Help: RN's please answer my questions!

NeoPediRN · Jan 21, 2012

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first please state your name and last name or last initial.

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1.what brought you into the field of nursing?: i always loved medicine. i have pictures of me as a little girl playing nurse to my dolls, and my favorite gift that i still remember to this day was a play medical kit. when i got older and lost my son it motivated me even more to want to be a nurse and make sure what happened to him didn't happen to anyone else. from there i grew to love emergency medicine and finally got a job in it and haven't looked back.

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2.what abilities and characteristics are necessary in the field of nursing?: it varies from field to field, but multitasking, a love for education, and strong instincts. i have found a lot of the decisions and assessments i make come from that little nagging voice inside telling me not to ignore this or that something is not quite right.

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3.what type of educational background do you have that helped you to obtain your [color=#0000cc]j[color=#0000cc]ob?: i have a bachelors degree in nursing, graduated magna cum laude, and was inducted into the national honors society of nursing; sigma theta tau...i also spent 2 years as an er tech while in nursing school and worked three jobs as a cna while in nursing school.

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4.what are your duties and responsibilities? i am responsible for assessing patients, starting protocols in the event of serious illness or distress, administering medication, providing education (that is about 50% of my job as an er nurse), assisting in codes, helping my coworkers, triaging patients.

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5.what do you like about your job?: i love not knowing what is going to come through our doors next. i love the adrenaline rush, the saves, the organized chaos, the difference five minutes of listening can do for rapport with a patient. i love that i learn something new every day.

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6.what do you least like about your job?: the unorganized chaos, the understaffing that plagues the hospital so that we end up having to keep patients in the er for 12-16 hours and board them until they can get a room upstairs...tying up beds and resources.

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7.what are some of the challenges you face in your career?: people who abuse the er, people who don't care about themselves but expect you to fix them over and over, providing education to a population that is grossly underserved and undereducated.

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8.what are the greatest rewards in your career?: when that gut feeling turns out to be right, watching patients leave by medflight knowing you got them out just in time, watching the relief in families' faces when they know their loved one is in good hands. getting a tough iv start always brings me a little joy inside as well...i also enjoy working with the pediatric patients and find their problems are easy to fix and often times it's the parents just needing a little extra support as they work out the kinks of being a new parent.

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9.what motivates you to continue your career in the nursing field?: i love what i do. i love the variability of patient care, i have great coworkers, supportive management, and overall i love emergency medicine.

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10.what advice can you give to a student who wants to pursue in a career in nursing?: it's worth all the sacrifices. find a system of studying that works for you. it's half memorization, half application. if you understand why you're doing what you do, it makes the rest easy. expose yourself to as much medicine as you can while you're in school. get a job early on as a tech or cna, and choose a field that you think interests you. the market for new grads is very tight, and you'll need to network as much as you can as early as you can.

MadeInKauai · Jan 21, 2012

Thank you so much!

I really appreciate it ! Is there a way i can have atleast your first name?

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jan 22, 2012

we get these requests a lot, so if there are any other students out there who might get this kind of assignment, listen up:

part of your faculty's reason for giving you this assignment is to get you to go out there and speak to an rn face to face. a big email blast is not a substitute for shoe leather. an is not google.

see, in nursing, you have to learn to speak to a lot of people you would not otherwise encounter; you might find yourself out of your comfort zone. this is part of nursing, a huge part. an anonymous respondent online, well, you don't really know who we are, do you? we could be the truck driving guy living next door for all you know.

so if all you do about learning new things is "go to the keyboard and hit send," then you are limiting your chances of actual learning a valuable skill you will need all your working life.

that said: where will you find a nurse? think outside the (computer) box.

local hospital: go to the staff development/inservice education office and ask one of them. they value education and will be happy to chat or to hook you up with someone who is.

go to the public health department downtown. ditto.

go to the local school and ask to speak to a school nurse. ditto.

go to a local clinic / physician/np office. ditto.

go to the local jail and ask to speak to the nurse there. ditto.

notice all of these say, "go to..." and not "email..." remember that part about meeting new people face to face and comfort zone. remember what your faculty wants.

go!