nohika

I'm not an OB/L&D nurse but volunteered in postpartum. For one, you likely wouldn't be the one delivering the bad news - that's the job of the doctor, not you. :)

But the thing is that there are plenty of women nurses out there that haven't given birth - why does being a woman give automatic credit? A man can be just as respectful and caring if not more so than some women out there.

But that's what she's saying - if she has one patient that's circling the drain, or becoming incredibly unstable, how is she supposed to justify leaving the one that needs her NOW? She did state that she had coworkers helping her out, she was in the room for at least an hour, etc. It never said that she never TOUCHED the patient, just that she had not found the time to turn him. When one patient's going to hell, it's hard to find time when you have two patients. It's why you depend on coworkers.

From what I know of the colleges around here, especially CCs, their waitlists are electronic and professors are not the ones that determine said waitlists. They don't determine who gets in the waitlists. It's different at my four-year university, but that's how it was at the CC I went to. And if you didn't make it off the waitlist, you had to show up in person and get a piece of paper signed to add (but those on the waitlist had first priority).

There's the phrase "use it or lose it" that applies quite nicely. It is definitely not mandatory to start in a hospital, but generally it will give you the broadest base of experience.

I think what is annoying people is that you're assuming EVERYONE that is solely a nurse for the money (or whatever reason beyond "passion") is horrible to patients, etcetc. It is quite possible to hate your job and still be lovely to your patients, residents, whomever. The ones that have issues likely have had issues LONG before they entered nursing. Or who knows - some of those bitter, burned out nurses, could've gotten that way through the culture/the way nursing is today. It's hard to judge when you don't know the circumstances. Focus on yourself. Don't worry so much about the motivations of everyone else, because frankly, they are none of your business. It's you and your motivation that will get YOU through school. Not anyone else.

I think a lot of the people that say they "hate nursing" really hate what nursing has become. A lot of people that "hate their jobs" go into nursing to do patient care, and are given more patients then they can handle combined with tons of paperwork. So of course they'll be mad - it's not what they bargained for. I'm not even a nurse and have more sense than that. It's so easy to say, "oh, that nurse hates her job, she should so get out of nursing", and so difficult to be that nurse, who may have little ones at home, or an abusive husband, or whatever, and have no feasible way to escape that job. Americans especially don't like doing stuff they hate, in general. Most don't stay in a job they hate because they ENJOY hating their jobs. I think the pre-nurses and nursing students here (and MAs) all need to take a deep breath and remember that you may not understand until you spend some time in the other person's shoes - for all you know, the nurse is having a bad day because her husband just died. Her parents died. She was in a car crash. Everyone has baggage, and it's awesome to think that it'll never affect you, but that is very unlikely to be the case. Just IMHO.

I think OP was more hesitant about it because there were no RNs in the place so it may not really have led to anywhere.

Sending good vibes to you, Ruby Vee. You're always a delight to see around these forums.

Vet techs basically handle everything a nurse does and more on a daily basis - monitors anesthesia, gives treatments, does dentals, starts IVs, everything. Talks to vets, patients, clients. Cleans. Some even handle appointments by themselves. Not to mention they're expected to know how to do this on several different species. Squirmy puppies are the least of their IV worries - try a 10 year old large dog hit by a car whose blood pressure is virtually nil, or other cardiac issues. They encounter a very similar spectrum of problems that human nurses do, but their patients simply can't tell them about it. I see nothing wrong with them calling themselves vet/animal nurses, since they technically are. Edit: There are some places (Banfield) that call their vet techs vet Nurses.

PA programs also ASSUME that their students don't have any type of experience and thus give more clinical hours. NP programs assume that their students get the majority of experience they need to see disease processes, etc, in their experience hours. That's why their clinical hours are so lacking.

Part of me wonders if the people you've heard it from have been dismissed or in some way punished by the school? I've seen many, many students (not an educator myself, but work closely with a professor) claim anything they can think of when they're getting a bad grade, etcetc. I would evaluate these sources critically, like you'll have to in the future.

I think peds onc would probably be relatively closer - you at least get experience with children of types. I've heard of several wanna-be NICU nurses having issues transferring over after getting used to adult patients.

I think a lot of people "bash" LTC because they don't know what the environment is like. I was a CNA with 25 pts, several demented, many constantly on their call-lights, bed alarms going off, etcetc. I would be lectured for spending too much time with a pt and it hurt. One night I spent a couple minutes with a pt who had been a nurse in her past life and heard a bit about her story. She was surprised/happy that I was able to do so. These poor people who are stuck in such a home with little to no interaction. People assume it's like the hospital and it's not.

It's part of why I left LTC. :/ If I was lucky, I'd see a resident 2-3 times in an 8, 9-hour shift. That was it. Breaks my heart to know this still happens.