I graduated from LPN school and took my NCLEX yesterday. Further down the road, I want to study for an RN. Nursing school is an expensive, hard journey which I am reconsidering due to all the negativity associated with the work environment where nurses are leaving the profession in droves.
I can understand the understaffing can be a problem but is it like this in almost every nursing specialty?
My goal is to work as an operating room RN. Would it still be understaffed?
Are there fields where I wouldn't have to deal with the massive understaffing yet still make great money?
I would really appreciate it if someone experienced can shed some light on what really goes on.
Working in OR should not be understaffed like some specialty areas are. OR was my 1st job when I qualified and I chose that area because the nurse:patient ratio was very good and we always had some nurses on stand by. I loved working in OR and even now I would work there again. I liked that fact that I only concentrated on 1 patient each time no matter how crazy the OR list was. Most of my friends who worked in other areas where always understaffed and came home tired and very late too. Other areas to try are Interventional Radiology, Endoscopy. So go for it you will love working in OR and if not you can always try something else. But don't burn out!
There are so many factors that contribute to burnout. Dissatisfaction with the role, poor work conditions such as understaffing, lack of supplies, hostile coworkers, to name a few.
For me, it had to do with the frustrations with nearly impossible expectations from management, and physical and emotional exhaustion. Having said that, I've had horrible experiences with coworkers, managers etc., as well as wonderful experiences. I absolutely loved being a nurse for many reasons already mentioned by others. The rewards of truly making a difference in patients and families lives, and of course the practical things such as job security and nearly unlimited opportunities for growth and advancement were priorities for me. My last position was the best environment I ever had. I retired about a year ago. Mostly because of physical exhaustion and back issues.
However, I will say, being great at caring for people is only one of many skills required to thrive as a nurse. Ability to stay calm in urgent/emergent situations, ability to critically think, act and make decisions quickly, multi task and adjust to the dynamic environment and demands. Having compassion for patients AND coworkers goes without saying.
If you choose to make the leap, I wish you well. It is a tough job and not for the faint of heart.
You remind me of my desire to become OR nurse. Things haven't changed much, I retired after over 35 years in the OR.
It is a very demanding job with lots of mandatory on call time to cover emergencies on eveings, nights weeke n ds and holidays. You work hard, you have to pay attention every second. It is as exciting and rewarding as it is stressful. Depending or your location and type of hospital Even outpatient facilities are short staffed.
It has been my experience from seeking to go into the OR as new grad all the way to my position as OR Director. It's very hard to get in. My 'in' was as a first lieutenant in the USAF. You had to have prior experience as a tech. I was turned down so I went in the back door so to speak. I kept tagging along with OR nurses when they got called in after hours (military hospital). Surgeons offered to let me scrub in and hold retractors. I was good and my skills and interest were rewarded, they recommended to the Supervisor. She sat me down and we negotiated training on my own time(1979). At that time most facilities required prior experience as scrub tech. That's still the case in most facilities.
Very few nursing schools or Hospitals offer classes or internships. It sounds like you are as hooked as I was. You will have to be very persistent.
My best advice is to go to scrub tech school and getting certified. That would get you into OR and you could then pursue RN.
Good luck to you, I miss it very much, it was challenging, different and exciting ever day. Be persistent and talk to ' everyone' you never know who will turn out to be the key that opens the door. My best wishes to you. Oh if I was young again. I'd do it all over again.
Specializes in Psychiatric and Mental Health NP (PMHNP).
Congratulations on passing your board exams. I'm not sure why so many on this thread are telling you to go back to accounting and finance.
No one here can tell you if you are going to get burned out doing nursing. There are many different nursing specialties; some are more stressful than others. In addition, every employer is different. Some places are great to work for, others not.
Since you expressed an interest in the OR, I suggest you try to shadow an OR nurse, or find a way to talk to one to get more information on what it is like to work in the OR. When you interview for jobs in the OR, ask relevant questions so you can determine if they are understaffed or not, what it is like to work there, etc. They may give you a chance to shadow as part of the interview.
I remember when I was in the ABSN program, we got a chance to shadow and get some clinical time in the OR. It seemed like the people there were very gung-ho and enjoyed their jobs - all of them. The OR team at Johns Hopkins also actively recruited from my ABSN class and it seemed like a good group to be in. One of my friends took a job there and she was very happy.
If you like the OR, you can become an RN and then become First Assist, and make very good money.
I know a lot of nurses who love their jobs - I'm one of them! I currently work in diabetes education but I've had a lot of varied positions and I've loved them all for different reasons.
Regarding your question about the OR — ORs cannot be understaffed (to the best of my understanding) as there is a set number of positions within the OR. The surgery will not take place without the correct clinicians in each role.
I know a lot of nurses who love their jobs - I'm one of them! I currently work in diabetes education but I've had a lot of varied positions and I've loved them all for different reasons.
Regarding your question about the OR — ORs cannot be understaffed (to the best of my understanding) as there is a set number of positions within the OR. The surgery will not take place without the correct clinicians in each role.
Understaffing occurs when you are forced into a lot of on call. Some places require you to be on call for multiple hospitals in their system and when they don't have enough nurses too much on call becomes the problem leading to a vicious cycle of even more nurses quitting creating an endless loop. There are travel OR nurses, but some hospitals are loathe to use them due to the high pay requirements. One of the staff nurses worked as an OR nurse and left for these reasons and eventually moved on from bedside and took a office job with better hours and no weekends or holidays.
Understaffing occurs when you are forced into a lot of on call. Some places require you to be on call for multiple hospitals in their system and when they don't have enough nurses too much on call becomes the problem leading to a vicious cycle of even more nurses quitting creating an endless loop. There are travel OR nurses, but some hospitals are loathe to use them due to the high pay requirements. One of the staff nurses worked as an OR nurse and left for these reasons and eventually moved on from bedside and took a office job with better hours and no weekends or holidays.
Its been a little over month since I had been applying to LPN jobs now. 94% of LPN jobs tend to be at nursing homes. I spent a day nursing home where I watched a very burn out , stressed, nasty nurse train me. She had to give meds to 30 patients, do wound care, and explain to me everything at the same time. There were so many things that she did which jeopardized her license. I don't want to mention anything specific on here. But nurses really jeopardize their license in under staffing. I've heard other terrible horror stories from staff at other nursing homes too... Nursing homes are basically "illegal businesses". I don't know how they manage to get away with so many things.
I really dreaded going back after the first day of training. My hands and feet were moving non stop from 8am to 3:30pm. After that shift, I was so exhausted that I slept 11 hours. I don't think I can ever work in that type of understaffed situation. It is so dangerous. I don't know how some nurses still put up with it. They deserve so much better. If all the nurses just walked out instead of trying to tolerate their BS, then Administration would just treat us better. why? The facility cannot operate without nurses. The more nurses put up with their BS, the more they will mistreat us.
Its not hard to find a job as a nurse, but a decent job with decent staffing/ pay / benefits is very hard to come by. Benefits are terrible unless you work for 1199 or hospital where it may be better. Clinic nursing is easy work but the pay is so incredibly low that I would need to work 2 jobs just to be able to be financially stable.
Right now, I'm only doing 1-1 home care / luxury assisted living as an LPN where under staffing isn't a problem. I can't ever imagine going through that sort of an understaffed horror story of a nightmare on a daily basis. Many nurses come into the profession wanting to help people, but over the yrs, a lot of them just give up. If I ever get my RN, I would either go straight to the OR or do home IV infusion or aesthetic nursing. The benefits from the agencies / nursing homes are so crappy that it got me thinking about leaving the profession. Because I can't imagine growing old and sick at the age of 59 on this type of crappy insurance that barely covers anything.
These nursing homes hire 4-6 different recruiting agencies all at once because they know there is extremely high turnover so they need a constant steady pipeline of new nurses coming in to fill these jobs that nobody wants.
There are so many factors that contribute to burnout. Dissatisfaction with the role, poor work conditions such as understaffing, lack of supplies, hostile coworkers, to name a few.
For me, it had to do with the frustrations with nearly impossible expectations from management, and physical and emotional exhaustion. Having said that, I've had horrible experiences with coworkers, managers etc., as well as wonderful experiences. I absolutely loved being a nurse for many reasons already mentioned by others. The rewards of truly making a difference in patients and families lives, and of course the practical things such as job security and nearly unlimited opportunities for growth and advancement were priorities for me. My last position was the best environment I ever had. I retired about a year ago. Mostly because of physical exhaustion and back issues.
However, I will say, being great at caring for people is only one of many skills required to thrive as a nurse. Ability to stay calm in urgent/emergent situations, ability to critically think, act and make decisions quickly, multi task and adjust to the dynamic environment and demands. Having compassion for patients AND coworkers goes without saying.
If you choose to make the leap, I wish you well. It is a tough job and not for the faint of heart.
?????
I certainly agree with you that multi tasking, being a quick thinker, having great memory, physical stamina, a laser sharp mind that never gets frazzled are important qualities. But there is just one thing you left out : trying to make an impossible workload seem possible.
OR Nursing is a highly specialized, fast-paced, team sport, requiring really good training and it is 1:1, so the understaffing effects the OR less in some ways, more in others. You cannot be forced to take on more than one patient at a time, because you literally cannot be in two rooms at once. That's the good news.
The bad news: There is sometimes call that's actually mandatory overtime, instead of truly being on call and getting callback and its pay. That means, depending on the state, you could be working shifts that are 16 hours straight. Even without call, if there's incoming and not enough staff, you could be mandated to stay much longer than your scheduled shift. Depending on the OR, what's going on, and the shift you are working, you may not get a break, or even a lunch, for that time, because it was considered an unavoidable emergency and that that is the oft-used loophole around labor laws.
However, if you get in a good place, with adequate support, and no silliness like listed above, with professional teams and decent, professional management, it's a fabulous job like no other. FWIW, I'd recommend using your LPN to get hired as a scrub tech, somewhere they will teach you to scrub. You will make LPN money or more and have what is the basis of being an OR Nurse down-sterile technique and what it means to be surgically clean as well. Opening cases, counting, helping position patients, team building, OR culture, making valuable connections, learning instruments, turnovers, and much more, will form the basis of a career. Good luck to you in following your dream. It's a career that you could very much enjoy.
OR Nursing is a highly specialized, fast-paced, team sport, requiring really good training and it is 1:1, so the understaffing effects the OR less in some ways, more in others. You cannot be forced to take on more than one patient at a time, because you literally cannot be in two rooms at once. That's the good news.
The bad news: There is sometimes call that's actually mandatory overtime, instead of truly being on call and getting callback and its pay. That means, depending on the state, you could be working shifts that are 16 hours straight. Even without call, if there's incoming and not enough staff, you could be mandated to stay much longer than your scheduled shift. Depending on the OR, what's going on, and the shift you are working, you may not get a break, or even a lunch, for that time, because it was considered an unavoidable emergency and that that is the oft-used loophole around labor laws.
However, if you get in a good place, with adequate support, and no silliness like listed above, with professional teams and decent, professional management, it's a fabulous job like no other. FWIW, I'd recommend using your LPN to get hired as a scrub tech, somewhere they will teach you to scrub. You will make LPN money or more and have what is the basis of being an OR Nurse down-sterile technique and what it means to be surgically clean as well. Opening cases, counting, helping position patients, team building, OR culture, making valuable connections, learning instruments, turnovers, and much more, will form the basis of a career. Good luck to you in following your dream. It's a career that you could very much enjoy.
Should I work for Sono Bello as an OR nurse? Would any kind of OR experience be necessary to getting a chance to work in OR? Is the OR competitive to get into?
I am sure that some community college in your area must have a certification program for a surgical tech program. It will not guarantee a job but it will be a learning process for seeing if you feel the job is for you. And actually show you have met standards of care.
Should I work for Sono Bello as an OR nurse? Would any kind of OR experience be necessary to getting a chance to work in OR? Is the OR competitive to get into?
You cannot work as an OR Nurse anywhere without having your RN. It's not an area where LPN scope creep happens. Any experience in the OR can increase your chances of becoming an OR nurse. Yes, it's hard to get into, and with good reason:the OR makes money for the hospital. Pretty much everything else (especially the floors) is a drain.
Ask for a tour, shadow, informational interview, whatever you can do in person, to show your interest. See if it is what you think it is. What you write sounds like desperation to get away from LTC misery (can't say I blame you there). You need hope right now; I understand that. Apply for other OR jobs like scheduler, PCT, transporter, OR Assistant, case picker, or anesthesia tech. Search words like intraoperative, perioperative, and post operative. Look at other things an LPN can do to get procedural type experience or literally anything else than LTC. Personally, I think one can learn a lot in LTC, it is just often an extremely unsupported environment. Take care of yourself. Best of luck to you.
Julita, BSN, RN
3 Articles; 14 Posts
Working in OR should not be understaffed like some specialty areas are. OR was my 1st job when I qualified and I chose that area because the nurse:patient ratio was very good and we always had some nurses on stand by. I loved working in OR and even now I would work there again. I liked that fact that I only concentrated on 1 patient each time no matter how crazy the OR list was. Most of my friends who worked in other areas where always understaffed and came home tired and very late too. Other areas to try are Interventional Radiology, Endoscopy. So go for it you will love working in OR and if not you can always try something else. But don't burn out!