do people say this to you?

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Do you find when people find out what you do they say things like "How can you do that?" or "I could never work in the NICU it would be too sad."

I'm a nursing student, leaning towards NICU, and when we inevitably get into discussion about "what we want to be when we grow up" and I say NICU, I hear varied comments, some of which I don't know exactly how to respond to. I get the vibe that some folks think if you desire a career with neonates who might not survive, that you must be cold, callus, unfeeling or all three, otherwise you wouldn't expose yourself to this possible pain. Of course we know it's just the opposite, but....

Do you hear this? Do you just take it as a compliment? How do you respond?

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Specializes in NICU.

Yes, I have heard that before. I respond:

"I do it because I love it. It's not all sad. It is mostly very rewarding! Everyone has a calling and this is mine". :lol2:

People who don't know what we do or haven't been in an NICU, have no idea what we do...Surely, they appreciate us for what we do but don't know how to respond when they first hear our job description. You could respond the same way to someone who works as a garbage collector..."Oh, how can you do that?" I'm not at all implying that these two occupations are comparables but at 0200h, it's the first thing that popped into my head!:idea:

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Specializes in NICU.

I have had people say those sorts of things to me frequently. They are generally saying it because they think that working in the NICU is sad, and that we only take care of babies who are going to die. I explain that the opposite is generally true, that yes, we do lose some, but we are able to send home the majority of our babies. I have been in the NICU for a little over a year (if you count my nursing school preceptorship), and have loved every minute of it...I wouldn't have stayed if I didn't love what I do!! I've also had several people make comments like, "we need more people like you doing this" or "you really are a hero," etc...those are the comments that make my day!

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Specializes in Critical Care.

And I would have said, "How can you do that, I didn't like my OWN kids when they were little and sick!"

But maybe that's a guy thing, something on that missing part of Y . . .

~~faith,

Timothy.

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I'm an Lpn in RN school and have thought about working in the NICU, because of a patient I use to take care of in Home health with Myotubular Myopathy, his parents were told he would not live past his 1st birthday. With this condition the muscles do not form and he was just a floppy baby. The doctor got mad because they would not take him off of life support and let him die. His mother said he he would have told me he would have died right away I might have done it, but when he said it might be 2 hours, 2 days, 2 weeks or a year, I couldn't take him off and make him suffer every minute of his life for air. She went home one day to get a shower and a change of cloths. When she came back the doctor told her that the baby pulled his e-tube out (YEAH RIGHT). Later the NICU nurse told her that the doctor did it and she got a new doctor for the baby. Today he is 9 years old. Yes he is on a vent, but he has a motorized wheelchair and goes to school and is very smart. Everytime he goes to the children's hospital for doctor appointments nurses come up to him and tell him they took care of him when he was in the NICU.:saint:

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

Yes, people do ask that question, and in a way, I'm happy they do.

Just as they can't imagine caring for tiny, sick infants, I can't imagine working ER or psych, or adult med-surg. This is a great opportunity to point out the diversity in nursing, and mention how grateful you are that there are nurses who are gifted and talented in the areas of care that likewise don't interest you.

Good luck!

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Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.

I've worked psych, oncology, geriatrics, and have heard the same thing for all those specialties :). Isn't it great that we all don't want to work in the same place?

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Specializes in Peds - playing with the kids.

i hear it all the time in peds. i just tell them that it is the greatest thing to see them get well and go home .

"how can you stick kids?" - the answer to that is - kids are very forgiving...much more so than adults;) .

don't let the comments bother you. follow your :heartbeat heart:heartbeat .

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I just tell them that most of our babies do go home, and even when it's sad it is always meaningful. Trust me, this is true of all areas in nursing. My NICU friends can't believe I worked L&D cause "that's so gross!".

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Thanks all... I appreciate your comments.

I do think that one of the greatest things about nursing is the diversity! You can almost anything that your heart leads you to!

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I heard that in nursing school too, so I did adult ICU, figured it wouldn't be as sad. Then my own child ended up in NICU and I saw it wasn't as sad as I'd been told.

I sent more "packages" to the morgue my first year of nursing than in 5 years of NICU.

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Specializes in NICU.

One of my close friends from nursing school works on a leukemia unit. Neither one of us thinks we could do what the other one does, but we're grateful the other one is able to do it! I think the same about other units like the burn unit, psych, geriatrics, etc. I don't think any of them are for me, but there are people out there who love those units just as much as I love NICU. Thank goodness nursing is so diverse!!! :-)

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