CheckThePoo

I currently already work at the hospital but am still a student. I'll be graduating in May. I've been warned by several nurses (on different units) to NOT go to work at this particular hospital on their med-surg unit. They said that the unit is awful - the nurses don't support each other, and management is bad. My concern is that when internship time comes around that med-surg may be the ONLY option. Considering that there's a hiring freeze in my area AND very strong competition for very few jobs for grads, I'm nervous to decide which is the lesser evil. Should I pay attention to the red flags and take their advice and not take a med-surg position? They all have said the same things about the unit - including one of their own med-surg nurses (she ultimately found a new job and left). Or should "beggars not be choosers" and should I just suck it up and take whatever I can get? Advice?

No she didn't: ....Massage a patient's leg b/c the patient was complaining of pain due to a DVT!!!! (student).... ....Put a big urinal full of dark pee right next to the patient's breakfast because she thought it was tea.... ....Grab the wrong cleaning wipes to give a bed bath - used toilet wipes to clean down a patient, the wipes were disintegrating on the patient's skin because they were flushable LOL.....

Many area hospitals are avoiding ADN nurses. I personally heard from a nurse hiring manager from a THR hospital that they are already being discouraged to hire ADN - but it's not a set-in-stone policy just yet. Others I've talked to have said they won't even consider hiring a new grad unless they've worked in a hospital setting as a tech already. So even if they will take ADN, you may have to jump through a few more hoops any ways. It's very tough competition in the Metroplex area. Local externship positions had hundreds of applicants, and only 6 positions available. Good luck with your search, I don't mean to discourage or scare you. I just think you should know what you're getting yourself into....bring your A game and come prepared to network your butt off!

Is anyone else having an issue in their area about hospitals only wanting to hire BSN degrees and not ADN? I'm just curious what the thought process behind that is? Do BSN RNs receive a "better" education than ADN in your opinion? I know they receive MORE classes, but does it distinguish abilities in your experience?

Fair enough, I understand your points.

Well, and this is why I find this thread ironic. How can you expect someone to excuse rude behavior based on the argument that nurses may have just been having a bad day, yet not be expected to show the same restraint in your own rude behavior? After all, we may not be in control of how we feel, but we should be in control of how we behave.

this is true, and i realize this. i know that there are "sour" people everywhere, in all fields. however, and i can only speak for myself, i've encountered rude nurses far more frequently than nice nurses (towards students as a whole). it's a little peculiar to have someone say "if a nurse is rude then it must be your fault" when in my experiences the rudeness was apparent from the start. my thinking is - what exactly did i do to warrant such a response when all i did was walk up to them to listen to report? i know that as a student we are there to learn and to gain as much from the experience as possible, and yes, there needs to be flexibility to allow certain things to roll off our back. and believe me, i am very much the type who believes in just being helpful, learning, and doing vs. standing around complaining or huffing and puffing about what is being asked of us. it just becomes a little tiring to be treated poorly by *some* nurses.

Wow there sure must be a lot of nurses out there who are just "having a bad day." Do most nurses get cheated on, lose their dogs, have a car accident, and have leaky pipes around the same time? Because as a student, I've had bad interactions with nurses even in the first 2 minutes of meeting. I literally walk up to them, smile, introduce myself...and before they have even had a chance to know me or see what I know or how I learn, I've had people give me attitude and talk about how crappy it is to have a student as though I'm not standing right in front of their faces. Sorry, but let's just call it what it is - SOME nurses are simply *******.