bb.rn

I graduated in May ' 06. There was a female in class the first semester that also said she "hated everything about it" and quit. At the time, I thought she had made a stupid decision but now after struggling to find something I can stand to do in nursing for over 2 years, I think she made a wise decision. She didn't have to work hard in school only to get out and really hate the work. Since you're graduating in May, I would say, make the most of the rest of your school, and then find something you can tolerate to do, either in nursing or not. If I were you, I would keep my license active, as someone else stated, because you can basically take your pick of jobs, just in case you ever have to work. But please don't take any jobs because someone else thinks you should. On the other hand, don't be afraid to try something, who knows, you might like that job better than you think you will - and there are plenty of different areas, also stated earlier, that you can get into or at least try out. You can always do orientation and if you don't like it, quit. Good luck.

I don't know where you are located, but I haven't heard of any schools that have an age limit - especially nursing - if you have the grades, etc.

Sorry to hear that. It would definitely have been a lot easier to pull those 12 hr shifts at 26 instead of 46 and we could be retired by now!!! I didn't have kids but was busy doing other things and it didn't occur to me that I would get into my 30s and 40s and wish I had utilized some of my potential instead of just having fun.

I graduated in '06 at age 46 after 2 years in the ADN program. It was tough, the work is tougher, but you CAN do it. The great majority of our class was considered non-traditional students, mostly in their 30's, a couple fresh out of high school, but the ones aged late 30s to mid-50s did best. I didn't make great grades, I studied alot but didn't kill myself, made high Cs most of the time, which was fine with me. I passed NCLEX first time which most of our class did. Good luck to you.

I have had that happen to me since getting out of school It's like they don't want to deal with you and will let you know it in a not so nice way. I understand how overwhelming their jobs are but if we can learn then we can lighten that load. I never have understood their thought process either. There are places that will assign you a preceptor and you work when he/she works, hopefully you get a good one and they are out there. I happen to live in an area where it's tough to find a place where people really work together and I have worked at several places. I hope it gets better for you. I want to say stick with it, and also want to say to all the hard to get along with nurses, stop it!! I have yet to do either...it has been a really rude awakening for me.

I hate that but it really felt good to get this off my chest.

I am a registered nurse of less than 2 years. I have tried EVERYTHING!! Including hospital floor, nursing home, home health, geri-psych, psych nursing, MDS nurse...I have written before regarding this stuff months ago, am still having the same troubles. I feel like I'm whining but I honestly just hate to go to work. I have worked before at jobs for years so I know it's not that I just don't want to work. I worked as a home health aide for about 6 years before going to nursing school, it took me a long time to make the committment to go to school and I wish that I had listened to my instincts or to other nurses who tried to tell me that - yes, you will make pretty good money, but, you will work for it. Right now I am in orientation at a nursing home. The educator who is supposed to be orienting me is going through a divorce, her mother has a brain tumor, her kids come in and out of the office all day, everything is so disorganized. I have not learned one thing about the job that I will be doing and I will start my rotation NEXT WEEK!! It is causing me so much anxiety and frustration that I have no motivation to be there. My husband says, look at it this way - you are still getting paid to train and when you start your rotation it will be different. But the thing he doesn't understand is when I start my shift 11p-7a, I will be the only RN in the building with approximately 110 residents. There will be other nurses, aides, but I will not know what in the world I am doing much less be able to supervise anyone else. I have run into this before. The other employees will lay everything on the RN so fast it will make your head spin. I really don't mean to discourage anybody from getting their RN, but think long and hard about the responsibility that will be YOURS before you make that committment. If I had it to do over, maybe I wouldn't go into nursing at all but I would certainly do the LPN first to get that experience before being thrown into so much - IVs, supervising and everything else that goes along with being a registered nurse. And please believe me, you will get thrown into situations you are not ready for no matter what they tell you when you are hired. There is definitely a shortage of nurses, no one to put you through proper orientation because of shortage of staff, and with that comes inexperienced educators. So it seems like a no win situation, and I hate that. I have had really good experiences that were brief but gave me hope to keep going, but it boils down to spending 12 hours running, trying to keep up with meds, treatments, etc, while trying to figure out what in the world you are doing. There are nurses that will help you but I have also found more than not, other nurses who WON'T help and they will watch you struggle so by the end of your shift you are so aggravated, not to mention exhausted, that it seems utterly impossible to return to that situation. I have heard the same complaints from others so I don't think it's just me. I am at a loss of what to do, I need to work but am just about at the end of my rope when it comes to nursing.

My advice would be, and I am only a year out of school, to do what is right for you. If you feel that you need to check, double check, triple check...then that is what you should do until you feel YOU are comfortable. I don't know what the other new grad is doing, and they might be secure and confident, but that is not you and whatever they do and don't do should not be a concern of yours. I have found, especially in nursing, that there are a lot of people who want to be "superior". Don't worry about that, do your job, get your "practice", learn all you can, and it will get better...eventually.

exactly!!!

It really is nice to know that there are others who feel the same as I do. A friend who graduated with me calls it "brainwashing" that we have to go through in school and then when we go out into the world. Some of us are resistant to that, apparently. I just hope it gets better for all of us. We all just need to think positive, be careful, and just outnice 'em!!

Good luck to you, hope everything works out. I really think that it's not unusual for new nurses to move around until we find what we want. I have had 5 jobs in a year and classmates that I have stayed in contact with have done about the same. There's no reason to be miserable in a job, there are so many out there.

I totally agree!! I have been out of nursing school for a little over a year and have had several jobs. The people, other nurses and others, that I have worked with, for the most part, have not been supportive, and it has made me have a very bad attitude about this whole thing. I tried working the 12 hour hospital shifts, 8 hrs nursing home, home health and now am trying to figure out what I want to try next. I have wound up being miserable in every job mainly because of the attitude of the other nurses. Most of them, it seems, are unhappy so they spread it around. Most of the facilities are short staffed or the others that I work with just don't want to get up and show me, that I don't feel any more experienced than when I got out of school. People have said it's the rural area where I live, the lack of opportunities, but I don't know. It's like, you get out of school and you ARE thrown to the wolves, the wolves will stand there and watch you struggle and maybe mess up!!