How to LOVE Your Nursing Job

nurseqt77, ASN, RN

OK, so you decided to become a nurse. The naysayers will say "What were you thinking? Do you have any idea the disgusting stuff you will have to deal with?" The idealistic will be all sunshine and rainbows, "Oh, you are going to be great! It is such a 'feel good' profession. It is wonderful to help people like that. Then you have the realists, "Now, you know that some things are going to be very hard for you to deal with. You will see things that will make you lose sleep. You will hear things that make you cry. You will feel things that make you question your capabilities. It is how you respond to these things that will prove your worth to yourself, your boss, and your patients."

I am a realist.

First things first. Be on time or early. The very easiest way to make the previous shift want to beat you with a large pool stick, is to make them wait to give you report. They want to go home, or go eat, or go get a pedicure. Don't hold them up, or you will pay for it on the return shift. The minute they find out you are relieving them, you will arrive on the floor to find every single IV bag bone dry, every patient screaming for pain meds (which is inherently and despicably wrong), and most likely a devious secret plan to slash your tires.

Secondly, smile a lot. Your charge nurse will have a lot harder time making you feel stupid if you are friendly and happy. I tried to yell at a CNA once, but she was so hopped up on Prozac, I didn't want to slow her roll. In the end I just led by example (and I got a prescription for Prozac). If you appear happy to your patients, they will automatically assume you are happy in your job, and therefore, somehow more qualified to provide care to them. They will write amazing patient satisfaction surveys, that will then be forwarded to administration, and in no time at all, you will be the charge nurse's charge nurse, and make her eat crow, because she was a heinous example of what a good leader should be. Keep your covert plan to take over the floor on the DL, otherwise you will find your tires slashed, again.

Thirdly, don't irritate the doctors on purpose. Even if it is well justified and seems like a swell idea at the time, refrain. Please refrain. These doctors spent a lot of money and time to be second in command to God, and trying like the Devil to thwart their Hypocratic missive would not bode well for the duration of your career at that particular facility. It is easy enough to irritate the doctors by accident or omission, so deliberate angst is unnecessary. The bottom line is, if a doctor orders Q4H vital signs on the night shift on a patient that is simply the most annoying individual in the known universe, and you just got him to sleep by enacting every single standing order for narcotics you could find on the chart, and maybe some you found under his bed, wake him up and take his vitals. Chart the vitals on the flowsheet, but at the bottom, draw a little frowny face. Make sure you are front and center at 4 am when said sanity-sucking MD walks on the floor, and loiter around till he pulls your patients flowsheet, and then wait for the perplexed crease to explode on his forehead. Right before he starts screaming for whatever nurse that had that patient to show herself, quietly present yourself (with a smile [see dictate #2]), and explain that you understand the actual vital sign finding were nothing to scowl about, but he may want to prepare himself before entering the room (perhaps with some Prozac), because the patient has been up all night and is very, very "frowny face".

May this "fourth" be with you. Respect your techs, CNAs, or what have you. These folks are on the front lines of all manner of body fluids, screaming patients, obnoxious nurses, and generally have a distaste for any pompous know-it-alls, who seem to thrive on making their shift more miserable than a bucket of poop on a hot summer day. Smile at them when you ask them to do a task (see #2), offer to help them when you are short on tasks at the moment and they are running around like a one-armed paper hanger. There is NO excuse to sitting on your posterior when others on the floor are drowning. That will get you labeled as "lazy" faster than the life span of a fruit fly.

Plead the "fifth". No, not really. I saved the best for last. Make every patient feel like they are your only one. Now, this must seem like an absurd piece of advice, but the last thing a thirsty, hungry, obstinate patient wants to hear is that you couldn't help them because you were helping someone else. They don't believe you, and furthermore they don't care. They are firmly convinced that you were stuffing your face, sneaking a cigarette, or hiding out in the bathroom texting your new, hot love interest. The way to handle this is to do a quick introduction to your patients at the beginning of your shift. Hold a pad and a pen in your hand, so you appear sincere, and tell them your name, that you just came on shift, and you will be making rounds in just a bit. Is there anything they need that can't wait, or is there anything you can bring with you when you make your rounds that will make their obvious non-voluntary hiatus more tolerable? They will love you forever, and will tell their patrons at the restaurant, where they work the lunch shift, that they swear you are their angel that saved their life, even though you just brought them a vanilla ice cream cup that probably tasted like frozen half and half. This is a true story, I swear.

The best way to love your job, is to remember that you WILL impact someone's life. Without a doubt, you could be the single best or worst thing that happens to that patient during his entire stay. You could be the one person who helps his recuperation to the extent that he will never forget you. He will tell his granddaughter, when she get her nursing pin at graduation, to be the kind of nurse that he had that time his gall bladder went ka-flooey. And she remembers you, too, because she was only 9 years old, but she saw how happy you made her Pa-Paw, and she wanted to do something with her life that made someone else's Pa-Paw that happy. So she became a nurse. P.S. You are going to be her preceptor next week, so remember to smile (see #2).

How to LOVE Your Nursing Job

About nurseqt77, ASN, RN

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