Newsflash: Med/Surg RN's have the toughest job

I agree!! Med/Surg nursing is not for the weak. You have to be smart in just about every area of the human body. I wish that Med/Surg nurses were able to get lower patient/nurse ratios. I think it would decrease the burn-out. I happen to love Med/Surg nursing. I just get frustrated that I don't have more time with the patients. I think that administration could save money in other areas instead of cutting nurses. There would be less falls, less mistakes, less lawsuits, less turn-around (which means less money being devoted into training new nurses), and it would just be good for the hospitals overall. I don't know about you, but if they want to treat a hospital like a business, then the administrators should want customer service to be exceptional. You want your "customers" coming back to your hospital. They have other choices. It's impossible to give the best service when you are running an hour behind on things because you are being pulled in so many directions. For example, I had a C Diff patient the other day. The CNA and I had to change the linens and clean the patient 4 times in 2 hours. I WILL NOT let somebody sit in feces. Instances like this can put you behind schedule and then they ask you, "why were you late on your meds?" SMH!!!!

This is so true! I worked in a hospital for 17 yrs on just about every unit; and I was a Nurse Manager on the Med/Surg unit the last few years of my career there. I believed in it and wanted it to be a good unit. BUT -- I could not keep staff... why?; because it was damn hard work and they would train on my unit and as soon as they could they would bid for a job on the other units. And admittedly - it was just too much on them working on the med surg; where you had everything from peds to hospice, oh and lets not forget a detox program. REALLY!? HC administrators -- who wouldn't want to leave this unit and work in another department where the work load was much less. It was brutal and when it came down to it, I couldn't blame them for leaving ... our floor was the toughest and half the time, someone called in or was pulled to another unit (due to mandates the other units HAD to staffed by so many). I hated to leave; but I couldn't do it to myself anymore either; started affecting my health and my life was run by it for far too long. I pray I never have to go back there!

Our nurse manager works hard to keep our staffing ratios down....usually 3-4, nights often goes to 5, rarely to 6 on an extremely busy night. There are a few of us who have been around on nights forever, and I think she bends over backwards for us. We definitely have the sweet Schedules, and every day I ask off, I get, no matter what (granted, I don't abuse this, but I've noticed I have never been told no, while others have). I think it's her way of keeping a core of experienced, strong nurses.I actually left med surg for a while, and then returned to my unit after six months on mother baby. I was so bored! I couldn't justify going to work every day and not feeling busy.

LOL try LTC with acute patients who just came from the hospital with tubes, drains, wound vacs, piccs, IVs, all kinds of crazy meds and wounds, psycho families, unreasonable demands and are totally demented. Fresh amputations, fresh CABGS, fresh craniotomies, etc. It's like med surg but with 10x as many patients and less than half the staff and supplies, no docs, and no help haha.

hahaha.......I work in a LTC facility.....its a mess. I have 16 pts with soooo many issues, its insane. And sometimes, they want you to work doubles....lol or complain you aint leaving on-time when you have to chart on all 16 pts...admissions...etc....

I plan to work medsurge for one yr though as my first hosp job

I could never regularly do med-surg.... I'd quit nursing

Yeap! I totally agree!!!! Please follows my topic and you would know why medsurg nurses should be appreciated for the hard works. We had to challenge both physical & mentally and very risky and easy to make mistake in the hurry and easy to be victim and trouble with Board. [h=1]How to find a job with RN license restriction warning with stiputation?[/h]From my own experience I received warning from BON while I was working in the general Medsurg 7-8 patients/nurse ratio with all kinds of dx. The confuse patients normally put your schedule behind because tried to keep them in bed safe. Then the administrative want to reduce fall ratio for patient satisfaction, but always under staff so could make money. The medsurg nurse always busy juggle all kind of things. It is the most hectic area to work.. I was intern at otho/neuro/trauma---then general medsurg totally almost over 4 years.

I have to agree! I have been a nurse 39 years. I worked med surg the first year out of school and could not do it today. I think I would have to leave nursing if that was my only option. My hat is off to those who do. It is a great learning experience, but not one I wish to re-live!

Could not agree more. Some ICU nurses I know look down on med surg nurses. I often remind them that they wouldn't last five min. dealing with 7-9 medsurg patients not hooked up to any monitors.

7-9 patient ratio seems kinda nice. I have to disagree with OP. I value all nurses, particularly the med-surg, but to agree with a previous post, LTC/retirement nurses get the quick discharges and their ratios are higher which leads to issues accomindating that admission. Nothing worse than not expecting someone and having to figure out a way to get Dr's orders, community assistance, and referals at 5pm on the drop of a dime:(

I'm an "old" RN. Not old in age years, but old in work years as I started young.

Recently I was displaced out of my specialty due to a layoff, and find myself back on the floor in a medical/oncology role.

I'm not sure I will survive! My work focus for many years has been... well, focused on a specific set of clinical interventions relative to my role, and I was damn good at it.

Even ICU was easier than this. Heck, ER was easier than this.

The coordinating of ever-expanding multidisciplinary teams, specialists, hospitalists, technology, the push to get the patient out the door from the moment they're admitted, and the complexity of today's med/surg patients is astounding.

God bless Med/Surg RN's.

Seriously.

I completely agree! Med-Surg is a very intense job and one that I admit, I am not cut out for. I will take 2 critically ill patients who are continually monitored in an ICU over 6 or 7 patients that I can't see and whose vitals are taken only Q4 or Q6 hours anytime.

Most of my clinical time was spent on med surg/ acute...so 3.5 years. During my last year, we worked full time, and we were expected to handle 4-5 heavy patients with minimal supervision. While the experience was invaluable, and I'm so glad I had it, I will probably never work med/ surg or acute care again. Kudos to all you med-surg/ acute care nurses :) It's a tough job.

I too landed on a med-surg floor. While I'm not up to full speed yet, I'm getting there. I wanted med-surg before I spring-boarded to another area just so I could have a really strong generalist foundation. I think I may just certify as a med-surg nurse because I can't think of a specialty that I would want to specialize in for fear of leaving something important out.

You know, I never did understand the push for every nurse to get that one year of med/surg under their belt before "specializing." I consider med/surg a specialty just like all those others out there. I knew it wasn't for me- I'd have burned out and left the profession before my magical one year was up. I'm glad I found a place willing to take new grads into other specialties. I love my 1:1 ratio and would never survive a 7:1 ratio (even if hospital policy says ratios should be 4:1 on days and 5-6:1 on nights- HA!).