i was just on another nursing message board, my first time there and the first post i read is this really negative view of nursing ( i attatched it at the bottom in red). warning us students to reconsider. i don't know about all of you student nurses but it really gets my goat because here i am getting excited about going into this profession and i feel a lot of people try to burst your bubble and to tell you the truth all of these negatives about nursing is really bothering me. some people can make you feel as if you're actually stepping into the pits of hell. :angryfire i understand some people are just bitter, maybe the job wasn't for them. whatever the reason, it does scare me....a lot. i have worked as a na in a nursing home. i know that this is some hard sh*it! but dang, is it really that bad? by the way, i really did not like that job because no one would help me, plus i didn't like to cry on a daily basis because i was uneducated and left on my own. i am a much too happy person for that kind of misery. i have been in many unfullfilling careers and one of the reasons i wanted to be a nurse was the teamwork and the professionalism of it. i'm starting to find out there isn't a lot of professionalism involved and a lot of bitter people. is this true? anyone else agitated and scared like me? maybe i'll feel better tomorrow. sigh.
p.s. i've been informed copying and pasting a post is "socially incorrect", so to speak. sorry for that, so here is the link incase needed. :)
Thank you for clarifying. I had a feeling that you were one of the greats! I have always enjoyeds your posts and you point of view.
Larry
Right back at ya Larry! We have such a great group here at Allnurses don't we? I feel almost like we are family...and some days I come here to pizz and moan, other days to share my happiness and deepest feelings...and I always get honest responses (even if its a kick in the butt...hehe.) :imbar :chuckle
I have 2 more cents to give: I'm still a young student, but still have a couple of years experience in different medical settings. I agree that everyone has the right to vent, but there are ways to do that, and share the ups and downs, without going way too far off the deep end on the student nursing board.
I agree with one of the other posters about the management. They have experience as nurses, but not much business practice, and are quite capable of turning a place upside down as a new manager.
I agree 100% that it has to do with your attitude, your love for nursing, where you work and who your boss is that matters. Happy studying.
I just noticed this thread is in the Student Forum...I inadvertently pull up the 'posts in the last 24 hrs' and failed to note (til now) I was not in the Nurses' Forum!
So...I apologize for any unintentional diatribes to students that made them uneasy or discouraged them. Perhaps the post from the OP's story was also unintentional and she thought she was in the general forum.
I agree this is not the appropriate place for such venting...silly me... I will make sure and note where I am at before I post from now on...guess I'm a bit confused with the new features here. :imbar
mattsmom...I don't think you said anything inappropriate and I am a student. I wouldn't worry about it. As I said before, as long as it's not crazy venting stuff in the student forum, I think it is good to read....I like to see both sides and really want to know what I am getting myself into. I also pay close attention to the good posts about nursing.
If any of this didn't make sense, I blame it on the cold medicine and will try to clarify later.....
I an LPN and some of those comments I have felt myself(all the bad stuff!) but guess what?, I LOVE TAKING OF PEOPLE!, sure I get frustrated, we all do and yes all the paperwork sucks and the politics of nursing and the attitudes from PTs and nurses and docs and so on...but when I have a Pt who is full of cancer and does not have much time left on this earth tell me when she finds out I be off the next 3 days that she loves me and how will she get good care now and hugs me...to me that is immeasurable! yeah you gotta get thick skinned and let alot roll off your back and sometimes you need to put people in their place, but believe me we are appreciated by the most important people....our sick pts!, maybe not by all! LOL but most do.
PLEASE LISTEN TO ME>>>> ONLY BECOME A NURSE IF YOU TRULLY CARE ABOUT PEOPLE, HAVE COMPASSION AND NOT FOR THE MONEY.....
It is really a beautiful and wonderful profession if you allow it to touch your soul!
Melinda Lee
"I'd rather have 15 minutes of something wonderful than a lifetime of nothing
I read the 'post in red' and I'm glad that the poster found her true calling and left the nursing profession. Can you imagine being a sick patient in a hospital with such a bitter, nasty person to take care of you? I'm still just a BSN student, but my feeling is that nursing is still a great career---but its not a career for everyone.
I have a degree in business and worked as a manager for years before deciding to switch to nursing. I used to hear many discouraging stories about nursing just like the one in that post, but since I started my clinicals I haven't seen much of it except from a few nurses who like to gossip, complain about everything, and set themselves up in an adversarial position with management and the MDs. No workplace situation is perfect and there's catty people everywhere. My advice to the poster is that if you're a negative person who sees only the bad in everything around you you're going to have problems, no matter what career you choose. She mistakenly believes that a career in the corporate world is better. My question to her is: better than what? From my experience in the corporate world, the higher up you go the more politics and backstabbing you'll run into, and if you're not willing to play ball with the 'powers that be' you'll never get anywhere. But, as they say, "the grass is always greener..."
Nursing is what people make of it. If there is one thing I have learned from reading this thread there are some people who love it and some people who hate it. You have to know when you go into nursing that it isn't a piece of cake. Sometimes you end up cleaning up a bunch of poop and you are responsible for a whole lot. You'll have good and you'll have bad.
I just don't think it is right for someone to post on a student nurse message board such a negative comment. Many of us are passionate about nursing and are optomistic about the profession. It is one thing to try and let us know that nursing isn't always going to be rewarding but the manner in which it was delivered was very poor and not very constructive. I have worked many jobs, not in nursing but within the healthcare realm that people have hated but I have loved. It just amazes me how character and outlook can make all the difference regardless of what career you pursue.
So thank you to the nurses that have posted positive comments, and thank you to those who post the not so positive comments as long as they are posted in a manner which we can learn from not one which will disgusts us.
That being said I also know of students that seem to think that they will never have to clean up poop in their career. They have just "fallen" into nursing. It wasn't really their 1st "choice." They seem to think that they will walk out of school into an admin job. Yeah, right. Let me tell you. If you do not like your clinical rotations, not that they are hard, or that you are scared, because that is normal but if you DISLIKE what you are doing in school, it is not going to change in your nursing career. Drop out now. You don't know how many times I have heard "well it will be different when I am an actually nurse." Please...
I think it's also human nature to be "negative." Just look at the news. When's the last time any news organization led off with the headline: "In other news today, everything went well and things were going fine ... " I mean, there are a few positive stories, but the vast majority is "negative" because that's what people watch.
When things are going well, people don't talk about that as much as they talk about things going wrong ... probably because things going wrong is also more unusual and/or more noteworthy than things going right.
I think we sometimes need to put some perspective on "negativity" and take it seriously but, at the same time, also take it with a grain of salt, so to speak.
Tweety, BSN, RN
36,318 Posts
From one grizzled old nurse to another I humbly thank you.