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.

I think it's sad so many people jumped all over the instructor. To me, I can't honestly in good nature bash the prof for what this student has said. The student has already said they do things differently (but in their opinion, maintaining safety). What if there are safety issues that the clinical instructor is noticing that isn't apparent to the student yet? Especially in such a complex patient. I also agree that no matter what you feel comfortable doing, you need to go by the book as you're a student. That's probably why she recommended a PCT position - so that you got comfortable doing the skills the "right" way. For all we know you're violating the facility's policies and the CI is in trouble because of it. We don't know all the details. I do agree that giving difficult/complex patients to a student is a compliment, though.

With enough support, people have done it, though. It's not impossible. I've seen other cases where people have less than a weekend. It's not optimal, but it's not the worst thing ever.

If you want to try it, go ahead. I think (no offense) that too many people assume that EVERYONE wants to be a SAHM. I know for me and for several other people I know, I'd go bat-s*** nuts if I had to stay home with my kid 24/7, wee little baby or no. Especially wee-little-baby that takes up so much of your time. Everyone seems to assume that all women should stay home with their children and take care of them and some women just aren't built to be like that. And I just figured that the OP used "it" because she doesn't know the gender.

Yes, professors do tend to dislike openly disrespectful students... Stop texting, start paying attention in class, and maybe, just maybe your grades will come up. If you can't make office hours, HUMBLY email the professor and ask if you can set up an appointment to go over your performance and how you can improve. Oh, trust me, the "little stuff that doesn't matter" - it DOES matter. Especially if you make it to nursing school and beyond, it's the "little stuff" that will kill your pts if you're not careful. Learning attention to detail and jumping through hoops is a good skill and will serve you well. I'm not a pre-nursing student at this moment, but I've worked for one of the professors at my university for 2 years now and have seen almost everything.

I haven't looked myself, but try iTunes University. There may be some good lectures there.

I didn't make it in LTC - I couldn't handle how the other CNAs were like "do XYZ while you give her her snack, or she'll talk your damn ear off". I get that time was of the essence (on nights we had 25-30 pts who needed to be rounded on 3 times in under eight hours after filling up water pitchers, dealing with the people who were CONSTANTLY getting out of bed, the morbidly obese lady who was CONSTANTLY on her frickin' call light, the sweet demented old man who was constantly on his light looking for his hat, with his wife on HER light telling him there was no damn hat. I couldn't handle it. They did not get the care they needed from me because I could not be in so many places at once. I hated cutting the corners I had to. I did end up leaving the medical field (was originally going to pursue nursing) because of my experience in this place. LTC is heart breaking. Those that care, don't always last.

Admittedly, I am not currently a nurse, but for your sake I would not let your manager know you're thinking of switching jobs. I've heard of people getting fired before they could quit because the managers were mad that they were leaving.

I have to say, I think one flaw in your thinking is that you assume you'll be satisfied with "helping people" as an RN. Unfortunately, with the way nursing is moving, that is less and less possible. The ratios are higher, people are sicker and more dangerous, and more often than not people are having trouble giving the care they want to give. You can go 12 hours without a lunch, pee, or any type of break. There's lateral violence in some places. Pts won't always appreciate you - some will cuss at you and blame all their problems on you if you don't give them their dialudid. Nursing isn't just "helping people". It's dealing with the ******** of a corporation while trying to do one's job which gets more and more difficult. Albeit, it isn't the same everywhere, but from what one can read here and what I've experienced, it's more prevalent than not.

I know you believe this, and I know a lot of other people on this forum do, but not everyone (and probably the majority in the world) were not raised this way. Or have faced things that make them uncomfortable with that kind of thing.

I think part of it is that people assume that if kids aren't shown breastfeeding, that they become scarred for life because of it. I think kids probably learn more about breastfeeding and its rights/wrongs in the first time they encounter it and how their parents/adults react. For those parents who have breastfed in front of their younger children, that's creating a positive version of breastfeeding for them. For parents who react negatively to a breastfeeding Mom in public, it starts creating the whole "must hide it away" thing, methinks. It's actually a similar thing to ageism.