I HATE NURSING!

[dkemper]

Or rather, I hate clinics!

The lecture and theory I don't mind and do fairly well at but, I suck at clinics. I carry a lot of anxiety and hate the high speed pace. I obtained my LPN 2 years ago, continued on to ADN1 and failed clinic by 0.5 points, retook ADN1 the following semester and was struggling with clinic again. Decided to drop the program and get some experience as a LPN and return.

Now it is 1.5 years later and retaking the ADN1 for the third time. Same story, lecture I'm doing great and clinic I suck! I hate the pace, I am overwelmed putting everything together on the fly. The anxiety levels over my concern I might miss something that may cause harm to the patient is horrible.

I have been encouraged by both my clinic instructor and the ADN1 instructor to stick with it but today I could not handle it and just walked before clinic even started. I realize this is my last chance in the program, 3 strikes and you are out rule. I hate it that I have put a substantial amount of financial debt in pursuit of RN licensing but that doesn't matter any more. I just want out!

I've been told most students struggle with lecture and not with clinic. Not me.

I will also mention I am an older student in my 40's making a career change I planned to do in 1996. The plan was to be a Nurse Anesthetist after learnig from a friend his experiences in the field. Never planned on anything but that purely for the excitement. It was obvious that was not likely to happen 1.5 years ago and I lowered my expectations to RN.

I believe I will return to IT and/or business, perhaps hospital administration? Nothing looks very good in the job market now. Kind of back in the corner.

Good luck to everyone in your nursing careers. I'm out of here.

Dave K.

"Chaos presents opportunity. Successful people make order out of other people's challenges."

[elb252]

Dave,

You're not the only person who does better in lectures than in clinicals. I have days where I, too, worry so much about the care my patients get...and my anxiety rises over the way that I'm able to be there for them.

But you know that there's a lot of places you can work where you don't have to constantly be putting everything together on the fly as a RN. Talk to your clinical instructor or ADN instructor about some of those options. It seems like they already want you to succeed. From what I've heard, nursing school is the absolute HARDEST part of your whole nursing career!! If you can get through nursing school (lectures and clinicals included), you can get through a lot of things.

But if you're really set on going, I wish you the best of luck in your next career. There's a place for each and every one of us out there somewhere.

- Erika

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

with your background as an lpn, doing well in theory and wanting to give it, business, or hospital administration a try, i would suggest you check out health information management (him). it used to be called medical records but it is one of the biggest, most important business related functions in facilities today. besides maintaining patient charts (and boy! can they recite the hipaa rules to you) they handle and administrate all the information that needs to be extracted from those charts--and there is a boatload of it thanks to both state and federal laws. many people (like i did) start out as medical coders.

medical coding is an offshoot of accounts receivable. once a patient is discharged from an acute hospital their chart goes to medical coders who must glean it for specific information that has to be reported (by law) to state and federal agencies. this is called abstracting. the doctors various dictations must be looked at and specific final diagnoses need to be converted into universal code numbers that get placed on bills so the hospital will be paid for the service they provided to the patient. these numbers are fed into a computer which contains programs to generate the bills. this is not as easy as it sounds. medicare and the various insurance companies change the coding rules constantly.

him, however, is actually a lot more than medical coding which is just one part of the profession. health information managers oversee the information that is abstracted and used from patient's medical records. since so much of this information these days is used to generate reports and statistics, him professionals are taught how to compile the different types of information and put it together into reports. you learn how to use computer programs like excel to do this and present reports as well as what information to select and use. him professionals are usually the hipaa compliance officers of a facility. you learn how the different departments of a facility (not just nursing) work together to provide the end product--patient services.

you can learn about him from their professional web site ahima: http://www.ahima.org/. explore the tabs on their menu bar. if your or a nearby college offers him classes there should be no waiting lists to get in. this is a whole different field where people are not clamoring to get in except, perhaps, the coding classes. a him professional with an aa or bachelors in him can expect to make big bucks. people with masters in this are up in washington helping to make policy and advising medicare on how to reassign drgs pay them, what to reimburse providers for services provided and all that mess. yes, we're talking about medical insurance issues. him is into that too.

[Old and New]

I know just how you feel. I dread clinicals for weeks before they happen, although, once I'm there it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Have you considered x-ray technician, MRI or something along those lines? Your current education would feed into that and there is a definite need there, too.

[dkemper]

Thanks Everyone,

I have considered other paths such as Rad-Tech and some of the other suggestions in prior posts in this thread. HIM looks interesting also. I'm pretty set on following my dream of business start-up right now. Not sure which business to get into, maybe health care related, maybe not.

I will just add, I fell like a tremendous weight has been lifted from my shoulders choosing to leave the nursing program. Relief that I won't be risking someones health and relief from potentially irregular long hours in a high stress environment. We need people committed to nursing with a do or die attitude, I certainly don't want a 50% nurse if I need to use their health care but desire the 150% nurses that live and breath nursing.

Some people would seriously be stressed out in a business startup, for me, I am seriously stressed out providing nursing care. For me business leaves many more options and opportunities with far less stress than nursing.

Good luck to each of your futures in nursing. I will continue to monitor this thread indefinitely.

Dave K.

[danni12]

I have been a RN for about 14yrs and have worked in various nursing settings and have yet to find my "niche". Ive hated every nursing job I have ever had. Of course some were far worse than others. I feel like I have just been "stuck" in nursing all these years. The patients are not the problem, its the coworkers, rude arrogant doctors and demanding families. I have a friend who felt the same as I do, she went back for her masters degree and got a job as a case manager at a large university. She absoultely loves her job. No patient care, she works mainly independently. Im starting classes for my masters degree in may and its completely online. I wish I had done this sooner but better late than never, I still have 16 years before retirement so I think it will be well worth it.