html

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/do-you-like-824477.html

[NotMyProblem MSN, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN]

Pros: payday, people actually live to see another day, many options available for the experienced nurse.

Cons: there is never enough pay to match what we do, the souls we save are some of the most ungrateful, demanding, self-entitled 'people' (TOS demand that I keep this G-rated;)) you'll ever come across. And the patients can be bad at times, too!

That's when we move on over to greener pastures and let the energetic, I'm-gonna-save-the-world newbies have at it! Until they, too, realize that there is no cure for PITA.

[Mhsrnbsn]

I'll be honest, I have been a nurse a while now.... If you are emotionally a wimp ( and I'm sorry to be blunt) nursing will be hard. You need to have broad shoulders and thick skin.

many times, nurses are the punching bags. Patients are quick to complain if you don't meet their every wish and command, families will blame you for a lack of their loved ones progress, or not being there on time with the pain meds.., physicians will blame you for not reporting something to them, or putting their verbal order in wrong (even though you probably did report to them, and did confirm orders), managers will throw you under the bus to save face for administration or family/patient complainers, you'll even have the occasional coworker that has to nit pick your style or way of doin of doing things. nursing can be and at many times is a thankless job, so if you need your ego stroked you're in for a rude awakening. Your paycheck while bountiful, does not compensate for the physical, emotional, and legal strings attached.

however.... You save lives (sometimes miserable people, sometimes genuinely good people), the few thank you's you get really mean the world to you, you make excellent friends that do understand what you're job really is and can truly relate to you. You learn to be calm during emergencies, you become pretty damn well organized, you learn how to communicate with people, and read body language. You are someone's beacon of light during their darkest times. Scrubs are pretty comfy , you have a great gut instinct after a while. Get a lot of days off too

Nursing can be awful and ugly, or rainbows and unicorns; it's all dependent on where you work, who you work with, and what patients you have assigned, and sometimes just a crap shoot. You just need to always remember, despite another persons approval or disapproval, if you give 100%, 100% of the time, you'll know in your heart you've done the right thing despite the ugly parts of the job. The only reason I am still a nurse is because I know despite the horrible parts, I touch many lives in a positive way; and that will always outweigh the negative pieces. But I'd be lieing if I said nursing was the best job in the world and always wonderful.

[SmilingBluEyes]

I suggest your peruse all the threads in General Nursing and Specialties to see what it's like.

You will get 1000 different answers here. But those threads talk about real-world nursing, with all its "glory" and "warts".