My spirit is broken.....

[fairy-mary]

Up until this semester, I knew I wanted to be a nurse. I received a coveted student position at a hospital that allows me to practice skills outside of clinicals. I make excellent grades, dean's and president's list. I still love the idea of nursing but this semester has broken my heart. I have expeirenced some of the meanest, most callous nurses imaginable and I am in the maternal child semester. I thought this was supposed to be the warm semester. I also have nurses at work running to higher ups making outrageous accusations against me. Is this what I am to expect the rest of my life? My clinicals have been in county hospitals so maybe this is a limited experience. If these were isolated incidences, I wouldn't think much of this but every single clinical is daunting. I am considering medical school because at least there if I shut off my emotions, everyone will attribute it to being a prospective doctor.

I need some hope because I am in tears everyday thinking this is what I have to expect the rest of my life.

[cndn_grl08]

Unfortunately, there are nurses out there who are like this. I am the kind of person who takes EVERYTHING seriously, and often come home crying as well. However, I keep telling myself that if they treat me like this, how do they treat their patients? And would I be okay with knowing patients are being treated like this and nothing is being done about it? At the end of the day, you need to tell yourself that they have their problems (you don't know what they are going through outside of work) and that you can't let them become your problems as well. Your job is to take care of those patients. If you quit, and if everyone in our situations quit, there would be no "nice" nurses out there for our patients. That's what's gotten me through some hard times. And like some people have said, this is life. If you quit, and get a career in another field, you will likely experience the same thing. You just have to learn, over time, to not let it affect you like that. That may involve going to a counsellor, starting a journal, talking to a friend, whatever it would take for you. Hope this helps. It'd be a shame for you to quit because of them, if this is what you want to do.