Hello, nurses! Before I officially decide to go for nursing school, I wanted to get a general idea of the lifestyle of a nurse (though I know it differs for everyone). So, I have a list of questions and I would really appreciate it if you could answer any of them for me! Please include what type of nurse you are!
How often would you consider your work life to be stressful? How stressful?
Do you believe you have a healthy family life? I'm a family-oriented person and wouldn't to completely sacrifice that for my job. How much time do you have with your family?
What mood do you return home in most often?
Do you feel like you have time for going out?
Thank you in advance for any answers you are able to provide!
How often would you consider your work life to be stressful? How stressful? work life? 99.9 percent stressful
Do you believe you have a healthy family life? NO .
I'm a family-oriented person and wouldn't to completely sacrifice that for my job. How much time do you have with your family? about 6-10 hours a week due to shift differences .
What mood do you return home in most often? I have a 1 hr drive. I am usually ok by then.Usually play loud mosh pit type music. Other times , no radio at all-I want it quiet. But sometimes, ready to bawl any given day, but I don't actually do it.
Do you feel like you have time for going out? No, and I am way too past exhaustion to even want to.No sleep is quite common among my co workers. They might get no sleep tho because they went out , LOL
There's a lot of pressure in my job to always do more and better with less while giving exceptional customer care. I thrive on the successes but I work with nurses who are exhausted. I also habe heard in my field and my skill set is strong, had you asked 9 years ago I would have cried.
I had a great family life when my kids were younger and i had a flex schedule. What i considered flex others consider working on their off time. Now my kids are grown and i work long salaried hours in order to grow my career away from bedside.
My mood is usually good if not tired because I love what I do and I prefer pressure and ongoing improvement. I am an outlier though I'm told.
Yes I have time for personal pleasures but not for everything. Something always falls off.
I specifically mentioned my understanding of the widely differing experiences everyone will have in order to avoid the stating of the obvious, given fact by others; hence, I claimed to be seeking a general idea.
, I am sorry that you may have had a terrible experience, nevertheless, thank you for sharing!
Hence, excuse me for being specific regarding your specific question.
A general idea was included in my post. I never said I had a horrible experience. I told you like it it was ... with my 33 years of experience.YOU took to mean "Horrible".
Hence, excuse me for being specific regarding your specific question.
A general idea was included in my post. I never said I had a horrible experience. I told you like it it was ... with my 33 years of experience.YOU took to mean "Horrible".
I am quite positive I wrote that you may have had a terrible experience. You came across as rude and debilitating in your initial post, however, I am not here to fight or argue, but rather gain insight. So, I apologize if I happened to offend you.
Thanks to everyone else who has posted. It's really interesting to see how different everyone's experience as a nurse is.
1. I have never had a shift where it is stressful all 12 hours. Usually it's most stressful at the beginning if the patient is new to the unit or has had a sudden change of condition and requires many interventions (I work in the ICU). I have great coworkers though and we all help each other get back on track when the shift throws us curveballs.
2. I live alone so do not really have a family to consider. I'm also single.
3. I'm usually in a good mood because I know I have given it my all. Sometimes I have to give report to a condescending or unreasonable nurse who wants to know why I didn't increase the tube feed by 5mL at 0000 while my other patient was coding all night or some other asinine complaint. That can be annoying. Really your shift can be going well and suddenly get crappy so you never know. You just have to learn to deal with it and not let it ruin your day.
4. Absolutely. I have every Friday and Saturday off. I work Sunday Monday Tuesday usually.
1. My work life is hardly ever stressful these days because I now work from home. My work life was somewhat stressful when I was a floor nurse due to my introverted personality: I dislike small talk, schmoozing, and the nuances involved with soothing people's anxieties.
2. I am childless and live alone. I visit extended family out of state several times yearly.
3. My work day ends with me being in a great mood. I realize I struck gold by landing a job that entails no direct patient care or disrespect from their families.
4. I have plenty of time to go out.
Isn't that crazy how different people are? I tried working from home and went about bat crazy! I could do it part time but full time plus....no way. Way too sedentary and isolating for me. Glad you found the perfect fit though!
1. My work life has extremely minimal stress. I work in a really fantastically staffed LTC/ILU/AL community, nights, so it's crickets most nights for me, and I love the people I work with. The only stress is our new ADON who has come in like a typhoon and made us all irritated in a matter of seconds.
2. I work 11p-7a. So I am home during their school day and I am home in the afternoons/evenings. (Though I do go to bed between 7-8 pm). Sleeping while they're at school is good, and I don't miss a lot of time with them. I will say that my schedule is roughest on my husband. He jokes that we're just roommates. It's actually hard for us to get to sleep when we're in bed at the same time, we're just not used to each other anymore. If I could change shifts, that would resolve itself.
3. Complete and utter exhaustion, but happy. In 10 months, I've only gone home mad once.
4. I work every other weekend, so going out is a hassle for me. However, I plan things and do them and see my friends to keep my sanity, you just need to be organized about it.
Nursing school is hard, but this can be a very rewarding field.
I will preface this by saying I am a med-surg nurse and have been for 2.5 years.
How often would you consider your work life to be stressful? How stressful? The first year was VERY stressful. Lots of tears involved. Now, it's like riding a bicycle. I go to work, do my job, go home. Go to sleep. It's been a long time since I've hyperventilated in the bathroom
Do you believe you have a healthy family life? I'm a family-oriented person and wouldn't to completely sacrifice that for my job. How much time do you have with your family? Absolutely! Four days a week! I usually try to spend an hour with my husband and daughter before we go to bed just hanging out.
What mood do you return home in most often? Exhausted. Just plain tired.
Do you feel like you have time for going out? Only on my days off. I did try to fit something in last week after work. Didn't work out so well. Had to stay at work until 8:30, then drive my daughter to babysitter, by then we'd have been about 2 hours late. Not to mention, it was after my third shift in a row for the week and I was tired. Would have been a LATE night. We had to cancel. That being said, I try to make my 4 days off as full and fun as we can!
It all depends where you end up working. In school your hours will be quite varied. I worked 1 12 a week for the first two semesters. Third semester I worked more hours as I only had one class, then the last two semesters I worked in the pool staff so I was anywhere from 8 to 40 hours a week depending. As a new grad you may well end up working nights if you work inpatient. If you go to a clinic setting that is usually more 9 - 5 but in the town I live in the clinic jobs are reserved (as they should be) for more experienced nurses. If you go to skilled care they may offer you 8 hour shifts.
I need to go out to maintain my sanity......~ !! Change of scenery does me good. Not talking about a club or some wild party. A spa or a vacation away from the madness.
How often would you consider your work life to be stressful? How stressful?
I've been a nurse for over 20 years now, and I have had both very stressful jobs and others not so much. I have found the stress is more related to the people I work for then the type of nursing job I do. I went for a couple of years into administration and that was the most stress ever, being between a boss and my employees, it was impossible to keep everyone happy and I was "on call" (in other words if anything went wrong 24/7 they called me) all the time and dealing with staffing, complaints and such. I was glad to get out and get back to patient care.
Do you believe you have a healthy family life? How much time do you have with your family?
I really feel like I do when I am doing patient care. When I am done with work I am done. I can work five 8 hour days, four nine's or three 12's. I work in the PACU now and I do take call. But I have never felt that made me neglect my family. If I worked Christmas (every other year for years) we would celebrate a day early and then Christmas day felt like the day after... we've always been able to work it out so I don't miss the most important things.
What mood do you return home in most often?
Sometimes tired, but good. Again this has depended on those I worked with. I can have a really hard day, but if I work with a team that pulls together, I can walk away knowing that I could give my best. That keeps me content.
Do you feel like you have time for going out?
I have time to play, and when I don't it's normally because of my kids schedules, not mine.
.thumb.png.25dc111ae613e658de4a048da55b3337.png){kind=small}
martymoose, BSN, RN
1,946 Posts
How often would you consider your work life to be stressful? How stressful? work life? 99.9 percent stressful
Do you believe you have a healthy family life? NO .
I'm a family-oriented person and wouldn't to completely sacrifice that for my job. How much time do you have with your family? about 6-10 hours a week due to shift differences .
What mood do you return home in most often? I have a 1 hr drive. I am usually ok by then.Usually play loud mosh pit type music. Other times , no radio at all-I want it quiet. But sometimes, ready to bawl any given day, but I don't actually do it.
Do you feel like you have time for going out? No, and I am way too past exhaustion to even want to.No sleep is quite common among my co workers. They might get no sleep tho because they went out , LOL
Good luckhope your experience wont be the same