mfdteacher

Don't memorize...KNOW your ACLS! Find a good mentor, know your EKGs, and for a while, just keep silent and observe. Soon enough you'll realize that you have it together and you'll be fine.. Remember, every patient could be your mother, father sister or brother, so treat them that way...even the frequent flyers.

Nursing is a GREAT Career! The rewards you get from your patients are truly mind boggling. The skills and ability to help someone at one of the "worst times" of their life will stay with you always. There is a but....hospital nursing is usually a pretty crappy job, not always, but unfortunately most of the time. Do you want to do what you love, great. Are you in it for the money, not so great. The rewards can make it all worthwhile. Looking back over around 40 years in ICU/ER tells me that given the chance, I'd do it all over again.

For the record, when I was asked to be on the board, I had at least 30 years of bedside nursing (ICU and ER) on my resume. We did have one or two of the "admin" types on the board during the six years I served...

Unfortunately I couldn't agree more. It's all about the "corporation", patient care is way down on the list.

Just for the record...I served on a hospital board for three years and then became the chair of the board for three more years. My aim was to advocate for nursing. However, the corporate office had final say on every board decision..guess where that left nursing?

I would suggest a look at what the term "Confirmation Bias" means and how we all apply it to our lives, opinions etc...

One thing seems to missing here...There have been numerous studies that show that 12 hour shifts are more prone to errors and detrimental to your patients and yourself. Most centered around critical areas such as ICUs and ERs, but they routinely show that nurses start to lose focus after about 6-8 hours. Perhaps we shouyld address this...

I remember being floated years ago from my ICU position to the "special" unit. My duties that evening basically involved making drinks (etoh) for the GBS patient and his girlfriend. I've always cringed when I'm told, "The service here is really good." I am NOT a servant, I am an educated experienced professional Nurse!

I have over two decades on you so being retired is where I want to be. I do miss bedside nursing and challenging patients very much but I do not miss the administrative handcuffs that come with it. I understand how you feel that you must work after spending your savings for your son's medical care and just how unfair that is. I would probably do the same in a similar situation. My greatest fear along those lines is spending my pension, social security, and 401 on my own or my wife's elder care. For now, we are healthy and living in our own home and hope to end our lives here.

I agree that unless you absolutely hate nursing that you will be a nurse until you die. Friends, relatives, and situations will dictate you bringing up your nursing knowledge and sharing your experience. Someone once told me that being a nurse is like being in the Mafia...once in, you can never get out. However, once you go inactive, retire, or whatever you want to call it, you do lose part of your identity. I was a nurse for 40 years. It was my calling, my being, my work, and my identity. Although I will never work at the bedside or precept, or teach again, I am still a nurse. A happily retired nurse, but I am still a nurse and proud of my career. I have found other ways to occupy my time and enjoy my life but at my core, I'm still a nurse and always will be.

After many years working both ER and ICU, I feel that (at least in my day, no on site intensivists), ICU nurses had much more autonomy and had to be pretty quick on their feet. We made critical decisions and acted on them on a daily if not hourly basis. I agree that in some ER situations, if the docs trusted you, you could initiate care at a level that required action now and not wait for the doc. But the doc is also always there. Bit of a difference.

To clarify, I am a retired ICU/ER RN, thus an old fart! I always preferred narrative charting simply because when asked to testify (a few cases over 40 years), I could look at my notes and recall the day so much better. And I could use patient quotes as well. I have worked with EHRs but none of the systems seemed to have the "right" check boxes and I would always end up using as much narrative charting as possible...which did not endear me to admin types. One other advantage was being able to read other nurses and physicians notes and get a much better picture of the patient's care. Just my two cents.

Labordude, I believe one of the states was Alabama but I was in grad school in the 80's. I couldn't cite the reference now if you paid me but I assure you it's true and I was flabbergasted to say the least. And there were a few more states. Personally, I always hated floating to any other unit but my own but even if it was "my turn" I was NEVER floated to OB. In regards to the preamble added to the article, I too was frequently mistaken for the doctor and questioned as to why I would be "only" a nurse. I agree that there is some degree of male privilege and was consequently treated better than my female colleagues except in my academic programs. There was always a hint of "you don't belong here", sometimes subtle and sometimes quite overt.

Indeed, a lot of the assumptions are dated. While a student in my BSN program, we few males were never taught to cath females and were limited in every day care scenarios (beds and baths). Later in grad school trying to do research on Males in Nursing, I was heavily criticized for looking into this subject. I did find states where males were not allowed by law in labor and delivery, "the woman chooses her doctor, but not her nurse". Further on in my career, I worked with a large municipal fire department teaching paramedics and EMTs. Many of the paramedics voiced interest or actually completed a nursing program with no concern for gender issues. The one issue that seems to remain is concerns about touching patients in appropriate ways. Female nurses tend to be allowed much more freedom to use compassionate touch than males. I find this more pervasive in the "Me too" era and seemingly based on some sort of inherent distrust of males in general. Just my two cents from a retired old RN proud of his profession.

In my 27 plus years I have mainly worked Critical Care and ER. I still do a little ER on my weekends off. But after being sold 5 times, being treated like chattel by various hospital corporations and seeing patient care go by the wayside in favor of the almighty dollar, I got out. I have spent the last 8 years working for the Fire Department where patient care, not profit comes first. I teach Paramedics and EMTs, liason with the hospitals and transport companies, work with state and local authorities to define scope of practice, and multiple other things. My experience is valued, my bosses regularly compliment and thank me for my work, I can work from home, punch no clock, have covered parking, weekends and holidays off, and if I even contemplate a 12 hour shift, someone straightens me out quick. And yes, I do go out with the firefighter medics and run calls etc. Can anyone tell me why I would even consider going back to the hospital routine? Anyone out there doing the same or similar work?