Maybe this is more for the career advice forum, but I have two questions for working or recently working nurses - who have been working as a clinical nurse sometime in the past 7 years or so.
My two specific questions are at the end of my post.
So, I'm a student in an ADN program, have a MPH degree and some years' work experience. I'm doing very well in nursing school - straight A's so far, don't find the material difficult, get along great with my peers and teachers, etc., etc.
But... I've found that I don't like patient care, and I hate clinicals. I like talking with patients well enough, but I just don't like performing constant procedures on strangers.
When I'm at a nurses' station during clinical, I look around me and just don't feel I would be happy as a nurse. And I certainly can't imagine being a nurse with a 5-12 patient load! Not to mention the constant charting. Seems like we have to chart every passing flatus, just to be prepared for that ever-possible courtroom case sometime years down the road.
And I'm also trying to honestly assess, with open eyes, the "real world" of nursing that lies in wait for me, should I graduate. And I find that... I dread that world. It seems full of stresses that only a super-human could manage and come home anywhere remotely "happy" or in a healthy state of mind.
I try to assess what I'm feeling during clinical, and then mentally extrapolate that to a real-world situation of 5-12 patients, and I really think I'd be downright miserable in that situation. The likelihood of committing an error just seems unacceptably high, too - even for the most well-organized, cheerful, and well-adjusted person (which I'm not saying I am).
So, in short, I love the nursing knowledge I'm gaining, I truly respect the profession of nursing and those who practice it, and think nurses need more respect for the knowledge and capabilities they have. But I'm not sure I like nursing, based on my experiences in school; and know I'd likely hate it 10x more after graduation, when I experience today's real-world working conditions.
My theory is that the nursing shortage largely resulted because the health care system cut nursing staffing a decade or so ago, started overly focusing on $$$$ due to managed care and spiraling health care costs - which, additionally, also ensured that only the most high-acuity patients were admitted - and thus made working conditions unworkable for nurses, and now.... so few people are willing to put up with the resulting nursing working conditions, that... voila! a nursing shortage.
And it seems as though "the system" is addressing the nursing shortage, esp in hospitals, by churning out new nurses every year or two who'll work for a year or two, then burn out, then get replaced by a new crop of just-graduated nurses who'll tolerate the job for a year or two, until they themselves also get burned out and themselves are replaced by yet another new crop. Etc., etc.
Thus... a constant cycling of new nurses into and out of the hospital since few people can tolerate the job very long... unless they really have to - because of money and making ends meet, because they desperately want to be in America - a very undsterstandable goal - this is a great country! - or because of other life situations.
Maybe I'm assuming things; but this is my theory of why there is a nursing "shortage". (Likely not a shortage at all - just a shortage of people willing anymore to use their RN in such self-punishment.)
I've tried talking to my nursing schoolmates about my worries, and it's like they haven't a clue about the nursing problems today.
And my teachers won't say anything substantive about the real world of nursing, except hinting at how we'll need to really optimize our "time management skills". I questioned one teacher who presented an example of a 4-to-1 patient-nurse ratio, and I asked, isn't it true that patient loads are really a lot higher than that now? And she said, "Well, yes, as a nurse, you'll all have to learn to hussle." And that was it. Other teachers make it seem as though we'll have oodles of time for patient education. Maybe they can't talk about it because we'll all run away.
Ten or twenty years ago, maybe nursing wasn't so bad. But it now seems, since somewhere in the 1990s, that nursing working conditions have deteriorated. Am I correct? It seems as though a typical hospital nurse's day (or night) would strain anyone's repertoire of "stress management techniques".
Maybe some nurses can take that glowy feeling they get when a patient says "thank you" or when they've positively impacted someone's health or medical condition, and use that to buoy up their spirits to face the next day, or to keep them from quitting. I sincerely applaud them for it, and for their stamina & good-heartedness.
But I don't know if I myself could take that as consolation for constant stress & worry over possible errors I may have committed when absolutely time-strapped.
I'm just trying to be honest with myself. I've had the intention to become a nurse for 15 or so years, and I'm exceling in my classes, but... I really think I'm ready to squash that dream, the more I see and learn about the profession and the pressures placed on it.
Anyway, all that said, would you:
1) Say that nursing is likely not for me, after hearing this (admittedly rather bellyaching...) description of my views?
2) Say that my assessment of the nursing situation as it exists today is accurate? (esp for hospital nursing)
Thanks for the ear...
