Why it is better to be a Nurse than a Physician.

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in OR, ICU, Med-Surg.

Wondering what your take on this is.

IMO:

Nurses get to treat the person, while physicians are relegated to treating some disgusting disease or condition. We get to spend our time helping the person reach their peak abilities and goals while physicians focus on battling some process.

...oh, and my is wicked low in comparison! :jester:

So why is it better to be a nurse?

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

Why is it better to be a nurse. For me its the flexibility. I can work days or nights. I can make my own schedule. I don't get called at all hours of the night to get asked for orders on a patient.

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Specializes in ICU, telemetry, LTAC.

Because I was able to pay for my education while doing it, and graduated with no loans to repay. Nurses I know who have 4 years worth of loans still don't have much to repay compared to physicians when they start practice.

My hours are my hours and nobody wakes me up at 0300 for orders.

I can spend time with patients. If they don't learn something by the time I've explained their treatments, their meds, what the doc just told them, how their habits influence whether or not they get well, etc then it's not for lack of trying.

Since I already know I'm not god, and have lots of learning to do, there's nowhere to go but up!

I'm mistress of the coffee pot and queen of the enema bag. Who could fail to love that?

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Specializes in Mental Health, Surgical-Ortho.

saw this in another post, but it seems to apply to here...

it must suck to go through 4 years of undergraduate, 4 years of medical, and 4 years making $12.50 an hour as a resident to realize you've just won the opportunity to work around 55 hours per week making about $10 an hour more than the nurses while enjoying $250k in in debt and eight years of foregone income. I feel bad for the primary care docs, they seem woefully underpaid. Just the other day I read that pediatric dentists make about 3x as much as pediatricians ($380k vs. $150k) for 2/3 the hours (38 hours on average versus 52).

-eugenie98

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

We don't have to work in groups to be able to afford our

We don't do "drive by diagnosis" as in "nice to see you're feeling better Mrs. Smith" from the doorway of the room w/o actually touching the patient, and then proceed to chart 2 pages of orders w/o looking at labs, radiology, etc.

I can wear functional clothing; no way would I want to be "gurney surfing" and doing compressions in a dress or blouse and skirt.

When the patient is dying (at my hospital at least) if you don't have family, it's a nurse that holds your hand as you go, not your doc.

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Specializes in NICU, DC planning, Neurosurgery, Inf Dis.

I've had people actually ask me " so why don't you go back to school and become a Dr.?" like that makes me second rate....I love nursing....I have been able to re-create myself over my 28 years in nursing....if I feel like I've done all I can in one area, I just transfer to another area and work with a completely different type of pt, pediatric, cardiac, renal, geriatrics....

I feel sorry for docs because they spend so much of their time training to do medicine in one field.....except family medicine...that has a lot of variety...

I especially feel sorry for the proctologists of the world.....what a way to spend 35 years of your life looking up rectums every day....no way!!!!:eek::nurse:

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Wondering what your take on this is.

IMO:

Nurses get to treat the person, while physicians are relegated to treating some disgusting disease or condition. We get to spend our time helping the person reach their peak abilities and goals while physicians focus on battling some process.

...oh, and my malpractice insurance is wicked low in comparison! :jester:

So why is it better to be a nurse?

I didn't realize it was a competition.

Both nurses and physicians take care of people. They have different methodology focusing on different needs that people require, but you're not going to make any friends stating that physicians treat diseases while nurses treat people.

It's better to be a nurse if you feel that you are more drawn to the role of a nurse versus the role of a physician, using whatever subjective factors you base your decision on, and that's about it.

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Specializes in Tele, M/S, Psych.

I think it all depends on what experience you are looking for because the practice of nursing and the practice of medicine are two totally different disciplines. One isn't necessarily "better" than the other (that's not true, nursing is definitely better).

I have no desire to be a doctor. I love patient care and advocacy. I love knowing the nuances of a patient's status and being the person that decides when to act upon those nuances or when to continue to monitor. I love the versatility of nursing and knowing that if I get bored with Cardiac, I'll do ER, or Peds, or Case Management, or education. There are endless possibilities.

I DEFINITELY love being able to pay for my education without acquiring huge amounts of debt (And getting much of it back every year when I claim it on my taxes). I love the holistic practice that nursing incorporates and enjoy that I've been taught to look at the person with the disease and not just the disease.

And finally, I love allnurses.com. Not sure if there is an "alldoctors.com" but I'm pretty sure I'd much rather post on this site!:specs:

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
saw this in another post, but it seems to apply to here...

it must suck to go through 4 years of undergraduate, 4 years of medical, and 4 years making $12.50 an hour as a resident to realize you've just won the opportunity to work around 55 hours per week making about $10 an hour more than the nurses while enjoying $250k in in debt and eight years of foregone income. I feel bad for the primary care docs, they seem woefully underpaid. Just the other day I read that pediatric dentists make about 3x as much as pediatricians ($380k vs. $150k) for 2/3 the hours (38 hours on average versus 52).

-eugenie98

Wow...that like sounds pitiful when you look at it that way...and I never knew that they made as low as $12.50 an hour. What state do you live in? I have to ask my New York Residents how much they make...if I don't get attacked.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Wow...that like sounds pitiful when you look at it that way...and I never knew that they made as low as $12.50 an hour. What state do you live in? I have to ask my New York Residents how much they make...if I don't get attacked.

Residents don't get paid hourly. They are salaried, and it varies from $35K-$50K (typically) based on location and PGY.

However, if you do the math you'll see that 85 hours a week is 4420 a year, which when divided by $50K is only $11.31 an hour, for example.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.
Wow...that like sounds pitiful when you look at it that way...and I never knew that they made as low as $12.50 an hour. What state do you live in? I have to ask my New York Residents how much they make...if I don't get attacked.

I am married to a 1st year general surgery resident, and I would NEVER want to do what he's doing. He gets paged all the time, gets up at 3 am just to get home at 7 or 8 pm. He's exhausted. When he finishes residency it will get some better, but still, the life of a doctor is not one I'd want for myself. We are just happy he's making money right now, 'cause for the last 4 years he was paying someone else to let him work. It boils down to about 12.50 per hour like the previous poster. But he'll be a urologist, so his salary when he finishes will be better. I hope he'll think it's worth it. For him it's just what he's always wanted to do. I support him as best as I can.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
Residents don't get paid hourly. They are salaried, and it varies from $35K-$50K (typically) based on location and PGY.

However, if you do the math you'll see that 85 hours a week is 4420 a year, which when divided by $50K is only $11.31 an hour, for example.

I am married to a 1st year general surgery resident, and I would NEVER want to do what he's doing. He gets paged all the time, gets up at 3 am just to get home at 7 or 8 pm. He's exhausted. When he finishes residency it will get some better, but still, the life of a doctor is not one I'd want for myself. We are just happy he's making money right now, 'cause for the last 4 years he was paying someone else to let him work. It boils down to about 12.50 per hour like the previous poster. But he'll be a urologist, so his salary when he finishes will be better. I hope he'll think it's worth it. For him it's just what he's always wanted to do. I support him as best as I can.

And, I'm complaining about my LPN salary?? I need to kiss the ground I walk on...:bow:

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