Nursing in Australia

[TerritoryNurse]

Would I recommend nursing as a career? Hard to say. You can't go in with rose-tinted glasses and think you are going to soothe the fevered brow, thats for sure. Stressors include:

1. increased violence in the workplace - to the point where one state in Australia is considering giving health professionals a similar form of protection as police. Certainly the verbal abuse received from patients is often hard to cope with.

2. decreased staffing - the hospital I work in staffs appropriately but I have done agency at some other hospitals where I can only say that the skills mix and the staff-patient ratio is ludicrous.

3. poorly paid - in comparison to other professions who take much less responsibility.

4. sometimes nurses can be their own worst enemies - under the stress that we suffer we may sometimes not support our own when they really may require it.

This must sound really bitter but it is some of the things I have experienced in eleven years of nursing. However to counteract it I have to say that there is nothing like nursing, the involvement with people, the satisfaction and surprise when someone improves when you really don't expect them to. I love sitting down and talking to some of my clients about their background, as Im very interested in both history and culture and there is a lot to be learned particularly from the older people.

So do I recommend nursing a career? Open your eyes, be as prepared as you can be before getting your feet wet, because - yes I do. I think nursing gives one, amongst other things, a much more balanced view of life.