I've looked on the boards here before, but never posted. I have somewhat of a dilemma. I'm 22 years old and just started my first semester of Nursing School at my local CC (ADN program). I have ALWAYS thought I wanted to go into Nursing. Originally when I graduated High School, I took pre-req's for nursing, but then switched to teaching. Found out that wasn't for me after a few intro classes, so I spent the last year finishing the pre-reqs for nursing. I was accepted into Nursing school and started this August. Problem is, I don't really like it all that much. I got my CNA 4 years ago and work at an Assisted Living Facility (but basically it's a nursing home). I hate to say it, but I HATE wiping butts & showering people. Mainly I pass meds there, even though I recently found out my facility shouldn't have me do this (they allow all CNA's there to pass meds, as we only have 1 RN for the 150 bed facility). Since starting school, I've had clinicals on a Rehab unit. For now, we really haven't done much..all we're signed off on is vital signs & changing beds & stuff. Long story short--I've been told RN's don't do much of the sh** work anymore, but I feel like that's all I do in school. Everyone says I'm a caring person & would be great for nursing, but I KNOW bedside nursing isn't my thing. I thought things would be different as an RN--more meds & procedures than bedside nursing.
While going into Nursing , I've always known Med-Surg and LTC wouldn't be my thing. I would love to work on a Peds unit or in OB...I think. Basically, I'm doubting everything now. Are those specialities more bedside nursing? I'm trying to find places that allow students to shadow, but I'm having a hard time. I've also been looking into possible just sucking it up & finishing my RN, but while I'm in school finish up all the pre-reqs that I would need to enter possibly Pharmacy school. (I'm also looking at taking a pharm tech program on weekends next semester to get more experience and see if I would like that better.). Basically, I love learning about medications & such, but don't really have what it takes to change beds & give baths all day. I've also thought about Nurse Anesthetist.
...Anyone have opinions on this? I feel like I need to make a decision now before it gets to be too late. I know I'm young, but I want to have my career already. I want to ENJOY my work everyday.
I dont think admitting to hating fanny wiping and baths means nursing isnt for her. There will always be aspects of a job you will love and you will hate. Doesnt mean that job isnt for you just because there are some things you hate about it, and lets face it, having your hands deep in another person's feces really doesnt rank at the top of anyones list. But thats the great thing about nursing, there are so many fields you can go into, you can easily find a position that would minimize the amount of booty wiping you would be doing, as another poster already pointed out.
She hasnt even had her Peds, OB, or Psych clinicals yet, and that may be her niche. She still has time to figure it out and try different areas. She just has to hang in there.
I wish I could do more patient care. It seems I spend more time with paperwork, both the hospital's required paperwork as well as my school's required paperwork. I wish I could spend more time with patients, but then people would get on my ass about charting. Such was the case this week when I was caring for a toddler who was all alone.
Thanks to all for your helpful & positive responses. I also posted a similar post in the Nurse section & did not get such a positive response. I think I will stick it out while I figure out if Nursing is for me, if not, I can always exit out and get my LPN while working towards something I feel more suited to. I don't just want to be a nurse who "just goes through the motions". Nursing takes special people. If I'm not one of them, I'm an adult & can admit that and find another way to help people more my style :)
Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.
A career is nothing more than deciding what you are willing to sell your time doing and for how much. You don't have to decide forever anymore. You can have second and third careers. You can also take joy in many things and having a job that allows free time and decent pay may be a good trade off, even if it is not something you wake up brimming with delight to go do as you pull on your scrubs and head on in. Just as a romantic relationship cannot fulfill every desire in an individual, neither can a career. The generation of people who want to "love work" every day is going to continue to hit rude realities as our economy adjusts to a far more sluggish existance than they were raised in, and one of those realities is quite honestly going to be this sense that everyone has to/is entitled to/ought to be in love with their job and that work should be "fun". Truly, it is okay to love it more some days than others, to love some aspects of it and dislike others. You focus on the good and muscle your way through the bad. Don't like wiping those butts? Me either - which is why I have gotten super efficient and good at it.
Stay well rounded and I think you will find nursing tolerable, maybe even great at times from what you have said - perhaps tolerable enough to let you find joy in other areas or to in time pursue a different career all together. Most jobs are not wonderful every day nor horrible every day. There are punctuation points of each with most time spent somewhere sliding up and down the scale in between the two.
did you say, first semester? you don't know enough to make a decision yet. you. just. don't.
you're a little older than a lot of students-- use some of that maturity to stick out a challenge and see how it matures you some more. i'm with the poster that said though you "always" wanted to be a nurse, it looks like you flit around a lot-- maybe you're not really ready to decide on anything. so why not just stay where you are for long enough to actually make some progress in the field, and then see how you feel.
Wiping butts isn't that bad..better than being a respiratory therapist and dealing with their secretions. Although rectal bleeds do have quite a distinct smell. :uhoh21:
To the ones who "hate" cleaning people and/or doing the menial tasks...you will find that pretty much anywhere. You always hear the students say "I only wanna work ICU or L&D, no wiping butts in med/surg for me". I know ICU nurses who have to disimpact morbidly obese patients who have been sedated, rectal tubes, clean the runny diarrhea from the transplant ICU patients getting Lactulose around the clock. L&D nurses clean the poop from the mothers who get epidurals and can't feel that urge sometimes. My advice...find out exactly what's involved in the area you want. You will see countless posts in the first year in nursing forum about people who posted the month before..."yay i got a job doing this and this and this..." then a month after getting hired you see ,"this isn't for me, i hate this job". If you think poop is the worst thing you can deal with it...suck up your pride because there are so many jobs that are nastier, dirtier, and harder...and pay less. maturity, goes a long way.
What you do in clinical isn't what it's going to be like in the real world. In clinical, you have to do total patient care - baths, toileting, grooming, meds, dressing changes, everything. In the real world, it all depends on where you work. In the ICU, you may have patients who are 1:1 and you have to do everything for them. You may work on a med-surg floor that doesn't have CNAs or Techs - so the nurse has to do total patient cares on their patients (won't see this too often, but it does happen). However, if you work on a unit that does have CNAs or Techs, you won't have to do as much menial tasks. Many nurses still do some of the menial tasks because it's about team work and it's good to help out the techs - especially if they're short staffed or really busy. But it's not like that's all you do. I'm in my second to last semester of the ADN program and I currently work as an LPN to pay the bills.
Even at a LTC facility (where I work as an LPN, I was also a CNA for 11 years), you won't have to do many of the menial tasks. Usually, I am way too busy charting or passing meds or dealing with faxes or doing assessments to take residents to the bathroom. I will do it if I am not busy or if it's a safety issue - such as a resident on an alarm keeps standing because she needs to go to the BR and everyone is busy. But usually I don't have time. In fact, most of the time I am busier than the CNAs. This is the same for just about any facility/unit with techs or CNAs. In one hospital we go to for med-surg, the nurses have to chart every 4 hours, maybe more for certain situations. They also have to do assessments every 4 hours and they're always running around doing dressing changes, getting pain meds, emptying wound vacs, and dealing with the doctors. It's not too often that I've seen a nurse shower a patient or wipe a behind. Sometimes, you may have a special case where the patient requires special care where only a nurse can provide cares, but not too often.
Believe me, you're not the only one who is frustrated with the way clinical works. My personal opinion is being a CNA and having working experience of 6 months or more should be required to get into a nursing program. I don't mind showering and toileting and stuff, but I've done it for 11 years (in a hospital and LTC) and to me it's taking time away from nursing tasks - which I don't have near as much experience with.
Anyway, at my school, towards the end of the year our instructors don't require that we do total cares, but if our patient needs something and we're not busy we should help them go to the bathroom or whatever. In many nursing programs, students aren't required to be a CNA. They may have to take the CNA class, but don't have to get their certification or work as one. That's why many programs require total patient care because many students don't have that experience. So don't base whether you want to be a nurse or not on your clinical experience. Now, if you think blood is disgusting or urine makes you vomit, I would suggest you find a different career - but it doesn't seem like that's the case.
Also - there are so many fields in nursing, it's crazy! When you have your RN and your BSN, you can do so much. You could be a vaccination nurse. You could work in a dialysis center. You could manage careplans. You could be a wound nurse. The possibilities are endless. Don't give up and don't get discouraged.
Could it be that you are simply not ready to make a committment to any career yet? Committing to a career is somewhat like committing to a marriage -- you stick it out "for better or for worse." You understand that there are going to be some bad times as well as some good times, some things you don't like as well as some things you do like. No career is perfect. Every field, every course of study, every career, and every job includes some things that you are probably not going to like.
Some people are ready to make that committment at a young age. Others, not until they have had a few more "life experiences" in the adult work world. Some people, never.
In Europe, it is common for young people to take a "gap year" before going to college. They get a job, volunteer for charities, travel, etc. ... take a little time to grow up a little more before going to college. While that may seem extravagant or lazy, it saves them from investing in education that they won't use. In America, those same kids are pushed into college before they are ready and end up with huge educational debt as they take extra courses hopping from major to major until they finally choose on to graduate with. Then, many decide they don't want that degree and go back to school (and add more debt) to get a "2nd career." The amount of debt they take on while they decide what they want to be when they grow up can cripple them financially for the rest of their lives.
Perhaps you just need a little more time to mature before you will be ready to committ to a career. Can you financially afford to stay in school while you figure it out? Can you take a leave of absence for a year to give yourself a "gap year" designed to help you mature before making that committment?
I agree. I always thought I wanted a job in the art world; never thought I'd want to do anything else. Turns out I needed 2 years to work in a totally different field and realize that I had the ability to do whatever I wanted to do. There are tons of career books available that can give you an idea of a career that would fit you. I'm not saying give up on nursing automatically, but you might as well explore your options. Ever thought about Surgical Technology?
I think you need to give nursing a chance. Working on a rehab unit is much different from doing clinicals at a hospital with patients who are acutely ill or injured. Nurses still do a fair amount of the dirty work, but if the facility that you work at has CNAs, then they will be doing the majority of the dirty grunt work. As an RN you will be starting IVs, giving shots, hanging IV meds, inserting catheters and NG tubes, suctioning airways, doing dressing changes, doing skin assessments, wound assessments, health assessments, mental and emotional assessments, cultural assessments, physical assessments, TONS of charting, administering meds in various and sundry methods, maintaing chest tubes, JP drains, hemovacs, etc, providing vent care (if you work in ICU), assisting the physician with chest tube insertion, A line insertion, central line insertion, swan-ganz insertion (if you work in ICU), taking vial signs, helping bathe patients, helping patients walk, listening to breath, bowel, and heart sounds, and doing many other things. As other posters have said, there are tons of opportunities within the field of nursing. I think you need to stick it out a while, see if clinical gets better for you, and try to make a rational, informed decision about whether you want to continue on this path.
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PedsHopeful
302 Posts
I dont think admitting to hating fanny wiping and baths means nursing isnt for her. There will always be aspects of a job you will love and you will hate. Doesnt mean that job isnt for you just because there are some things you hate about it, and lets face it, having your hands deep in another person's feces really doesnt rank at the top of anyones list. But thats the great thing about nursing, there are so many fields you can go into, you can easily find a position that would minimize the amount of booty wiping you would be doing, as another poster already pointed out.
She hasnt even had her Peds, OB, or Psych clinicals yet, and that may be her niche. She still has time to figure it out and try different areas. She just has to hang in there.