Poop Free Nursing Jobs in the Hospital?

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Okay, before anyone starts the insane spamming, please READ THE POST. This is not meant to demean or attack any nurses. I am an RN and I love nursing - and I respect everything that nurses do. I know that some people are also better at some things than others. This is meant to be a very respectful post simply asking for some help and advice, so please do not start attacking and saying that I don't "understand" what nursing is. Thank you in advance! :)

Here's the issue: I started a job right out of nursing school with a hospital. I stayed for a few months, but I literally used to want to cry every day that I went. I wasn't overwhelmed by the responsibility or the new things I needed to learn (I actually enjoyed that)...it was the "cleaning" part of our job description. I know it's part of nursing, and I certainly cleaned my patients quickly and extremely well, but not without gagging. I can't help it. I truly find it very disgusting cleaning someones watery feces off of their back, butt, and bed. Everytime I smelled that horrible smell I became sick to my stomach knowing what I was about to have to do. It controlled my life and I was so unhappy I quit.

Fast forward: I work in a primary care office. I love it! No poop, normal hours, etc. I also have developed a passion for family practice, and with so many physicians choosing to specialize instead of work in FP, I see how important NPs will be as more and more Americans are insured under current laws. I want to help fill that void. I could easily go to NP school now, but I feel NPs were developed to expand on their current clinical experience. While I love my job, I honestly don't learn much about medicine, it's mainly vitals and scheduling, etc. I feel to truly become a competent NP and provide high quality care to my patients, I need to work in a hospital environment for a few years so that I can manage my own patients and learn about their conditions and treatments. This of course is an issue considering my previous experience with this...so what can I do??

Any advice? I really need some help here, not 3-4 pages of insults about how I should just learn to love cleaning up poop. I will never love it, and I don't have to love it to be a good nurse. I do respect all of you that do, however, and I'm sure your patients do too! :)

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If it is just the smell, wear a mask or maybe small pieces of cotton up your nose. Some things you just have to hold your breath and bear it. Poop is okay to me but I hate the smell of gastric contents from PEG tubes. I have almost vomited before. Fortunately I don't have to deal with it much.

My advice...grin and bear it.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

If you are looking to expand your clinical experience then I don't know how you could avoid poop.

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Maybe work NICU? Baby poop is so much more benign than adults...

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Specializes in Pedi.

I don't think such a job exists. I imagine OR and PACU nurses don't really deal with much poop since patients rarely have bowel movements during/after surgery but, then again, you could be dealing with it quite directly if the surgery is for a bowel obstruction or to create a colostomy.

No one says you have to love cleaning poo to be a good nurse. I've never "loved" that part of the job but it certainly didn't really bother me either. Now I hardly ever have to deal with it as a visiting nurse.

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... I feel to truly become a competent NP and provide high quality care to my patients, I need to work in a hospital environment for a few years so that I can manage my own patients and learn about their conditions and treatments. This of course is an issue considering my previous experience with this...so what can I do??...

I don't know a single nurse who "loves cleaning up poop" and no, you don't have to love it to be a good nurse.

You're clear about your goal (becoming a nurse practitioner). You realize that more bedside practice/experience (here a poop, there a poop, everywhere a poop poop) would help you attain your goal.

How to get out of all those poop poops? I wish I knew (and I have no desire to be a NP, I love bedside care despite the poop poops). I am glad/grateful, however, that you respect the fact that I clean up poop, even though I don't love it. Thankyouverymuch.

I think you DO understand what nursing is. I also think you can't avoid the poop on your way to getting clinical/bedside experience.

Poop is inevitable. What kind of response are you looking for here? Just let your nurse's aides do all the dirty work every time? Walk away from it? I don't see how you can get the experience you want/need without cleaning up poop on occasion.

You don't have to love cleaning it up, you just have to do it sometimes.

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A physician with whom I work once went over to her elderly neighbours' home in the middle of the night, because the elderly wife had c-diff and her family didn't know what to do -- and spent all night helping them clean her up.

Did she love it? Of course not. But it was what the person (both her neighbour and her patient) needed at the time.

We help people, whether in medicine or nursing. We don't love every aspect of it, but you can bet that the family in my example, or the patient in the bed, appreciates the help. They don't like it any more than you do.

My point is, you can't avoid it. Nursing isn't just poop, but poop is an inevitable part of nursing. I think that the experience gained is worth, in the end, a bit of poop.

(I love what I do. I do not love poop, however! I get where you are coming from, even if I do think it's an unrealistic goal)

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

What are you going to do if you come across something else you don't like on your path to becoming an NP? You can't just expect to not have to deal with something just because you don't like it. Lots of us don't like stuff (poop included ) but learning to deal is part of being a grown up.You sound like you are very young and are used to having people make the bad stuff just "go away". The real issue isn't about the poop. it's about the fact you are unable( and unwilling to try) to cope with something just because you don't like it.How far are you going to get if your attitude is that if you don't like something you will just refuse to deal with it?

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Is it the fact that you have a physical reaction to the smell that you can't help? A good tip is to put on a mask, and put a couple drop of peppermint oil in the mask before you put it on. You shouldn't notice any smell at all. I've also seen nurses add a drop or two of peppermint oil on the corner of a patient's linens if they have one of those conditions that makes the whole room smell bad. Really only in the ICU when the patient is unresponsive, it makes things better for the nurses and the families seem to like it. It can be unsettling to visit a loved one and everything around them smells awful, and it can also make it seem like the patient isn't being properly cared for.

If you are trying to avoid poop entirely though, your best bet is to find a floor where most of the patients are well enough to get up to the bathroom. That can be tough since people really only stay in a hospital if they're really sick these days.

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Specializes in Rehab, critical care.

Since you've already tried working in acute care for several months and never "got used to" the variety of BM smells, you may just not get used to it. Question, though: how did you get through nursing school? I don't mean this in a mean way, but did you somehow get through all of nursing school without cleaning poop? Your nursing school definitely did you an injustice there if that's the case; it's part of the job.

Anyway, I agree with a PP. Mother/baby, nursery, or postpartum would be poop less areas (and while babies poop, I imagine you could deal with baby poop, right?). Do not do L&D, though; sometimes women apparently have BM's when they deliver. But, mother/baby, the women usually can get up to use the restroom, but I imagine there would be times when they need a bedpan or something, so you'd still have to do it sometimes. Cath lab, hyperbarics, things like that, that are mostly poop free would require the acute care experience with poop first.

My advice to you? Continue doing what you're doing, and maybe try working in a more acute primary care setting PRN, as well, so you have more experience to be an FNP some day. Something where they see more co-morbidities (cardiology office, I would imagine or pulmonology office maybe?). Maybe the primary care RN's can help you there.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
Since you've already tried working in acute care for several months and never "got used to" the variety of BM smells, you may just not get used to it. Question, though: how did you get through nursing school? I don't mean this in a mean way, but did you somehow get through all of nursing school without cleaning poop? Your nursing school definitely did you an injustice there if that's the case; it's part of the job.

Anyway, I agree with a PP. Mother/baby, nursery, or postpartum would be poop less areas (and while babies poop, I imagine you could deal with baby poop, right?). Do not do L&D, though; sometimes women apparently have BM's when they deliver. But, mother/baby, the women usually can get up to use the restroom, but I imagine there would be times when they need a bedpan or something, so you'd still have to do it sometimes. Cath lab, hyperbarics, things like that, that are mostly poop free would require the acute care experience with poop first.

My advice to you? Continue doing what you're doing, and maybe try working in a more acute primary care setting PRN, as well, so you have more experience to be an FNP some day. Something where they see more co-morbidities (cardiology office, I would imagine or pulmonology office maybe?). Maybe the primary care RN's can help you there.

^Well said! :yes:

I would add immunization clinics, occupational health, and public health...that experience will give you a great background for your FNP.

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.

Nursing informatics: I'm pretty sure there's no poop involved in that area...just computers.

However, if your main goal is to be a NP, you have to accept the fact that you need to get experience in specialties where you get your hands "dirty", so to speak.

I won't pass judgment as I'm not you and haven't had your experiences in life. But ultimately you have to decide what is more important to you: a career as a NP or the avoidance of poop. Only you can make that decision.

Best of luck.

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