I wish I'd have known....B4 nursing school

Nurses General Nursing

Published

What is the one thing that you know NOW, but you wish you would have known BEFORE you started nursing school?:uhoh21:

Specializes in Case Mgmt; Mat/Child, Critical Care.

BACK to the ORIGINAL question! :p :)

I wish I had known that I wouldn't know how to be a nurse or really, anything about nursing 'til I started working...it took that 1st year to really get my feet wet, to learn how to be a nurse. I always say "nursing school prepares you to learn how to be a nurse", it lays your groundwork so to speak. And I worked as a nurse tech, nurse extern for a few yrs before graduating...thought it was gonna be a piece of cake! LOL :chuckle

BACK to the ORIGINAL question! :p :)

OK...I wish I had known how big my bladder would have to be when I became a nurse...

I wish I would have known how much bedside nursing is actually charting and how little is hands on care. And how much charting I would need to do to CYA.

Specializes in Medical.

Okay, new thread started (Is nursing a science? A Discipline?) as nobody else wanted to start it! Edited to add - well, as it turns out not nobody. GracefulRN and I both started threads, which have been combined. Feel free to join us!

Back to the point of this thread :) I've come up with a couple of other things:

I wish I'd known that some of the best friends I would ever have in my life would come through nursing

I wish I'd known that, whatever the differences between us, if I meet a nurse we instantly have something in common, and discussion material for an entire overnight train trip to Sydney

I wish I'd known that nursing would allow me to experience emotional highs I never dreamed possible, witness tragedies I never knew could occur, and bless me with the opportunity to make a real difference.

I wish I'd known that I would discover a gift for teaching

Most importantly, I wish I'd known that once I became a nurse I would never stop being a nurse - that it would colour pretty much every aspect of my life, from popular culture ("but here's why 'Flatliners' sucks - the whole premise is faulty;" "why is this code on ER being run without a single nurse int eh room?" "forget the fact that he has intranasal O2 connected to a ventilator, why is an unconscious patient flat on his back with the bed rails down and the bed in the high position?!") through personal and political philosophy, to the inevitable pull of shop talk whenever I hook up with another nurse, however much we both vow that is just. won't. happen. this. time!

Specializes in CICu, ICU, med-surg.
Coming from a hospital-based background, and with my post-grad qualifications in health ethics, most of my contact with nursing theory has been self-directed. Despite my current academic supervisor's strong championing on nursing theory and professionalism, I must confess that I lean more toward Watersnake's position than that of the majority.

One article I found particularly interesting was Jef Raskin's "Humbug: Nursing Theory" (http://www.jefraskin.com/forjef2/jefweb-compiled/published/NursingTheoryForSite.html), and Quakwatch's on-going debate about therapeutic touch (http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/tt.html) seems convincing to me.

THis sounds to me like it could be a whole new thread - any takers?

Great links! Thanks!

I wish I'd known how little time is actually spent with the patient and how much time is spent charting. How unappreciated nurses really are. How much I DON'T like patient's families and the good feeling I get when I actually do have the time to teach a patient how to take care of themselves. :p

If dietary screws up a pt's dinner, blame the nurse.

If the pharmacy is late with med delivery, blame the nurse.

If a physician is late and the family wants to speak with him/her, blame the nurse.

If Xray is taking forever, blame the nurse.

If transport is taking forever, blame the nurse.

Can't get that private room with a view? Blame the nurse.

Bad weather? Blame the nurse.

Crappy golf game? Blame the nurse.

Also, I didn't go to nursing school to teach manners.

This is SO true!!!

-Julie

I wish that I would have known how much becoming a nurse was going to change me for the better. My whole life, outlook, and self has changed since I have embarked on the journey to fulfill my goals.

*cough*

My point is, that the DMS (the Bible of Psychiatry) invents "disorders",

Snake, I assume you are referring to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (otherwise known as the DSM)?

Sorry about the slight gloat there, but I just felt the childish need to point out where you had been in error.

I will say that your remarks have stimulated thought for me, but I tend to disagree on some points (i.e. that nursing is not a science and art).

But since you seem to enjoy persuing opportunities for education, I thought I would give you some info on Evidence Based Nursing which I've found quite helpful.

http://hsl.mcmaster.ca/ebn/index.html

I am unsure if the practice will appeal to you, since for most nurses it is encouraging us to USE research to guide our practice, instead of doing it ourselves (since not everyone is cut out for research). But I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter after you've read a bit on the subject, since this is something that is gaining a lot of popularity (at least in the experiences that I've had in my academic career thus far).

I wish I had known that most patients are friendly and appreciative, and that experienced nurses talk about the other, hideous ones because we take the lovely ones a little for granted

I wish I had known that it's the hideous ones that come back... again and again and again

I wish I had known that there are some patients who're amazingly sick that you just can't kill 'em with a stick - one that we finally sent to rehab post BKA (with VRE) after four months on the ward re-presented last week with renal failure, hepatic failure, sepsis and a troponin of 99.7 and is now fine

I wish I had known that the measure of a great shift is making a positive difference in someone's life - even if the rest of the day went down the toilet

I wish I had known to trust my judgement about a patient going bad, and not listen to the resident (or reg) telling me they look fine to him

I wish I had known that nurse managers come and go, DON's come and go, and all you have to do is grit your teeth and wait them out

I wish I had known that everything that comes into vogue as the big new thing will fade away

I wish I had known that the paperwork will drown you if you don't eat away at it a bit at a time

I wish I had known that if you get the patient +/or family on side at the head of the shift everything will go more smoothly for the rest of the day

I wish I had known that it's always when you think something's more important than tidying up the bedside that patients crash

I wish I had known that, when needed, the authority I have as a nurse can be wielded like a club, a sword or a paint brush - try messing with one of my patients and you'll know about it, whoever you are!

Finally, I wish I had known it was the best decision I have ever made - would have staved off those 3AM what-am-I-doing? freakouts when I was a student

I am a bit scared and came on looking for hope and your last wish, I am thankful to hear. I am new in my travels to become a nurse, so wish me luck!

Specializes in Medical.
I am a bit scared and came on looking for hope and your last wish, I am thankful to hear. I am new in my travels to become a nurse, so wish me luck!

Hi Peachy - nursing's certainly not for everyone, but for we few, we special (in so many ways!) few, it's immensely rewarding. Good luck, and welcome :)

Edited to add - I see that you start June 5th, which is my anniversary. Yep, it'll be fifteen years on Saturday :)

That there are days when I would feel like a plumber, electrician, chemist, and/or an electronics technician, and other days when I would feel like a psychologist, chaplain, and/or mother, and that I would love both kinds of days.

Don't forget the days when we feel like a punching bag.

...A scientist objectively formulates and tests a hypothesis, observes and reports results, and those results must be reproduceable using similar method. We use someone's scientific results, but we do not in the clinical setting use the scientific method. I am well aware that there are research nurses, biomedical engineers, and all that. I am also aware that funding and support might be withdrawn if the results don't come out the way the money man wants. But that's a side issue.

Any action or interpretation a nurse takes must be backed up by a doc to whom the nurse reports, who is backed up by standards of care, which are backed up by higher ups and so on. That is not creative scientific practice.

It is technical skill. The scientist is the person who developed the test, procedure, intervention or whatever. Using a device developed by someone else does not make me a scientist, for if it did, reading a speedometer would grant us all that title....

Watersnake, well said!!!!

+ Add a Comment