why do nurses discourage nursing students?

LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN · Jan 8, 2015

Something is broken indeed. What scares me is what it will take to get it fixed.

Agree. :yes:

Hope it's not like solving the riddle of the sphinx. :blink:

WannaBNursey, ADN, ASN, RN · Jan 9, 2015

Even as a nursing student I worried about those who didn't have a real idea of what working in a hospital was like. I don't know how the students who struggled with only one patient in the past are faring with 7 patients now. Most schools do not prepare students for the real world. Even having been a CNA for 5 or 6 years prior to school, I found nursing truly overwhelming in my first couple months on my own. 7 months out I have the hang of juggling 7 or 8 patients with no issue.

That said, I've heard other nurses at work discourage CNA's from becoming nurses because "It takes too long" "You'll be wasting 2-4 years of your life, you can't get that back" "You have too many responsibilities" "The money isn't as good as you think". Even when helping a CNA sign up for a class another RN said "Why would you want to help her do that?!"

I was shocked by the negativity! Why would you work as a nurse for 20+ if it was that horrible? Why would you discourage people with medical experience who have been working as Aides for nearly half of their lives from becoming nurses? I truly don't get it. :no:

RNKX · Jan 9, 2015

Wish my professors would have warned me about the harsh realities and problems nurses have to put up with

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jan 9, 2015

This is not based on any thread I've read on allnurses but on other other forums like indeed and not really just one post I've read in particular, but over the years I've read many that discourage nursing students..
For example, it seems like a lot of nurses and nursing professors say many if not most students don't really want to be nurses or think that it's hard work, then they go on to say that nursing ruins your back and feet, you deal with the messy stuff, you're underpaid, overworked, under appreciated, wreck havoc on your body because of the erratic work hours, etc. I pretty much assume nursing students know all that too.
What do you guys think about this topic? I guess I will feel differently after I had experience but right now I feel like encouraging and building up nursing students, not trying to tear them down or paint the worst picture possible of this profession.

Some of those threads that discourage students aren't about or directed towards students at all. They're threads where real nurses vent to their peers because no one else but a nurse really "gets it." Then you get a few students jumping on the thread and complaining about how "you've made me question my DREEEAAAAAMMMM!" or "If you hate it so much, find a new career." Truly, it's not about students. If students read it and begin to get a glimmer of what a real nursing job is all about, it's probably a good thing. Know what you're getting into.

However not all nurses feel that we're overworked and underpaid, or underappreciated (except by those danged 24/7 visitors we have to deal with these days and the idiots who invented Press-Gainey). Nursing does wreak havoc on your body -- but so does a desk job, police work, a military career, construction work, painting houses or standing for hours giving lectures and holding your bladder until the bell rings for the next class. In fact, just getting old wreaks havoc on your body.

You can look at the schedule as "erratic" or you can see it as "flexible." You can see the responsibility as back breaking or you can see it as challenging. You can look at the glass as half-empty or you can see it as half full. That's all up to you. It doesn't matter how many Negative Nancys come on this forum and complain -- as an adult, you should know that people are always more vocal about complaining than they are about praising. If the complaining and "discouragement" bother you, you have the choice to find a more congenial forum or to overlook those threads. But most of the "discouragement" on this forum -- I don't know about the others you've read -- have very little to do about painting a negative picture of our profession or actively discouraging students.

happyinmyheart · Jan 9, 2015

I think that even if students don't see it at first.... They find out once they get a job. Sometimes you just have to step in your own potholes

blackribbon · Jan 9, 2015

I am a new nurse with 6 months of hospital med/surg under my belt. I both love my job and hate it. I hate that every single mistake I make could literally harm someone or even kill them. There is no "this isn't fair" because you have a responsibility to care for your patients...doesn't matter if your tech doesn't show up or your floor is short staff and your responsibilities double. My second shift this week involved finding out that the pyxis still was malfuntioning and we had to print a request and send it off the floor for every medication we needed. Not so bad for the scheduled meds but all but one of my patients were in pain and the time it took to get a pain medication after it was requested was very frustrating. Then the patient that should have been the least needing of nursing went ballistic and was trying to leave the hospital still attached to his IV pole...turns out that he was schizophrenic and forgot to give us that portion of his medical history when he entered the hospital. I spent two hours settling him back in because he trusted me since I had been his nurse the previous night...but he was still always on the edge of flipping out (thank goodness that I have also been trained as a float psych nurse). Although I kept doing brief checks on my other patients, I feel like I neglected several people who really did deserve more care than I was humanly able to give them. I barely finished my charting and did my last blood draw after the morning shift showed up. I was so tired my hand physically was shaking as I held the needle and I was so grateful that my patient wasn't watching. I can think of no other profession that can leave a person so mentally and physically exhausted at the end of shift and yet each patient deserves a smile and a caring attitude regardless of how we feel. The pay is good but not good enough to compensate for the stress of the job. I think you have to be a nurse because it is a calling and not just a career choice.

Lady_B2006 · Jan 9, 2015

I'm a current nursing student, and while I haven't heard any type of discouragement from the nurses at our clinical site, I was asked if the program was "easy" from a potential student. What I told her seemed like I was trying to discourage her from going into the field, but it really just was a dose of reality. None of us were ready for the amount of work and how time consuming the program really was going to be. This was also probably the easiest semester that we will face with only 9 hrs of class time. I honestly believe that any person considering the program really and truly needs to be told what it really entails and the sacrifices that they will have to make As a wife, and mother of two, it was hell on wheels and the only thing that gets you through the missed kids school functions and just not being there enough, is that you're doing it for them.

Personally, I welcome the truth when it comes to how and what it really means to be a nurse and the amount of knowledge you need!

scaredsilly, BSN, RN · Jan 9, 2015

I am a new grad of a 4 year program that I started right after high school, so my input is reflective of very recent trends.

When I was filling out college applications and trying to decide between nursing and teaching, I went to career fares, spoke to colleges and did everything research-wise that I could except for talking to nurses. In a way that was a mistake.

I need to say I LOVE being a nurse, but I was not prepared for:

The grueling school schedule

The mind numbing exams all the way through school that required more studying than I thought any human was capable of

The soul destroying NCLEX

The terrible feeling you get when a patient has a bad outcome

The fact that there really is NO nursing shortage and new grad jobs are terribly difficult to get

The pay is about 20k a year less than what the schools and the national surveys say is average for my area of the country

Nursing school leaves you under-prepared and once in the real world the stress and fear is horrific for the first year (at least) as a nurse

No one tells you that stuff! As much as I love what I do, if I had knows that it would take me 3 months to get a job and then make only about 70% of what I expected, I may or may not have gone in a different direction, but if not I would have prepared myself better financially before I started.

SO the short answer is that nurses and professors are telling you like it is so that only those who are truly dedicated to the profession will progress. Unfortunately these are things that should have been mentioned by college recruiters before we commit to the program. I am pretty sure that nursing is in my blood and I would have still become a nurse, but I think I would have re-thought working through school (or before school) so that once I graduated I wouldn't have been in financial trouble while trying to get hired.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Jan 9, 2015

SO the short answer is that nurses and professors are telling you like it is so that only those who are truly dedicated to the profession will progress. Unfortunately these are things that should have been mentioned by college recruiters before we commit to the program.

Of course, the short answer to THAT is that college recruiters earn their pay by getting you enrolled.....NOT by "telling it like it is in the real world" (which is why there are so many disillusioned students ). it is the job of the recruiter to get paying students/customers into the program; the prospective 'customer' needs to remember one phrase: Caveat Emptor!

scaredsilly, BSN, RN · Jan 9, 2015

Of course, the short answer to THAT is that college recruiters earn their pay by getting you enrolled.....NOT by "telling it like it is in the real world" (which is why there are so many disillusioned students ). it is the job of the recruiter to get paying students/customers into the program; the prospective 'customer' needs to remember one phrase: Caveat Emptor!

Of course you are correct, but that doesn't make it any easier once you are fully committed to the program. A huge problem in our field is that (at least at the schools I am aware of) once you start your pre-reqs, if you want to switch from nursing to something else you have totally different core classes you have to take, so it's like starting all over again. A couple of my classmates that failed out of anatomy in the 4th semester of pre-reqs ended up starting all over again to go into a different field. It's like they snare you in a trap you can't easily escape from.

I doubt that any of us (if given a vote) would be in the least bit hesitant to mandate that school recruiters tell the truth to the poor uninformed students.

Caveat Emptor indeed! Unfortunately for the 17 year old hs grad who has no reason (yet) not to trust what their college recruiter says, it's kind of hard to beware! I wish my parents had been more proactive in insisting I research, but they had no idea either. When I have kids and they are ready for higher education, you better believe I will remember the lessons I learned!!

Funny thing is-right after I posted this morning I got an email from a former instructor looking for new grads to come talk to seniors who are about to start practicum about the job market in this area. Ummm...really? Too little too late in my opinion!!

Iknowwha2du · Jan 9, 2015

When you are in school you will not see the real picture. When you start working reality will knock you over and only the love of the job will keep you coming back.

**emergenceRN17, ASN, BSN, RN** · Jan 9, 2015

H233: I just finished first semester and have had the same reaction. Some tell me to run now! =(