are you guys exhausted after your shift?

Insperation · Jul 9, 2017

I'm currently a med-surg/tele nurse, NOT a new grad. I am always exhausted. I feel like as a floor nurse, I'm pulled in 50 different directions for 12 hours. I'm emotionally exhausted from how rude and demanding some patients and their families can be. I DO 100% detach myself emotionally, but by the end of the day, I'm just done. I talk all day, I move all day, I think all day...I'm just done. I'm physically tired from running every which way to complete a thousand tasks, and I'm mentally tired from just all of it....add in the knowledge I'm expected to have when a doctor wants me to give them my advice on their patient, and put in their orders for them, and call this doctor for them, etc. My BSN doesn't include secretary.

This was a beautiful med surge gripe, I just wanted to say. You summed it up quite nicely. I've seen "mental health" units that seemed very slow and boring. Nurses were on their phones, youtubing and what not.

It might come down to, would you rather be bored or tired? I'm in my first 6 months of med surg and I'm mainly only doing it so that I can have a strong medical foundation when I take on psych patients and get my pmhpp. I want to know if they're faking it :)

Dont be miserable, move on if you have to. What's the worst that can happen?

Graduatenurse14 · Jul 9, 2017

Would you all say that Psych nursing is less stressful/exhausting than say ICU? I am in the market for a new position and both are available. I'm not sure which route to go. I love both critical care and psych. I know that psych RN would be good to have for PMHNP, but what is most important to me is my sanity while I'm in grad school. I want to look forward to going to work, which I do not in my current position.

Psych nurse 100%. The learning curve in ICUs is incredible steep, as it should be, but not that conducive to sanity and you need most of your sanity to stay focused on school. Psych is not easy but it isn't as technically/mechanically as difficult as the ICU. You've never had a vented/trached/roto-proned/ECMO'd and God-only-knows-what-else those saints in the ICU have to work with to keep their patients alive.

Remember, all med-surg nurses have had psych patients (more than they knew) on their units and it went just fine, right?

I was med-surg for 2.5 years and now inpatient psych.

Juryizout · Jul 12, 2017

I'm usually always tired. Lots of times we are short, so it's just me and another nurse. I do meds/treatments and help the aides while she does the RN stuff I can't legally help her with. I'm not ever bored in Geri-psych; there is always someone to help change, meal to serve, or a group to help with. And you do have comorbidities to deal with. Lots of times that's the challenge: they can't understand you are trying to help them by drawing labs, putting them on a fluid restriction, or helping them get rid of lice. The mental illness compounds everything.

psychU · Jul 13, 2017

Yes. I've been a psych nurse since I got out of my BSN program in 1994. It's exhausting because of high acuity and poor staffing. I plan on going to get my PMHNP for several reasons... including that it's a largely growing field and they are the 3rd or 4th highest paid nursing specialty there is out there. Get some psych experience and go for it!