Nursing easy or difficult

I share your experience and opinion.

I started college as a chemistry major. I had little interest in chemistry, but it came easy to me in high school, and I had 2 older siblings studying it, so it seemed reasonable to give it a try. (I had wanted to be a nurse, but my H.S. counselor threw a fit and informed me it would be a waste of my intelligence.) My first semester of college chemistry was so mind-numbingly boring that I knew I couldn't stay with it. I applied to a nursing program, dropped my chem classes for the next semester and took A&P instead. I was instantly hooked. My studies fascinated me. I couldn't wait to get into actual nursing classes.

I found nursing school to be a breeze. Everything we learned was interesting to me, came easy and made sense. I was nervous in clinicals, but so fascinated by contact with patients that the time flew by.

I found my niche immediately out of school (NICU) and eventually added OB and peds to my experience. I have loved virtually every moment of patient care and education. My dislikes and frustrations with my jobs have been related to personnel and policy issues, not patient care, which fortunately has always come naturally to me.

Hubby and I have moved a number of times, giving me the opportunity to work in hospitals ranging from less than 100 to more than 1000 beds in size, urban, rural, inner-city to affluent areas, doing staff, transport, education and management.

I feel blessed to have had such a rewarding and challenging career.

Sometimes I feel like I am running around doing 100 things at once, but it's not HARD stuff. It's just a lot of things to get done and to also spend time with the parents/baby.

I'm not a nurse yet but I would like to chip in:

I'm currently pursuing my BSN which is my second degree (first degree Bs Biochemistry) and I find Nursing school challenging but not overwhelming. I remember going through a rough time in the pharmaceutical industry because of the isolation in the labs. I think it's all relative to your personality and ability to adjust. If your able to thrive off the adrenaline/stress and interactions with your patients you'll have an easier time. During clinicals I've seen many nurses (and students) have difficult times dealing with confrontatons and on the job stress (God-complex Doctors/Residents) because they unconsiously feed into these negative interactions.

I work in a Detention Center while attending Nursing School full time (14-17 cr/semester), and I handle my share of stress. Nursing school/clinicals are the less stressful parts of my day:D.

Just my 2

It's busy and stressful at times, but after 17 years, I'm not finding it "difficult". However, I wouldn't say it's "easy" either.

I've stayed put for the last 16 years in the same facility. I've learned a lot. Obtained a BSN. Held jobs in different specialities within the same facility.

I've taken vacations to fun places like Mexico, North Carolina and Thailand. I own a nice middle class 3-bedroom home, and my car is paid for.

Nursing has been very good to me.

To me depends on where and when you work. Some days can be awfully taxing and brutal where there's no rest for the weary. And I especially hate having a near code patient toward a day like that...just makes you want to go and drink tequila instead. And I don't drink! LOL

The schooling was pretty easy - just a lot of volume. The actual job itself is fairly redundant and easy. To me, the difficult part is adjusting to the 12 hour shifts. That is by far the most difficult thing to me.

I don't like the word "easy" when it comes down to "nursing". What's so easy about it? Maybe passing medications, making beds, starting iv's, become quite "routinish" but easy, not really. Nothing is easy about taking care of someone else's life and loved one, watching pt's come in talking to you and then shortly after passing away after doing all you could for that patient. Nothing is easy about working short staffed, critical thinking continuously for 12 long hours, charting, adrenaline rush when things go bad, families asking you thousands of questions, some you may not know, doctors treating you like crap when you call their home or wake them up at 2am, not being able to use the bathroom for hours because you got two pt's cashing at the same time, not being able to eat lunch or dinner, finally after an hour of you trying, a coworker, then an IV nurse starting an IV, your pt manages to Mistankenly pull out the only IV!! Nothing is easy about nursing, only routine just like any other job would be. But things change very often and at times I have to look up diagnosis and medications I or any other nurse has never heard of. If nursing was so easy, why is it so hard or challenging in school? I don't think I would want a nurse to take care of me with that "Oh nursing is easy" attitude, because he or she may be too laid back, overly confident, or too sure of themselves and miss something:down: Nope, in my opinion, not easy at all.

I do most of the above mentioned activities in the back of a moving vehicle, along the side of a road, or in a dark dirty smelly bedroom. So it sounds pretty "easy" to me :wink: 12 hours sounds pretty good too. the hard part seems to be getting thru nursing school. :) i doubt that any us on here are complacent in our jobs , if we were we would be on the american idol web page right now.

It's as difficult as you make it. Some situations require a LOT of analytical thinking while other situations need a healthy dose of KISS (maybe sometimes even the SWAG method)... but then again I'm only an LPN student and don't speak from experience.

Honestly I understand your points but to me I have never found any of those challenges difficult and have just met them with my usual positive attitude. I am very dedicated, informed, caring, a pts advocat and if you ask my pts they find me a very happy smiling nurse-often commented on I must add.

Last week we discussed this at work and it was 50/50 some found it a breeze and others very stressful and difficult.

PS I am talking about 'nursing' not management and doctors maybe I didnt make that clear.

I understand what you meant by the word "nursing". I only mentioned doctors once in my statement. Everything else is nursing. I feel the word "NURSING" is very broad. Nursing is mny different things in our job aspect. And I'm not trying to call out your charater in nursing, or judge you as being a bad nurse because you find your job easy, not at all. I am happy for you if that's how you feel. I think if many of us nurses felt this way then many nurses would not have left the profession. I believe this has a lot to do with the shortage anyway. Many "tasks" that I do on the unit are "easy", but those are task, not nursing.