Is med/surg really that bad?

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I am almost half way through my nursing program and reading the threads on here makes me nervous!! I have read so many by new grads in med/surg etc. that say they dread work because they constantly worry that they are going to make some big mistake and seriously harm someone, that they go home crying every night because it was so awful! I know that the first year or two of nursing is supposed to be a little stressful, but is it really that crazy?! If so I am not sure I picked the right profession! I just don't think I am up for 8-10 hr long shifts where I am on edge the whole time wondering when I am going to make some huge mistake and hurt someone and then get fired. I know several nurses who have never mentioned their jobs being like this. Are they just not saying it? Is it all about the nurse to patient ratio or what is the real scoop here???

Our medical floor has the lowest turn over rate of any of the clinical floors in the hospital. It's hard, but those of us here seem to enjoy it.

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My M/S unit is totally bipolar-extremely stressful some nights, while other nights flow together without a hitch. You just never know what the night has in store for you.

On my unit-the team of nurses you work with can greatly influence how your night is going to go. Some of my charge nurses are GREAT and will jump in and pick up the slack on things like re-starting IV's that need to be re-started and things like that. Other charge nurses just SUCK-their the ones who spend the whole shift surfing the net and won't do ANYTHING to help you out- I swear they get off on watching you drown under a hectic patient load!:devil:

Some nights I never want to come back, other nights I feel like I'm on top of the world.

I have no desire to work in M/S for my entire career- but I know a few nurses who have and love it. I do know that it's given me a lot of nursing experience and as much as I hate it sometimes, I have no regrets for going into it after nursing school.

With that said-I'm counting down the days for when I can transfer to something else!

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Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.
It's not bad. It's busy and can be stressful, but you'd better be up for "busy & stressful" if you're going to have a successful career in acute care. Most new grads start in med-surg, you need that foundation in order to move into a specialty. Don't be afraid of hard work and long hours.

Med surg is a specialty too!:D

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Specializes in Med-Surg/Oncology.

You can make a huge mistake anywhere, not just med-surg. The good news is, there are not a whole lot of mistakes you will make that can't be reversed or mitigated - there's not a whole lot of mistakes that are going to outright kill someone. You become dangerous when you become complacent; that "on edge" feeling for the first year is your defense mechanism, it keeps you sharp and alert, and makes you stop before you doing something and double-check yourself. Everybody makes a mistake at some point, no matter their experience, no matter their chosen specialty. You WILL at some point make an error. It's the curse of being human. Doesn't matter if you have two patients or ten, doesn't matter if you work eight hours or twelve, doesn't matter if you've worked six months or six years.

As another poster said, I have never gone home in tears. Sure, I've had some absolutely heinous shifts where nothing went right, I was on my feet literally ALL 12 hours, I had to give blood to 3 people, chemotherapy to 2 people, I had a double amputee fall out of bed and that caused his BKA wounds to split open... I mean I've had some doozies of some shifts. It all depends on your outlook, your coworkers, and your personality... and whether you WANT to be there or not. People who accept med-surg jobs knowing (or convincing themselves) they hate med-surg are just setting themselves and everyone else up for failure. There is a specialty in nursing for everyone, and for some people, med-surg is just not it. I hated med-surg clinicals in school, wound up stuck on a med-surg floor for my preceptorship, and here I am on that floor two years later, loving every minute of it (okay okay, almost every minute). People who go into med-surg floors already resigned to hating it will, well, hate it. People who think they hate med-surg but decide to view it as an opportunity for learning and knowledge growth may find themselves surprised to blossom on that floor and still be there 10, 20 years later.

Sometimes you just have to think for yourself, and not take to heart all the howling you read. Every floor, every hospital, every shift, every nurse is different. It's all in how you approach the challenge, and that's with any specialty in nursing.

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Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.

Well said justenuff. I would give you more kudos if I could!

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Specializes in General surgery ,Vascular, Orthopedic.

Med-surg is what you make it to be. Like other's have previously posted if you go in with a failing attitude then expect to fail. I currently work on Med-Surg that deals with post op patients (general, gastric, vascular, and ortho). I'm a new nurse ( 6 months) and my floor has no techs with a patient ratio of 4-5 patients (6 patients is very rare although it has happen if staffing is extremely short). My floor is fast paced, hectic, and demanding and throw pain management and 2 CBI patients in the mix and you usually have yourself a mess at times. My newest hurdle is adapting to the Charge nurse role ( don't get me started on that). To be honest with you, my floor is awesome (when it comes to how much you can learn and the time mgt skills and assessment skills you gain along the way) I do not regret my decision one bit...now this doesn't mean I will be spending 10 years in med-surg although I do plan on floating in the surgical aspect of nursing.Other floors Absolutely HATE floating to my floor and I can understand why. There are night where I am practically on my feet the WHOLE 12 hours....there are night were I wanna cuss EVERYONE out....there are nights when I question my sanity there are even days when I clock out and tell myself "I am never coming back". The grow more confident in my abilities as the weeks go by. If you wanna survive med-surg you better get use to asking questions ( even if you get on people nerves, who cares? It's your license not theirs) and getting a second opinion when you feel like you are in doubt when it comes to nursing judgement, change in patient's status, etc. OH and also take your days off and RUN WITH IT, use your PTO timE if you have IT'S A MUST FOR YOUR SANITY!! They say that once you work med-surg you can work any floor but the verdict is still out on that one for me ( I'll let you know when I come to conclusion)

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There's a lot of factors that go into it. I'm of the mindset that safe staffing can offset the majority of nursing's problems, and there are a lot of places with borderline or unsafe staffing. There are additional factors to consider such as if the charge nurse carries her own patients, if there is an admissions nurse (this alone saves tons of time), if you will have a person to cover your patients while you are at lunch, and pct/cna ratio.

Attitude, sure, plays some part, but it is in no way the sole factor. While I don't have decades of experience, I have made it a point to seek out those that do. One nurse with decades of experience who was happy on my last med surg floor told me that she knew she did the best she could for her patients in 12 hours, and not much else mattered. Another nurse with decades of experience told me she rarely could feel good about the care she gave because there were too many patient who were too sick, and while she knew she was doing all she could, she also knew she could do so much more for them if the ratios were better. (She felt she could not quit because she was the sole breadwinner.)

My feelings coincided with the second nurse. I loved what I did but also hated it because I left each day feeling like the patients deserved more -- tighter pain control, more education, more family counseling, quicker proactive action to prevent issues, etc. There's also more and more patients who don't belong on med surg but should be in IMCU or even ICU. It took its toll on me.

I had some of the most amazing experiences on med surg and I would highly recommend it to any new nurse as it is a rock solid foundation to build the rest of their career on. But ratio laws are still critically needed and I hope that those will come to fruition for the rest of the country one day.

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Specializes in LTC, Med-Surg, IMCU/Tele, HH/CM.

I spent a little over a year on a med-surg floor that took mainly post op patients. Yes, it was stressful at times but I enjoyed it. I learned a lot and grew as a nurse. I still look back upon that experiance as my best one yet as an RN.

If you want to talk about stressful go to a unit where your patients are just waiting to code. Sure your patient ratio is less, but you are also going to witness a lot more deaths and a lot more traumatic situations. Perhaps that's what you want, but I'd reccomend getting your feet wet in med-surg first.

Or you could manage the care of a group of 30 patients and get phone calls in the middle of the night when someone's catheter stops working properly.

With everything I've done so far, I am seriously considering returning to med-surg. It's just the right intensity and you actually get to send people home most of the time.

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