Of your patient load..

[Libby1987]

..how would you divide your patients between the kind of patients you went to school for, the unreasonable and rude, the poor self care and not going to change, and the hopeless but family are in denial types? (Am I missing a major category?)

I think I see 50-70% that have reasonable health for their age/circumstance, are teachable and have something that can be worked on (the more knees I see the higher this percentage).

This number has gone down with the increase in chronic illness. I used to have more blue haired ladies as I affectionately thought of them, the 80 somethings who were aging as expected.

And what department do you work?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Did any of you apply to nursing school thinking you'd know what you would be dealing with and then find out it was not all like you thought?

I attended school hoping to end up in LTC with little old ladies and elderly men. I did end up in LTC, but many of the 'residents' were significantly younger than what I envisioned.

I left LTC in 2012. A significant percentage of my residents were sick, middle-aged Baby Boomers who were worn down and disabled from noncompliance and hard living. A few were young (20s and 30s) and ended up in LTC due to psychiatric issues and/or hard living.

My youngest resident was a heroin-addicted 28-year-old mother of two young children who got admitted to the LTC to receive IV antibiotics every four hours to treat enfective endocarditis secondary to slamming dope cooked with tap water into her veins.

[Farawyn]

I'm not sure I quite understand what you are asking, but one thing that has changed since I've been a nurse is the use of an ER as a primary care doctor. And yes, much less blue haired ladies. They are in and out now.

(Now working as high school RN.)

[Morainey, BSN, RN]

I think a lot of the drug-seeking, coffee-demanding belligerent patients and family members a lot of us complain about (*looks in mirror* GUILTY) can be chalked up to venting. I think a lot of the nurses on here would say that they can't really describe their workday or their patients to someone who isn't a nurse and doesn't get it, myself included. So thus you see a lot of venting posts because it's easy to vent to a group of anonymous colleagues who are in pretty much the same boat and can empathize.

So when I was in nursing school I didn't really envision what kind of patients I'd be taking care of, but more the kind of qualities that I wanted to have a nurse - knowledgeable, compassionate, level-headed, not-easily-fazed. I don't know if that really answers your question, but I hope I didn't come across as snarky in my last post. I guess it's all a matter of perspective?