inforn43

What kind of horrible profession do we work in? How healthy does a person need to be to work as a nurse? I have heard this a lot over the 25 years that I have worked in health care. Are we supposed to be athletes? They they need to pay us like 25 million a year so after we work our buts off and ruin our health for our job we can at least enjoy early retirement. I won't tell you what I think of you as a person because that would be rude. But I don't wish good health to you and I wonder how you treat your patients. Sounds like nurses have the least amount of compassion of all.

Can anyone actually give some real advice here? What if she does hate it. I have hated it since I started and I hate it now six years later. It has only gotten worse. The economy is so bad now that we have to be grateful to have a job so we get treated even worse. I know jobs are scarce, but has anyone ever heard of anyone that got out and was able to transfer their skills to something totally different? I made a huge mistake by becoming a nurse. And I am glad to finally admit it.

I am so tired of complaining about this profession. I realize now that I was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life. I just wish is that students would really read these posts before just saying "It is my dream to become a nurse". The bible says; "pride cometh before the fall". I believe this is why a lot of us go to nursing school, we are proud. We want to prove that we can be a big shot. Well God has made sure I will never be proud again. I now have to take responsibility for my own mistakes. I had plenty of warnings, I worked as a nurses aid for over 20 years and I was already physically damaged by that job. But, I still chose to disregard these warnings. It was all because of pride. Please, students, don't let pride be your downfall too.

What ever happened with you? I am in an almost exact same position as you. I instead started working in a nursing home a few months ago.

I was wondering how much time should you spend with nonpharmalogical interventions? It does kind of sound like torture just thinking of ways to make people who are in pain wait and try different positions until we feel like nothing else works.

My residents are allowed to smoke and I have worked at facilities where they are allowed to keep gallons of vodka in their rooms. But I am thinking about treating their symptoms, so us helping to administer it.

All I have found so far is the OSBN statement on nurses who need medical marijuana. http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.oregonrn.org/resource/resmgr/imported/Medical_Marijuana-FINAL.pdf It is the same as any drug that might impair a person. That you should not work impaired. I also read that the ANA is against all random dug testing because it goes against our civil liberties. I believe that my idea for LTC patients to have access is going to be something a facility would have to discuss with their attorneys. So that will probably never happen since people are closed minded and constantly living in fear. It is very sad to see, when there is so much positive that can be done for our patients. What if antibiotics were illegal?

I work in a long term care facility. A couple of my patients have told me that they have their medical marijuana cards. (we live in a state that allows this). I believe that my patients deserve to receive this medication. Recently I have started an in depth study of the pros and cons of this medication. I can really see no reason that long term care resident should be prevented from having this access. We give them an unbelievable amount of opiates. Also the latest research shows that marijuana and opiates should be used in conjunction http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2011/12/11077/ucsf-study-finds-medical-marijuana-could-help-patients-reduce-pain-opiates. And what about our patients with insomnia and those that never eat? The more research I do the more I feel that I am depriving my patients from a very beneficial medication. How can I change things so they can have all their meds?

The more I research cannabis the more stories I hear about people who are helped. I have never heard of a person that was actually harmed. We really need to stop acting like children and actually help our patients. I am not sure why nurses feel like they can't think for themselves.

Please don't act like you can feel whatever other people are feeling. How long have you worked in healthcare? i doubt that you have worked long enough to have real pain.

Workers comp is a joke don't put yourself through that hell. They don't care about you and will do everything they can to discredit you. The only answer I have is to suffer. I will never understand how health care professionals are treated so badly when they are injured by years of hard labor. But nothing matters but the bottom line.

I just got fired because my husband wrote an anonymous email to my boss with legitimate complaints about one of my coworkers

Thank you for the opportunity to share this information with young people. I have worked in health care all my life and I think that young people should think before getting into the field. It is very hard to find work right now there are many promises of a bright future for the profession but not now. If it does get better those jobs are going to be working with the elderly, so the students should know that they need to realize that they might have to work in long term care, those are not very glamorous jobs. Health care is very demanding physically and there might come a point where they cannot work in some jobs because they can become injured. About the young men that want to go into nursing, that is awesome. Personally, I believe that there needs to be more male nurses for many reasons. If I were hiring I would give males preference. I have only done hiring in long term care so I cannot speak for all fields of nursing. I do think that HIT is really the way to go so I would advise taking as many computer classes as they can. Please ignore my grammar

I hope things go better for you. I am still not working either. I don't know how we are going to pay the bills anymore.

It's almost a year now, any luck? I am about to give up.

Please have a little heart. I have been on a ton of interviews too. They are soooooo different. I have also done quite a few interviews myself. How many interviews have you been on? Some are extremely casual and some ask you very hard questions. When I interview I try to do a little of both. I am starting to wonder about the whole nursing profession. When there are few jobs it gives HR managers and DNS's that do interviews the right to pick people based on their own preferences. I actually got hired at an assisted living because I came back for my second interview wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.

I am with you I graduated in 2008 and have about 22 months of actually working as a nurse. I worked in an office for over a year and then the company decided to lay everyone in the office off. I still don't know why. This experience does not really help unless I find another job just like it. I am being treated the same way, no one ever calls back. Nursing is a job where we need to keep up on new things and need to practice our skills. I am seriously thinking of doing something else. I am embarrassed and frustrated. My family and I thought I was going to make good money after attending college and now I am broker than I have ever been. I always had a job when I was a CNA for 20 years. Does anyone know of something else I can do with a AAS degree. I don't care about the pay I have given up on ever getting paid well.

I feel like there is a lot of pressure to work in traditional nursing jobs. I have a shoulder injury after working in direct pt care for over 25 yrs. I am very excited to find other types of work. My biggest reservation about it is being judged by others because I wont be working in hands on care. If you are on a lot of meds and your MD has restricted you from lifting why do you want to continue hurting yourself and potentially hurt a patient?

Thank you for your reply this is helpful. I applied for disability but was turned down. My plan is to move to a bigger city where there will be more jobs. I have already worked doing case management and so as soon as I get moved I will try to find a job doing that. Problem is I also need shoulder surgery. I filed a workers comp claim but the doctors that I have seen all have a different explanation of what is wrong. One said my acromions are sloped and its congenital, my regular PA that I always see knows its work related because I saw her immediately after it happened. Then the orthopedic surgeon I just saw said it was idiopathic and laughed about the acromions being sloped. None of this is helping me. It would be great if i could just get short term disability until i can get this fixed.

I would like more information about RN jobs that don't require lifting. I have destroyed my shoulders working as a CNA for over twenty years. I also want to dispute the last comment. Although you would never be required to lift a 300lb pt. completely on your own, nursing is a job where you cannot really predict what will happen. You will most likely have to pull a 300 lb pt up in bed. You will be required to lift a 300+ lb pt. with the assistance of another nurse or CNA. Many people especially heavy ones are afraid of Hoyer lifts and will refuse to be lifted in them. Additionally no one can ever predict exactly what will happen working as a nurse. People fall all the time and you are not going to just jump back and let them injure themselves, they slide down roll too far over and do things you wont even think of. When this happens you just do your best but you are rarely going to have time to get help. Also I have tried working in jobs where you would think there would not be lifting of heavy pts. Pediatrics and nurse management, but I always end up lifting so be careful. Plan ahead and get the type of education that you need to do the job that you can physically do.

I wonder if anyone else has had a similar problem. I keep injuring my shoulder when I lift patients. Over the last four years everytime I get a job that requires lifting I end up deveveloping severe pain and a frozen shoulder, recently I had an MRI and they said my acromions are severely sloped. I have been lifting patients for over twenty years. So, I believe this is due to repetitive use and not congeital. If you have had a similar probem please respond. I need to know if I will ever be able to lift patients again or if I should plan on only working in jobs that don't require lifting. By the way I cringe when I see obese people I have had to lift so many overweight patients over the years and I think about it when ever I see an obese person.

Help! I worked as a CNA for 20 years before becoming a nurse. When I got my first nursing job I immediately injured my left shoulder. It was not caused by lifting one patient but was something that got worse and worse over about three months until I was in excruciating 9/10 pain with movement and 5/10 constant pain. I was lucky and was hired at an office job where I didn't have to lift patients although I had no insurance it eventually cleared up and I was basically pain free. Then, the economy went bad. That company went out of business and I had a really hard time finding another job. I finally got a job at an assisted living and as soon as I lifted a patient it started in my right shoulder. I am at the point now where I am in constant pain I can't work at all and even four Vicodin a day do nothing for my pain. Has anyone ever experienced something like this?

Thanks Sweett I am doing this now. Personally I think the worst is that the company is out to make money and don't really care about anything else. They don't want any Res to leave no matter how inappropriate for ALF they are. And the families are insane. I am only paid to work 24 hours a week, so there is no way to take care of everything. Also I received 4 hours of training with the old nurse. Now I am being asked by APS about skin breakdown that happened the first week I started. I am not psychic I cannot see underneath clothing. If you want to keep your license don't take a job in an ALF. They don't have proper regs yet.

Can someone please help me with this question? I am the only nurse at an ALF I get 24 hours per week and there are over 50 patients and no other nurse at all. I am not really the type to work a bunch of hours for free which is what they expect me to do since I get a salary. They are also constantly complaining because the census is too low. If most of these patients were appropriate for an ALF I think this would be okay but I believe that a least 50% should be in another type of facility, like a nursing home or mental health facility. I only worked with the previous nurse for about 4 hours then I was on my own. Because of this I missed one lady's skin breakdown the first week I was there (I can't look at all their butts every day) and we were reported to APS, there is an ongoing investigation over this and they want to know how I missed it. Any advice would help.

Wait a minute people. Is everyone that posted here okay? Why on earth would you even send your resume in to a company that you don't know their name? Let alone go out to an interview. Please be safe. I know it is hard to find work right now but it is not worth your life. Anyone can post a job on craigslist. Anyone can rent an office.