Is nursing REALLY that difficult?

[lilythorburn]

I'm in my final year of high school now, and I know that I really want to be a nurse when I finish school. It's the perfect job for me: I'm fascinated by the human body, I LOVE to be able to care and nurture for others, I love the adrenaline rush that comes with the job (I'd love to work in ER), and I love knowing that I'm making a meaningful contributing back to the world. The idea of working 3-12 hour shifts a week is also really appealing, getting 4 days off. But when I research to see what nurses think of their own profession, a lot of the articles are really whiney, and they just complain how stressful the job is, how long the shifts are, how they always go overtime, how they have sleep deprivation etc. It's rare for me to actually come across articles written by nurses who highlights the good aspects of the job and how much he or she loves being a nurse. I know that it will be difficult, I know that the shifts will be long - I'm expecting all of this. But is it REALLY that bad? Is it doable? Can I be a nurse and still live a balanced, happy life? Do nurses really hate their jobs that much?

[Zyprexa]

Maybe shadow a few different nurses in different specialties to see what you think? Hopefully they won't be too "whiny" to you.

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

All these responses are just telling me how hard and stressful the profession is. Maybe I shouldn't become a nurse after all...

I'm actually not discouraging you. There are few things you can do that make as much money as nursing right out of the gate, and absolutely nothing with benefits this good - I'm just telling you to be prepared for the stress.

For the record, my other four jobs that were much less stressful all paid $15/hr or less. In general, the higher you go up the pay scale, the worse the stress gets... and it's awfully hard to pay student loans, a mortgage, etc. working at McDonald's or Walmart for minimum wage. I lived off of $10.50/hr for four years, and it was awful.

There's more to consider then just the difficulty and stress of a profession when you're planning out the rest of your life.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

Of course you can live a balanced, happy life, and because of "just" working three days a week, you will have a lot more time off than most people. There are also excellent benefits - my company starts people at 208 hours paid time off per year, which at 3 12s in one week, is almost six weeks of paid leave. You'd be hard pressed to find another entry level position that gives you that much paid vacation. Not to mention if you self-schedule, you would work Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, giving yourself eight days off without using any vacation time at all.

However, I feel like hospital benefits are so good just because the job *IS* so terrible. I don't think anyone would work as a bedside nurse in the hospital if you had to be there Monday through Friday, 9-5 - it it literally not doable to be there that often, just for our base pay. I worked four non-nursing, non-healthcare jobs before I went into nursing, and the difference in the stress level I have now compared to the stress I had then is incalculable. I didn't know it was possible to be this stressed out all of the time.

So, I'm not discouraging you - the benefits of being a nurse, as far as your life outside of work goes, are fabulous. But you pay for those benefits in blood.

Many employers do not give as much time off. One job I had only gave 20 days of paid time off per year. Out of that had to come holidays, vacation, sick leave, personal leave. Compare that to a different employer who gave us 3 weeks of vacation, 14 holidays, and about 14 days of sick time per year. Another firm I know of gave its doctors 30 days of vacation in addition to the 14 holidays. They got more sick time, too. So the highest paid workers got the most time off. That is tremendously unfair.

Yes, Nursing is very hard. No, nurses are not whiney. the trouble is that many supervisors and administrators don't care about the wellbeing of their staff. Their focus is on keeping their own jobs and coming in under budget. That means they make their staff do more work (be responsible for too many patients, work at a ridiculous pace, no time for a rest break or meal break, coming in for meetings when they shoulld be sleeping, ratting on each other, just all kinds of catty, petty evilness). Walk a mile in our shoes before you insult us. 3 12's are exhausting.

Good luck. If you enter Nursing, consider going on for an advanced practitioner role - Nurse Anesthetist, Nurse Practitioner, Educator, Administrator, Midwife. Not perfect but probably better

While the rush of the ER might sound good now, are you prepared to see your patients in pain because

of all the focus on addiction these days? Doctors are afraid to order pain medicine even when it's legitimately needed. So patients suffer.

Best wishes. Just eliminate "whiney" from your vocabulary.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

All these responses are just telling me how hard and stressful the profession is. Maybe I shouldn't become a nurse after all...

What other lines of work are you exploring?

[Julius Seizure]

Compare that to a different employer who gave us 3 weeks of vacation, 14 holidays, and about 14 days of sick time per year.

Fourteen holidays!??? We got like three!!

[Julius Seizure]

All these responses are just telling me how hard and stressful the profession is. Maybe I shouldn't become a nurse after all...

Well, only you can answer that. The nurse life isn't all daisys and roses and we want you to know that before you start down that path. Honestly, I think some here would recommend exploring some other health care jobs as alternatives - such as echo tech, physical or occupational therapist, speech therapist, or pharmacist. But others would say to explore nursing because it can open doors to a lot of different opportunities besides floor nursing. Its good that you are asking questions and trying to find out what the career is like before you start and educational path. I wish that I had done that more!

[Jedrnurse, BSN, RN]

You're in high school- how would you know you love the adrenaline rush that comes with the job? What kind of jobs have you had at this point in your life? I'm honestly curious...

[djh123]

THAT difficult depends on who you are, how old you are, your physical condition, your focus, how the rest of your life is going, your capacity for empathy, ability to think quickly, and many other factors. Of course, I don't mean 'you' you, I mean 'anyone who is a nurse, or is thinking of becoming a nurse'. There are something like 3 million nurses in the US currently, and you might get 3 million answers if you polled them all. But in general, I think yeah, it's hard, it's not for everyone - but at the same time, you can do it if you want to.

As for the 'whiny' notion, you can't put yourself in someone else's shoes yet. There are plenty of things most of us can complain about in our jobs. Just for a few small things: I had yet another shift today with only 1 aide instead of two. The supply guy is ill, so I had to scramble to find things. I had a new guy who's a bit of a handful. I also got some friendly comments and compliments from a couple of residents. Hopefully, the good part(s) counterbalance the bad part(s), but every day is different.

[shivv]

It's 12 hours of caring for sick people. You'll laugh, cry, panic, overthink, miss breaks, lose your appetite, be ravenous, get yelled at, not sit for hours, and who knows what else. It isn't easy. You have people in your care from start to finish who you are responsible for. By the end of the shift (if not before), you're spent. However, it's a great job and we do what we do for a reason. There are good aspects, but you discover those as they come, from quiet moments with patients to huge laughs with co workers. We are with patients during a journey, whether it's for a cut finger, a massive heart attack or end of life care. Not everything can be explained in a non whiney article. Burnout is important to recognize because we give so much of ourselves. Good luck with your future.

[WanderingWilder, ASN]

Some hospitals will allow people to shadow a nurse for a day. perhaps your school counselor could help you set something up. This would give you a better idea of what nursing is like. I really had no idea until I started clinicals. Nurses have a lot more responsibility then I thought they had and they can be spread pretty thin. Also check out your colleges for open houses, usually these allow you to tour the area of the school you are interested in and learn about the program. Mine have a few info nights a year specifically for the nursing program. The nurses I've had all seem to enjoy their jobs, though in every job there will be those "days". Its also important to remember people are more likely to complain then compliment so don't assume that just because most of the articles you read are negative, that most nurses feel that way.

[blackribbon]

I would love 4 days off...however, the day after working is all about recovering, it isn't really "a day off"...and if your shift is split like ours usually are (not 3 days in a row) then often 2 of those off days are spent recovering.

Is it really that difficult? Well unless you assume that all those nurses that you read about really are just whiny children who are lazy...maybe there is a reason why there are so many articles/posts about nursing. My nursing instructors basically told me to expect to cry a lot until you had at least one year experience on the floor. What other profession gives you a warning like that? (it was true though I was usually able to make it to my car before the tears fell)...

[blackribbon]

Can I add, that "adrenaline rush" that you seem to seek won't turn off anymore on its own so I am anti-anxiety and depression meds to be able to go to work. I love what I do but I realize it isn't healthy. I always have too many patients and am on hyperviligent status that something isn't going bad in a room that I haven't had time to check on. A fellow nurse was just diagnosed with 30 ulcers. Yes, we do help people...we also face people who seem determined to kill themselves inspite of our interventions and care, and we lose people too, often people that we have started to care about....and even harder yet, when you go home, you usually do not find out what happened to your patients because HIPAA means we can't look at their files if the are not currently in our care (need to know only). I found out my patient's precious little baby ( a micropreemie) died several days after I stopped caring for her from a NICU doctor who came to check on one of my babies. When my patients die, I often don't know because they are transferred to more critical units before they pass away. It is hard wondering if that brain bleed you caught made it or died...especially after you spent several days learning all about her children and their life as you cared for her.

Nursing is a hard job. Harder than most people realize. I can't imagine doing anything different now but honestly, I wish I had picked a different field that allowed for better balance.