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! :)
we have a floor that is designated for noncontagious, generally walkie talkie Tele patients. They are usually pre/post cath lab, chest pains, pul. embolisms on hep drips, ablations, sheaths, a few days post CABG, etc.
anyways, the nurses usually have 6 pts but the rule is in order to graduate to this floor you must be "generally self sufficient". no total cares. they are mandated to walk everyday (although there is always someone still on bedrest after a sheath or w/e), even if that means carrying a chest tube chamber with them. this floor is called our "true telemetry" vs our common med-surg/tele (aka totals with bad hearts).
this floor seems almost like a unicorn to me, i have never worked on it, but sure sounds nice!
I don't blame you one bit for your feelings. Since I was a kid I have a total phobia of vomit. As in, my initial reaction us to run to a safe place. My body moves before I even have time to think logically (my mantra to get me through "it won't hurt you. It won't hurt you. "). So, I've pretty much decided against a few places because of it.
From experience Mom baby or nicu. What about peds? Kids poo doesn't seem as bad.
i've had multiple surgeries, abdomen mainly, and never once did I even have them ask whether or not i needed to poop yet and nor did I ever need to tell them I had to go. Thats the thing with the PACU nurses. breathing, pulse , oxygenation and pain management.
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. ..........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?
ehhh, i agree sorta. somethings in life do require a "bootstraps" mentality, but it seems here that she has an unnatural, disproportionate, uncontrollable reactions to feces (it is what it is). I think she has gone beyond not liking it.
ex) I don't "like" answering the call bell at the nurse's station because the patient always sounds warbled, so I don't hang out charting there often. But If no one is answering , I will answer, if only to make the bell stop and notify their nurse. That is when I use my bootstraps.
I don't know what to tell you. Poop is part of bedside nursing. Not always a huge part, but you can't escape it in a hospital. I would just go back to school if it really makes you so miserable. I don't hate or even mind cleaning up messes, but I do dream about getting away from the bedside someday. If you have the means, do it. There may be a bigger learning curve without some acute care experience, but you can get past that. Good luck.
What about the ED? I know things can get messy there, but you don't have incontinent patients laying in their bed all day needing diaper changings and bed baths. How often do ED nurses clean someones poop off them? I'm okay with blood, guts, etc - just not poop.
Scratch that one off your list. We have patients come in covered in feces, hepatic encephalopathy, GI bleeds, c-diff sufferers, ostomies, fractured hips, fecal vomiting etc.
I will say that sometimes I don't have time to clean up a patient, I do delegate the poopy tasks more often in the ER, but if you have a real doozy of a cleanup it's all hands on deck. While you might be able to get away with foisting it off on aides/other nurses you really don't want to be "that guy/girl" on a unit where teamwork is a must.
I don't think people are being hostile, and people have given you some examples of minimal poop jobs. It's just that you have chosen a career path that requires a good clinical foundation, and for a nurse, sadly, that means poop. I personally wouldn't want to go see a nurse practitioner whose clinical experience consisted of nursing informatics... I'm not sure of the standards in the states but that wouldn't cut it to get you into any of the NP programs I am aware of here at home.
I think I would LOVE Pacu - but I have yet to see a PACU job that didn't require either previous PACU experience or acute care experience. Seems like a pickle..
Surprised that so many of you STILL couldn't hold back your insistence that OP MUST learn to deal with poop despite her very clear and decent expression of her strong desire to avoid it.
OP, infusion clinics are certainly an option but I feel like home health would get you more hands on with frequent and varied assessments. Someone mentioned radiology areas (like interventional radiology, cath lab, nuclear medicine, but definitely not endoscopy haha)... these are also great but they'd probably like you to get your ACLS. It's not a huge hurdle, just giving you a heads up. A few people mentioned informatics but my understanding is that you're not getting anywhere in that without an advanced degree and that's not going to inform your future NP practice anyway.
Again to address the non-believers, there are PLENTY of direct care nursing careers that should reasonably expect to not encounter poop. I began listing them but erased it because most I believed wouldn't actually help OP with her intent to get the broad and in-depth knowledge she's looking for.
I completely understand the OP's feelings about poop bc I have exactly the same reaction to vomit. Give me poop any day over vomit. I have tried so hard not to react but it is a physical thing that just comes over me.
OP, I can certainly relate to how you feel. I have the same problem. I can handle blood, sputum, urine, pus, vomit and any type of trauma. I can't deal with the sight and smell of poop. It's just the way it is, and it hasn't gotten better over time.
I could never work on a floor that involved regular code browns, I don't want to subject myself to it and it wouldn't be fair to subject my patients to my greenish face. They have enough to deal with without me hurting their dignity. My heart goes out to any sick or vulnerable person and of course it's not them I find revolting, but the smell of feces literally sickens me.
A friend of mine works as a perfumer (creates perfume compositions) and tells me that my nose, or sense of smell, rivals hers. I don't know if that is part of my problem but anyhow, like others have recommended, I too find the pacu to be pretty much poop-free and I love my job
jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B
9 Articles; 4,800 Posts
Poop....you will either deal with it literally, or figuratively.....equally bad in it's smell, and equally as difficult to clean up.