why so many negatives about nursing?

Published

I was reading another thread about someone wanting to leave their job to pursue nursing, and all the comments consisted of negativity about the nursing career. Is nursing really that awful? I'm still in undergrad and thinking about pursuing a second-degree BSN and working as a psychiatric nurse. But from what I see, all the nurses on here seem to hate being a nurse. Nursing seemed like the best choice for me having a psychology degree....but now I'm starting to reconsider with seeing all the negativity. So, why are there so many negatives about nursing?

I wanted to chime in with my two cents. I am not a nurse yet (pre-nursing student) but it is a path I am pursuing because in all of the jobs I have had to-date (retail, animal shelters, food etc) I have been treated like GARBAGE by both customers and managers and made VERY little money. I see a lot of people on here complaining about the pay nurses make but I think it is all what you make of it and how you choose to live. I have been surviving on less than 18k per year so to me 50k per year sounds like a ton of money.

As previous posters have said, some of these problems you will see everywhere. I have just accepted that people are rude to other people to get what they want, managers everywhere are impossible to please and corporate will always favor the bottom line, to name a few. My experience is that when I worked retail I found it frustrating because I felt that people were treating me like crap for no reason and I hated the stress I felt over basically material objects. And if you miss holidays with your family because you have to go work at a retail store on Thanksgiving, well, that to me is much more frustrating than missing a holiday with your fam because you were out being a nurse. This is just my perspective on things and why I have decided to go this route.

You just have to ask yourself if you feel like you can handle the "worst case scenario": hope for the best but prepare for the worst! (A question I am currently asking myself!)

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Pedi.

I like being a nurse- most of the time. But there is a lot of BS that I DON'T like. I can't stand parents who take no responsibility for their children and then I get crap when I hold them accountable. Here's an example- one of my kids should not need nursing at home. She gets a weekly subq injection that her parents can't/won't give. Every other week she has an infusion at the hospital nad gets it there but on the opposite weeks, we go in to give her the shot. Two weeks ago, I called her specialty pharmacy to order more needles/syringes because I used the last one. On Tuesday I find out that they were never delivered because the family never bothered to answer their phone or call the pharmacy back to arrange delivery. So then, I went out of my way to arrange for them to get them at a local pharmacy and all the Mom had to do was pick them up- the pharmacy that was something like 2 miles from her house. Do you think she did that? No. I get to her house on Wednesday afternoon and the Mom says to me "you didn't bring me syringes?" Lady, I'm not a courier, it's your responsibility to get these. She was told very clearly that she needed to pick these up and then just didn't. So then there was no way for her child to get her medication this week. It was late on Wednesday and mother was not intending to go to the pharmacy then, the pharmacy was obviously closed yesterday and she's due for her next treatment in the hospital on Wednesday and there has to be at least six days in between. This kind of stuff is infuriating.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Nursing-Anesthesia.

As most people have already stated, don't ignore the comments because most of what these nurses are saying is probably 100% accurate. It's not because they are old haggard nurses and need to get out of the profession because of burnout and it's not because they got into the profession for the wrong reasons. It's because they are piling more and more work on us as and keep taking away. For all the pre-nursing and student nurses out there.....you probably DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT A NURSE ACTUALLY DOES. I'm not going to repeat that, because it's the truth. With that being said, I wouldn't change where I'm at or what I'm doing. Just know that it's just not about the cliché saying of "helping people" which 90% of the people say in their program interview. Go shadow a nurse and you'll see that 99.9% of the time it's charting.....Anyhow, I love ICU! Follow your passion and don't let all the madness deter you of what you want out of your career.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
As most people have already stated don't ignore the comments because most of what these nurses are saying is probably 100% accurate. It's not because they are old haggard nurses and need to get out of the profession because of burnout and it's not because they got into the profession for the wrong reasons. It's because they are piling more and more work on us as and keep taking away. For all the pre-nursing and student nurses out there.....you probably DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT A NURSE ACTUALLY DOES. I'm not going to repeat that, because it's the truth. With that being said, I wouldn't change where I'm at or what I'm doing. Just know that it's just not about the cliché saying of "helping people" which 90% of the people say in their program interview. Go shadow a nurse and you'll see that 99.9% of the time it's charting.....Anyhow, I love ICU! Follow your passion and don't let all the madness deter you of what you want out of your career.[/quote']

***** really eh

100% accurate, that over estimation is why i disregard a large majority of the negative things I read. While I will not be as bold as you and state 100% of those complaining are doing so because they are burned out and jaded. I will place a bet on at least 45% of those posts belong to those who are burnt out and jaded. I was not clear my first response where i stated to ignore. I should have been more clear, you can tell by a tone of a post and the context the persons i intentions when posting so I do ignore a vast number of people.

But I am just a lowly nursing student, so my thoughts are invalid apparently. Superiority seems to run rampant.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

Up Vote Up Vote ×
***** really eh 100% accurate that over estimation is why i disregard a large majority of the negative things I read. While I will not be as bold as you and state 100% of those complaining are doing so because they are burned out and jaded. I will place a bet on at least 45% of those posts belong to those who are burnt out and jaded. I was not clear my first response where i stated to ignore. I should have been more clear, you can tell by a tone of a post and the context the persons i intentions when posting so I do ignore a vast number of people. But I am just a lowly nursing student, so my thoughts are invalid apparently. Superiority seems to run rampant. Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com[/quote']

So the acronym for laughing my butt off it bleeped.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in PCCN.

I think that there are some areas that suck. Unfortunately, those areas happen to be the ones that are most populous- Med/ surg, LTC, emergency , etc. The ones that mostly dont complain about seem to be case mgmt, UM, anything that is not hands on care. This is ( my opinion) because the general public is just a bunch of rude, needy , drug seeking etc. type of people. Once in a great while, maybe 1 out of 50 pts, you will get the grateful person or the kind old person. But the rest are rude, entitled, threatening, drug seeking( in acute care) or you have the LTC which is notorious for understaffing. It is impossible for one person to watch 50 residents that are confused, dependent, etc.And, you are the one responsible for them if something goes wrong. No win situations.

Then you have the fact that other coworkers may not be very nice either. there are polenty of threads on this- lateral violence, passive/agressives, etc.

These reasons are why people hate nursing. we don't actually get to "nurse", because ultimately the patients are a commodity, and the company wants to make a profit at their and you expense.There is no time to spend with pts when you are spread thin. Customer service is the biggest focus now.

Maybe psych will be ok for you if that is your interest and you know what you are getting into. That is not your avg "nursing" at all. Good luck.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

But I am just a lowly nursing student, so my thoughts are invalid apparently. Superiority seems to run rampant.

Even more rampant than superiority is ignorance. You don't know why nurses aren't happy because you have no experience being a nurse. It's not superiority, it's reality.

If I had a nickel for every student that said that people who are unhappy with nursing got into it for the "wrong" reasons, I could retire. Many got into it for the "right reasons" (whatever those might be) and are still unhappy because we're overworked, underpaid, and constantly judged, by everyone, including nursing students that think they know more about what we should do and how we should feel than we do. And if we point out that's not so true, then we're judged for acting "superior."

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Even more rampant than superiority is ignorance. You don't know why nurses aren't happy because you have no experience being a nurse. It's not superiority it's reality. If I had a nickel for every student that said that people who are unhappy with nursing got into it for the "wrong" reasons, I could retire. Many got into it for the "right reasons" (whatever those might be) and are still unhappy because we're overworked, underpaid, and constantly judged, by everyone, including nursing students that think they know more about what we should do and how we should feel than we do. And if we point out that's not so true, then we're judged for acting "superior."[/quote'] Another thing I noticed, a group complex. I was not responding to you.

Woah is me

So we can agree ignorance and superiority is rampant.

I will not assume you know everything because you are a nurse, ignorance is assuming because I am a student I have no grasp on the realities of what the field is.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in critical care.
But I am just a lowly nursing student so my thoughts are invalid apparently. Superiority seems to run rampant. [/quote']

Wow.... Really?? I'm also "just a lowly nursing student", so I'm hoping you can maybe not take this as a personal insult when I say this, but the comment you responded to was a very fair comment to make. Surely you can recognize the fact that as nursing students, we really DON'T know what it's like to be a licensed nurse yet. We are living in the bubble of academia with the safety net of our preceptors' and instructors' licenses to protect us. We are not the ones running codes or answering to angry family. Aside from a crappy grade (that no one will care about or remember 5 years from now), we are not held responsible when things aren't right. We get one shift with each patient. We aren't at risk for becoming overly involved or attached when a kid is terminally ill. We go home, write about it, then go to lecture the next day.

No. We don't have a clue. And that's why we have the nurses who eat their young and the 6 month long trainings at our first jobs. That's why no one wants to hire the new grad. If you think you know without having been there yet, you need to step back and re-examine where this confidence is coming from, because if it is anything other than personal experience, you may be dangerously over confident, which is scary. I'm not saying that as an insult, so please don't take it that way. We just have so, so much to learn and school can't realistically teach us everything.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Wow.... Really?? I'm also "just a lowly nursing student" so I'm hoping you can maybe not take this as a personal insult when I say this, but the comment you responded to was a very fair comment to make. Surely you can recognize the fact that as nursing students, we really DON'T know what it's like to be a licensed nurse yet. We are living in the bubble of academia with the safety net of our preceptors' and instructors' licenses to protect us. We are not the ones running codes or answering to angry family. Aside from a crappy grade (that no one will care about or remember 5 years from now), we are not held responsible when things aren't right. We get one shift with each patient. We aren't at risk for becoming overly involved or attached when a kid is terminally ill. We go home, write about it, then go to lecture the next day. No. We don't have a clue. And that's why we have the nurses who eat their young and the 6 month long trainings at our first jobs. That's why no one wants to hire the new grad. If you think you know without having been there yet, you need to step back and re-examine where this confidence is coming from, because if it is anything other than personal experience, you may be dangerously over confident, which is scary. I'm not saying that as an insult, so please don't take it that way. We just have so, so much to learn and school can't realistically teach us everything.[/quote']

This!

I am an LVN right now and I'm going back to school in January to pursue my RN. Working as a nurse is soo much more different than what they have taught me in school. I have soo much more respect to all the nurses that work because as a student then I didn't realize EVERYTHING that goes on in a workplace. Dealing my management, patients, family and even coworkers. But having seen this.. I have a whole new insight with the environment.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I am not speaking on how they do their jobs. I am speaking on the amount on negativity that is posted. That I as a student cannot form an opinion is crazy to me. No matter how many people respond to me, I will still hold my same stance. I read posts here often and I am generally quiet. I know from the threads on here I have read and the context what I took from that. No one will change that perspective. When I am talking on threads, I keep it in the context of what is being asked. This post asked about the negativity. I gave my opinion based on what I have read. I will never accept a persons dismal view of something because they have been in the field longer. I will accept their vast medical knowledge, because that is based on science and not personal experiences.

Personal experiences color or perceptions greatly. I come from a long line of peopler based in medicine so I have no fairy tale view of the profession.

This is my last reply cause my thumbs are not up for drawn out internet conflicts that will gain me nothing.

It is not am insult and I am unsure where you are reading confidence from in my posts.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Too many ADNs, not enough BSNs.

ADNs who heard there was a nursing shortage and charged in only to find employers want new BSN grads or several years of ADN experience.

Catty nurses who only wish to try to demoralize anyone who may one day compete with them for their job. (there were tons of these in my university's nursing program)

BSN grads unwilling to move to begin or advance their careers and being upset about it. (newsflash, you will most likely have to move if you live in a big city. If you've never had a job you WILL have to start small even with a BSN. This is just how the real world works and is true for every major of study)

Seriously, don't listen to those people. 1/3 of them are jaded, 1/3d are straight-up liars, and 1/3rd are just afraid of competition.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion