Is Nursing Dangerous?

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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Hi all,

This is my first posting on here. I just had a question about working as a nurse. Is it basically guaranteed that working as a nurse will result in becoming injured through time?

I love the sound of nursing but I'm afraid of getting life-long injuries from prolonged periods of standing to do your work, lifting patients, from doing shift work (health risks to disrupting the regular sleep-cycle) or from exposure to fumes/liquids/hazardous substances/radiation/illnesses.

I understand that patients can become violent so I guess that is unavoidable unless you learn restraining techniques or are strong which I’m not. I just don’t want to start and then become unable to even work after the first 5 years of starting. Would you say it’s how you look after yourself? Do you know nurses who aren’t injured from doing nursing for a long time? Thank you! I appreciate your answers.

Aren't more women injured on the job as a nurse than any other profession? And then

  • Needle sticks
  • Exposure to TB and other pathogens
  • Blood born pathogens
  • Getting hit by patients
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Specializes in Geriatrics, psychiatric, rehabilitation.

I agree the concern is valid.

After 3 years working adult psych I did have a client break my wrist in an attempted elopement.

After 4 years a NA/PCT and 11 years nursing my back is horrible.

Stress attributes to many diseases and what nurse doesn't/has never sufferes from anxiety or depression.

However, there are always those people who make it all worth it.♥️

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Specializes in ER OR LTC Code Blue Trauma Dog.
On 7/14/2019 at 3:38 AM, Bones17 said:

I understand that patients can become violent so I guess that is unavoidable unless you learn restraining techniques or are strong which I’m not

Define "violent."

Someone yelling and screaming at everyone while throwing a food tray across the room at the wall?

"Restraining techniques" is more about your ability to get into the person's head using verbal communication to diffuse the situation. It's not about using muscle and physical strength.

Do we deal with people who are experiencing a crisis? Yes, absolutely we do.

I was male staff and was called upon to deal with them first hand all the time, but despite the 1000's of people who might somehow fit the definition of a violent person I have encountered, I have yet to have received or sustained a personal injury from any. In fact, there's actually a point where you simply don't deal with the person at all. If they are not actually hurting anyone, why bother getting into a physical altercation with them... why?

Incidentally, the vast majority of these "violent" people are simply emotionally upset about something.

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I have never worked in psych, and I have never been assaulted by a patient. I have worked med-surg with patients who are absolutely not in their right minds and have had to wrestle some of them to get them onto beds and in restraints but I have never been injured in the process. I HAVE hurt my back, legs, shoulder, arm, neck and knees doing non-nursing activities. Life happens.

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2BS Nurse talked about PTSD and I believe that is very real in nursing

Yeah that’s another thing I’m afraid of because I already had bad depression and anxiety. I don’t know if there is something for you to able to tell if you will be physically and mentally ok to do nursing. I wish there was. I guess you don’t know unless you are a nurse, which is when it will be too late anyway.

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Yes. Nursing is dangerous in many ways. You forgot about unsafe noise levels from screeching alarms. That being said, some states have better working environments than others. Good luck with your decision.

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On 7/23/2019 at 6:23 AM, unknownjulie said:

unsafe noise levels from screeching alarms.

Thank you everyone for your comments!!

What type of nurse are you? I only know of the alarms that alert you when a patient has buzzed for you to go to their room, or in emergency when their vitals must be crashing or something.

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I work LTC with patients that have mental disorders as a basic disgnostic and other psycho disabilitys with it.

Imagine a person with no arms that refuses to eat your food and screams at you the entire time because your trying to poison him. Thats all my Patients. I got nothing medical.. I tell this patient every day to shower but he starts biting himself we dont know why, we tried bathing and only washing at the sink. Either way its every day the same. Its so loud cause most patients cant talk (extreme mental disability) and just yell and yell and yell til you find out what they need lol.

My LTC in Germany is basically a psychiatric unit for people with mental disability. My job is pretty easy. Like I said I pass meds psych meds and Chart but most of the time Im like a ward watching them do things correct (like wash themself and not eat the towel, tell them how to use fork an knife etc)

I love my job but it can get dangerous duo to Autoaggressive patients or patients that are aggressive towards other patients and Staff.

When I hear the screams before I enter the facility I say that is hell in earth. But I love it

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Volunteer or become a CNA to see if you like healthcare before becoming a nurse. Everyone has different views on what's dangerous or an end game for them. We also have different niches that work for our personality. You have to experience it first hand to see if working in healthcare is your "thing" because I think we've all gone through nursing school with people who found out they really didn't like nursing over halfway through the program. All that wasted time and money only to find out they didn't like it is crazy to me.

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I find bed alarms and O2 alarms often are set too high for me. You need to hear them in the halls, but have to get right close to them to turn them off.

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Specializes in Mental Health.

I pulled a muscle picking up my toothbrush yesterday, so ?‍♂️ ?

Seriously though just do things the way you were taught. Get in the habit of raising the bed. My hospital has ceiling lifts in all the rooms in our unit that can be used for everything from actual lifts to putting someone on the commode to just turning a heavy patient by yourself. Whatever technology is available to you, use it!

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Specializes in Mental Health.
On 7/22/2019 at 3:23 PM, unknownjulie said:

You forgot about unsafe noise levels from screeching alarms.

*cringe* Sounds like some outdated technology? Everywhere I've done rotations the alarms will ring at the desk and will have a signal outside of the room and they aren't screeching at all. At one hospital the alarms actually ring right to the nurses on their vocera - I'm kind of jealous of those.

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