Hardest part of nursing?

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What is the hardest part about being a nurse and why?

What do you do to help overcome your frustration?

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Specializes in ICU.

The families of the patients. (not the nice ones)

Talking about the bad ones with my fellow nurses.

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Specializes in Cardiac.

Adminstration.

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Responsibility!

It is a heavy burden somedays to be fully, legally and ethically responsible for very sick people.

As soon as I hand off my patients alive and functioning(the responsibility of someone else) I feel 10 pounds lighter and feel fine.

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Specializes in Telemetry, ER.

Wishing that I could have done something else for that patient who is really sick, and really deserves my full attention. Even though I spend most of my time feeding the pain addiction of the local narcotic-addicts.

Remembering that I can truly make a difference for the next one....

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Specializes in Acute rehab/geriatrics/cardiac rehab.

Realizing that no matter how great my nursing care Life is terminal and sometimes the patients I dearly love do not survive....

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
what is the hardest part about being a nurse and why?

what do you do to help overcome your frustration?

open visitation is the hardest part about being a nurse. in the 30 years since i started my first nursing job, families have become less grateful, less polite, less considerate and more entitled, self-centered, rude and intrusive.

management is the second biggest stress inducer: managers who were promoted to their level of incompetence.

as far as overcoming my frustration? long walks and red wine.

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Specializes in Corrections, Cardiac, Hospice.

For me, when in acute care, the hardest part of nursing was dealing with the doctors and their big egos. I can't stand the ones that think because there is an MD behind their name it gives them the right to degrade and belittle nurses. Then, expect us to bow down and take the abuse. However, like any bully, once you stand up for yourself, they never bother you again, blah. Grow up.

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1. Management

2. Other nurses who "eat their young" or play martyr

3. CNAs and other staff who do not respect the nursing occupation

I train horses, take frequent short vacations, and have the odd Bailey's, margarita, or cooler... Life's too short

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1. management that worries about $$$ and not patients' lives

2. incompetent staff that risks pt lives

3. families you cant please

4. staff that wont do their job

relief: having a life outside the hospital, i live for vacations and for weekends off!

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Specializes in med surg/tele.
What is the hardest part about being a nurse and why?

What do you do to help overcome your frustration?

All the documentation! Some days I just feel like I point and click, point and click, point and click.

To cope I get massages, have a yoga practice and meditate. And I work for a great hospital system that really values its nurses and encourages self-care. :redbeathe

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Hardest part: Knowing that you have done everything you are humanly capable of doing for someone, and they still aren't satisifed.

Dealing with it: Putting my day's work behind me and not bringing it home with me to bother me there.

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