Misconceptions/truths about specialities

Nurses General Nursing

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Its night shift and this is where my brain is going. Just some fun at 3AM...

What are some common misconceptions and/or truths about your specialty, or that you have about other specialties?

For example, people often think in the NICU we just hold, cuddle and feed babies all day. Maybe in a level 2 unit, but many of our babies are so small, fragile or sick that we don't even touch them unless absolutely necessary. Also, I think there is a thought that NICU nurses are all sugar, spice and everything nice....when in reality NICU nurses have some of the darkest humor I've seen and are savage as hell LOL

Specializes in Critical Care.

Mother baby : all you do is hold and rock babies all day. I mean it was a relatively easy specialty clinically but dang it was busy with all those moms calling at every second!

Specializes in Operating room, ER, Home Health.

OR nurses gophers and internet shoppers. When we do are job correctly and everything goes correctly we don't have to be gophers and can surf the web all case. Would be nice if this was the truth everyday but it depends on the case and the service.

Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.

Psych nursing is easy!

hahahahahha!

Truth: As another said, we still deal with health issues they also have, but do not have the back up, knowledgable support staff to assist with monitoring for those issues, and very uncooperative patients who are unable to be compliant with their plans of care. It’s NOT EASY, and it IS DANGEROUS a lot of the time. When you have a patient who becomes violent injuring staff and other patients, all you can do is pray sometimes.

I could go on.....

On 7/5/2020 at 12:01 PM, BeenThere2012 said:

Psych nursing is easy!

hahahahahha!

Truth: As another said, we still deal with health issues they also have, but do not have the back up, knowledgable support staff to assist with monitoring for those issues, and very uncooperative patients who are unable to be compliant with their plans of care. It’s NOT EASY, and it IS DANGEROUS a lot of the time. When you have a patient who becomes violent injuring staff and other patients, all you can do is pray sometimes.

I could go on.....

Yech..

Having to do physical holds on two patients before you even finish getting report.. ?

Doc, are you absolutely suuuuure we shouldn’t transfer out this chf patient with lungs so wet I can hear the bubbling from five feet away?

psych is so easy..

1 Votes
Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.
22 hours ago, rzyzzy said:

Yech..

Having to do physical holds on two patients before you even finish getting report.. ?

Doc, are you absolutely suuuuure we shouldn’t transfer out this chf patient with lungs so wet I can hear the bubbling from five feet away?

psych is so easy..

oh my God, yes! What you said...Then you have patients with physical issues who shouldn’t have been admitted to your unit to begin with and you have no means to care for their issue! That’s always fun!

On 6/17/2020 at 5:50 AM, Wuzzie said:

Ambulatory nurses are just nurses who couldn't cut it on the floor.?

I have floated to ambulatory from a floor and anyone who thinks that is nuts! Ambulatory is busy busy busy, pretty much like the floor, in my experience!

2 Votes
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Here's a couple: Nurse managers and directors have forgotten all about what floor nursing is like and all they care about is money. Little do people know what really goes on in the office, and sometimes the DNS must work the floor because someone called in and they're already short-staffed.

Then, of course, Med/Surg nurses are the poor stepchildren of the hospital, looked down upon by all the other units as lowly know-nothings. This is patently false, as every M/S nurse past or present knows. A good M/S nurse knows a lot about a lot of things!

2 Votes
Specializes in Dialysis.
4 hours ago, VivaLasViejas said:

Here's a couple: Nurse managers and directors have forgotten all about what floor nursing is like and all they care about is money. Little do people know what really goes on in the office, and sometimes the DNS must work the floor because someone called in and they're already short-staffed.

Then, of course, Med/Surg nurses are the poor stepchildren of the hospital, looked down upon by all the other units as lowly know-nothings. This is patently false, as every M/S nurse past or present knows. A good M/S nurse knows a lot about a lot of things!

I'll 100% agree with M/S nursing, they rock and are seldom acknowledged in a positive light.

50% on management. I've met other DON's at meetings that have flat out stated they wouldn't take a cart/work the floor, etc, floor staff would have to figure it out themselves ? they told those of us that did it that we were just encouraging absences because staff knew someone would cover. Upper management usually agreed with that. It made me sick

I've also seen admin cut beyond the bone and laugh about it in meetings. All so that they could keep their bonuses.

Not saying it's true everywhere, but its more prevalent than people care to acknowledge

1 Votes
Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
On 7/12/2020 at 7:08 AM, Hoosier_RN said:

I'll 100% agree with M/S nursing, they rock and are seldom acknowledged in a positive light.

50% on management. I've met other DON's at meetings that have flat out stated they wouldn't take a cart/work the floor, etc, floor staff would have to figure it out themselves ? they told those of us that did it that we were just encouraging absences because staff knew someone would cover. Upper management usually agreed with that. It made me sick

I've also seen admin cut beyond the bone and laugh about it in meetings. All so that they could keep their bonuses.

Not saying it's true everywhere, but its more prevalent than people care to acknowledge

I agree with you on the management outlook. I've covered for a couple of different unit managers over the years. The first 15 minutes or so of morning meeting was nothing but complaining/gossip about whatever manager wasn't there followed by going over any and all daily concerns and trying to figure out a way to shift blame for whatever the problem is onto nurses and CNA's instead of looking for a solution.

This was followed by the budget portion which always started with how close to or over budget the facility is, caused of course by overtime and supplies. The overtime is invariably caused by mandated employees who had no choice but to stay and the supplies are never overstocked in a LTC facility as it is. So let's fix this by cutting hours and ordering less. While not a daily occurrence there were several times management bonuses and the reduction of same if we didn't manage to make budget were mentioned.

This meeting was generally at least an hour and half, sometimes much longer. Oh, and every day all the management team during one of the endless meetings ordered breakfast or lunch and charged it to the facility credit card. So apparently the facility budget includes daily meals for management while floor staff has to skimp on the briefs we were always running out of for the incontinent residents.

The whole process turned me off so much I determined years ago I had zero interest in a management job.

2 Votes

misconception: psych nursing is easy, "I'm transferring to the psych floor."

post-misconception reality: "psych nursing is stressful, and I don't really have a passion for it anyway so I'm transferring out of psych, but now I want to go to grad school for psych NP because I heard you can easily find a job and they get paid more."

Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.
36 minutes ago, oystersinmay said:

misconception: psych nursing is easy, "I'm transferring to the psych floor."

post-misconception reality: "psych nursing is stressful, and I don't really have a passion for it anyway so I'm transferring out of psych, but now I want to go to grad school for psych NP because I heard you can easily find a job and they get paid more."

And then you receive the patient on your psych unit and see that their medical problems are NOT stable yet.

There are 2 kinds of “stable”....They are safe to be discharged home assuming they are thinking clearly or have someone to make sure they continue to recover. Then there’s the “safe enough” to be on a psych unit. The nurses do not have the staff or means to care for their medical issues. Often, the second is not what we get. And I’m talking about our hospital which isn’t connected to a medical facility. So transferring them back out is a lengthy ordeal where the person is at risk in the mean time.

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