why do nurses discourage nursing students?

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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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.

You as an individual need to figure out if you have the stamina, Direwolf.

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I find it extremely irritating when people tell me I've (as a nursing student) signed on for a life of back and feet problems and varicose veins and all that physical stuff as well as the thanklessness. I have friends with equally strenuous and more strenuous jobs. It's not like nursing is the most physically demanding profession in the world and if I stayed at my current waitressing job or even a nicer one that pays more I'd still be on my feet for 8-14 hour shifts every day lifting heavy things and running all over the place and the same problems would apply but I would be making less money. Plenty of jobs are more hazardous and require equal or more heavy lifting/physical labor, so why do people talk about nursing like it's literally the worst possible choice?

pro's:

-its indoors with air conditioning

-it pays well compared to other jobs that are as physically demanding

-nurses are needed literally everywhere. you can move around and even literally get paid to move around as a traveling nurse

-you basically wear pajamas to work. scrubs compared to my server's uniform are a dream

-you have the satisfaction of knowing that you do something that helps people out at a time in their lives when they're vulnerable, and if they don't thank you for it you're there because someone is paying you money not rainbows and warm fuzzies so stop whining.

I guess I don't understand why that's anyone's first comment when they hear I'm a nursing student and generally it does come from nurses/other medical personnel. This future career is new and shiny and exciting to me and while it might not stay that way forever people who delight in raining on my parade must be pretty miserable people.

"Oh you work construction? You must have a ruined back and feet and possibly brain damage."

"Oh you're a lawyer? Your soul must be a shriveled husk."

"Oh you're a teacher? You must cry yourself to sleep at night due to the thanklessness and lack of appreciation you receive for your daily effort that I see not as noble but as naive."

This isn't an acceptable way to speak to people about other chosen professions so it shouldn't be so commonplace for this one.

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I was encouraged to go into nursing by a few nurses I know "in real life". Some are long-time nurses. I also read some of the threads on Indeed and although it was disheartening, I also know people tend to go online to "vent", not to sing praises.

I am married, almost 34 and have 3 kids. I go to school with people mostly in their early twenties, and I have heard a few of them say they are going into nursing because it is "the most pay for the least amount of school." I have a feeling they will be the ones who don't make it through schooling. Then there are many, many others who are motivated and intelligent students and I believe (with what little I know about it!) they will make excellent nurses.

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Specializes in PCT.

There is a nurse on my job who told me a phrase which seems to be true. She said that Nurses eat their young. I didn't understand what she was saying but she said that the older, more experienced nurses tend to discourage the younger nurses from succeeding. I would just use this as motivation to prove them wrong! :)

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
There is a nurse on my job who told me a phrase which seems to be true. She said that Nurses eat their young. I didn't understand what she was saying but she said that the older, more experienced nurses tend to discourage the younger nurses from succeeding. I would just use this as motivation to prove them wrong! :)

Oh boy, here we go...NETY alert! FYI, more experienced nurses do not as a rule discourage newer nurses from succeeding. We just want to see newer nurses practice safely, and by the way, age has NOTHING to do with it!

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
There is a nurse on my job who told me a phrase which seems to be true. She said that Nurses eat their young. I didn't understand what she was saying but she said that the older, more experienced nurses tend to discourage the younger nurses from succeeding. I would just use this as motivation to prove them wrong! :)

Seriously? NETY? Older, more experienced nurses don't tend to discourage younger nurses from succeeding -- we want them to succeed. We do, however, try to discourage them from (bad word meaning "to strike or penetrate")ing up. And some younger nurses, rather than learn, cry "NETY! NETY!" Please be one of the ones who learns.

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Specializes in Emergency.

Simple...misery loves company! You could pick any topic-throw in some miserable humans-and the results are usually the same...

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Sorry, I didn't have time to keep up with this thread, but enjoyed reading everyone's takes on this subject when I got the chance to now. I think everyone has truth from their own experiences and POV. :)

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Specializes in PCT.

Yeah that's what I was trying to get at...This particular nurse that I heard the phrase from, she is one of those she wants me to succeed but she has been in nursing for close to 20 years now and I just wondered if what she was saying had any truth to it. I'm always learning things from her and from the things i see nurses do on the floor while being a patient care tech at a hospital.

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Specializes in PCT.
Oh boy, here we go...NETY alert! FYI, more experienced nurses do not as a rule discourage newer nurses from succeeding. We just want to see newer nurses practice safely, and by the way, age has NOTHING to do with it!

Oh okay. Just figured out what NETY meant! lol But I do understand where you're coming from. I just never quite understood what the phrase meant until I had an encounter with a nurse which made her bring it up.

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Specializes in Prior military RN/current ICU RN..

"seems like" is the key part of your post. What makes it "seem" this way?

Here is the thing. Work hard. Pay attention. When a nurse is talking to you listen. You do that and majority of nurses will help you. Be late to clinical..don't pay attention...and yeah..they are going to tell you to go away and not help. This is the real world.

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I see this a lot, and it can GET discouraging because I know a lot of students go into nursing thinking it's some magical world where you wear pajamas and make bank. What I wish I saw more of was some insight from nurses of how to get a job straight out of school. I'm already trying to work on that over on my side but if there really is no shortage, then why not suggest things we can do as undergrads to help our chances after graduation?

I also try not to pay too much attention to people warning about what a shock the reality of being a nurse is, because I don't feel I'm in that category of students who think there are rainbows and daisies waiting for me after nursing school.

It's sort of difficult saying that some people shouldn't go into nursing because we live in a time and place where people have the freedom to choose their career, even if it takes them 4 tries on the HESI to get accepted. Still, I can understand where those comments come from. They're professionals working in the business of life and death, and although I think it benefits the healthcare field to have a variety of people, maybe it takes certain types of people to make excellent nurses, and those people do not include the students who watch Grey's Anatomy and think that's what working in a hospital is like.

I don't know, I'm still a semester away from applying to nursing school so I really have zero insight, besides the mothers of my friends who are hospital nurses. It is a little scary though, reading through all these threads talking about how difficult the job is. No job worth doing is easy, you've got to take the good with the bad I think.

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