I'm having doubts about nursing... :(

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Okay everyone, I am just starting my second semester of nursing school and I just had my first day at orientation on the med-surge floor that I will be at this semester. This is my first semester doing clinicals.. Long story short, I absolutely hated it. But there are several factors that may have affected my experience with it. Because it was orientation we were not set up with computer access so some of us were set up to shadow an RN, and others were set up to shadow a CNA. I got set up to shadow a CNA, I felt so unfulfilled.. We literally changed sheets, and cleaned poop the whole time. I was envious of my other classmates that got the opportunity to shadow nurses. The whole day I kept thinking to myself, am I really busting my a** in nursing school for this? It was extremely disheartening and discouraging. I went home almost in tears. Now let me back up and acknowledge the fact, that YES I WAS WITH A CNA, and I am sure it is much better actually shadowing a nurse. I was able to pop in and tag along with other classmates, but even then it was kind of boring. I know I should probably give it another chance but it was not a good first impression at all by any means.

I guess I just thought it would be more exciting... I would be able to use more of my nursing skills. I just don't know if I will ever like the med-surge floor.

OP: The very first thing they taught me in nursing school was how to do bed baths, turn, and help ambulate patients. We were not allowed to go to our first clinical rotation without knowing basic CNA skills. My very fist day of my med-surg clinical, after shadowing a nurse ;), my other student partner and I were given the task (by our clinical instructor) of cleaning up a patient and changing their bed (while they were in it). I know you're venting, however, you need to accept reality. You'll be doing a lot of this as an RN.

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My first clinical day was on a med/surg floor and the entire day we gave baths, changed linens, cleaned bowel movements, and checked vital signs. That was not an exciting day but it was valuable because I still do all of those things as an RN. You will learn to appreciate your CRNA's hard work because you won't always get a CRNA. I've worked jobs where they didn't even have one CRNA on night shift and I've worked jobs where we didn't have enough CRNAs to cover the unit. My current job doesn't staff a CRNA period. So, although those duties aren't thrilling, you might as well get used to it.

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My first clinical day was on a med/surg floor and the entire day we gave baths, changed linens, cleaned bowel movements, and checked vital signs. That was not an exciting day but it was valuable because I still do all of those things as an RN. You will learn to appreciate your CRNA's hard work because you won't always get a CRNA. I've worked jobs where they didn't even have one CRNA on night shift and I've worked jobs where we didn't have enough CRNAs to cover the unit. My current job doesn't staff a CRNA period. So, although those duties aren't thrilling, you might as well get used to it.

What kind of baller hospital has CRNAs changing the bed sheets?

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Specializes in CCU, MICU, and GMF Liver.

I think you're wayyy too early in your nursing career to seriously be having these doubts affect your future. Regarding your shadowing a CNA... RNs do that job, too. You're lucky if you always have a CNA to clean the poop and change the sheets. And to think this is only a CNAs job is incredibly wrong. It's yours, too.

Also, you said it yourself. It's only your second semester and this was orientation. In coming weeks just let your instructor know it's your time to shadow an RN.

I'd say a bigger problem is your jealousy of other students. That's going to affect your job role and team membership for the rest of your career if you don't handle this.

Be ready for clinicals to be boring. Just because you're with a RN, it doesn't mean they're good teachers for students to hang with. A lot of times in my clinicals the RN was so busy/rude that they wouldn't foster any relationship with the students. As a nurse, you don't get to choose whether you have a student or not. It's kind of just thrust on you last minute when you're trying to get report from the night shift nurse. This is probably the biggest factor. Almost everyone knows those RNs that students love and the ones that aren't very useful to be around.

And nursing isn't a whole bunch of excitement. I don't know where you get your perceptions of the career, but some people think it will be like a glamorous TV drama with hot workers, emergencies all around, gossip, and so on. A big takeaway is that your experience varies much by unit, acuity of care... Keep an eye out for critical care nursing or Emergency Trauma nursing if you want excitement.

Please pardon me if I sound harsh. It's the end of my day and my brain is a little fried.

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Specializes in ED, Cardiac-step down, tele, med surg.

Just wait till you work for a while as a real nurse, then you'll see how bad it really is! Just kidding sort of. At the end of the day, it's a pay check. Try to find something that you can tolerate and enjoy at least part of the time.

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What kind of baller hospital has CRNAs changing the bed sheets?

:roflmao:

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I have to say, I'm a little horrified at the way the OP was treated here. Come on, everyone. What's the purpose of this forum? Support and advice. Some of the comments here were truly mean. And for those of you who were helpful: good work! Ok, OP, chin up. First days are totally overwhelming and rarely an accurate representation of future experience. Try taking this one day at a time and don't give up. Yes you are meant to be here and I think you will derive a lot from clinical. You aren't against wiping up poop but you also didn't spend every waking moment studying to only do that. This is very reasonable. You will encounter many intelligent, caring and reasonable nurses in your profession. Please don't let whatever happened ^^ up here in the comments scare you. It was abnormal behavior.

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It was only your first day! My first day of clinical as I was interviewing a patient his roommate coded. I was thrown out of the room and watched from the hallway. It took everything in me to go back because it really was traumatic. Lo and behold I'm here 10 years later. Neuro ICU and loving it. And I do clean up poop, wash patients and change sheets multiple times a shift.

I'm more concerned that you let 1 shift discourage you. This career is not for the faint of heart and you're going to have awful days, boring days and rewarding days. It's not glamorous. But don't quit school because of this one shift. Next shift could be completely different and probably will be.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

You'll have many clinical shifts ahead of you to practice nursing skills -- don't sweat this one.

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I understand your frustrations I remember being that exact same position my second semester of nursing school what I can tell you is that nursing school gets better. He will be able to put that nursing education to better use coming up soon. As far as the tech work I understand the frustration seeing as that's what they make us do day in and day out during our first semester our first year of nursing school give it a little bit of time because towards the end of the semester you'll be wishing that you were just doing Tech stuff. At the moment though my best advice would be to look around you take note of everything that you're seeing as far as time wise what do you thing with the patient as well note any differences you may see while doing that Tech work take a listen to the patient's lungs it's a good opportunity to be able to have that step back from all the hustle and bustle and take a good look and see the disease processes and what truly happens. best of luck to you I know you'll make it through. As far as having doubts about nursing I feel like that's typical your second semester and second year of nursing school you'll do fine though

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Specializes in LTC, Rehab.

I got my BSN at over 50 - however that figures into this, I don't know :^) - but I kid you not: I thought about quitting in each of the first 3 (of 4) semesters of the actual nursing school part (i.e. after pre-reqs).

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Coming from a fellow nursing student, it was your first day.

I know you worked hard and did all the prerequisites and have built up that day to be so much, but it is not always going to be exciting.

Last semester (Intro to med/surg) my clinical was on a med-surg/tele floor at a community hospital in a bad neighborhood with less than thrilling conditions.

My clinical instructor for that semester was working 3 jobs, and that semester was the last for them working at my school, and to say the least, he did not care AT ALL if we were learning or even gaining experience. We were delayed to start clinicals there for 2 weeks. So we started, all but 2 nurses on that floor hated students being there (idc, some like it, some don't), and long story made short, I got to perform 3 head-to-toe assessments that semester and administer medication twice. Those are the only skills I got to practice for the 16 week semester. But I was okay with that. Because there will be more opportunities this semester.

In nursing school you have to roll with the punches. Nursing school will have its ups and downs. For all you know, the classmates that got to shadow nurses last time may have only seen a very small segment of what nurses do, and you got to start by shadowing someone who does so much physical work with the patient and the other students may never be able to see what you saw that day. But you have plenty of more time to see what a nurse does and practice your nursing skills.

And asking yourself if your busting your butt in nursing school for this, the answer is yes. Some days are disappointing, others are very interesting and you learn a lot. I'm sure nurses have boring days and good days.

I understand you wanted to shadow a nurse and got assigned shadowing a CNA, but if you're smart you will learn something new everyday. Who knows, maybe one of the nurses would have wanted to gauge your clinical knowledge and you wouldn't have been prepared and then been upset about it later.

I work as a CNA and had students shadowing me one day. They helped which was nice, but they were there to learn and I taught them how to check blood sugars, transport patients, change patients, and apply telemetry leads. I showed them where everything was on the unit and who to ask/where to go if you needed something else. I wasn't showing them how to be a CNA but everything a CNA can do, falls under a nurse's scope of practice, so therefore I don't think learning anything a CNA does would be pointless for an aspiring nurse.

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