jporte16

I work on a med-surg floor at night and I see this quite a bit when patients are woken up or refuse their pain medication at certain times. Usually what I do if it is scheduled it go in an hour before (I don't know if you can do this at your facility) and ask if they are ready for it, then go again at the scheduled time and see if they want it then. If they still refuse to take it, I educate them on the importance as mentioned in one of the comments above about their pain getting out of hand and then you end up chasing it until you're on top of it. So my answer would be if they want it later on after the scheduled time I would definitely call and get it rescheduled and give it to stay on top of their pain but that's just me! Hope this helped!

I wear cherokee, but opposite of your case, i'm only 5'7"! Sorry if it's not much help, dickies also seem to fit well for men!

I have to agree and say that actually being in the hospital is quite a bit more stressful. School only prepares you with 1-2 patients max, and even then you aren't doing EVERYTHING for that patient like you do in the work place. I work on a busy med-surg floor 7p to 7a, and i've learned 10,000x more than when I was in nursing school, and I have only been here 8 months. You will do great though, I love being on the floor, and also love learning so much day in and day out. GOOD LUCK!!!

I can completely agree with you zephyr9! In nursing school I actually had 2 nursing instructors that were hard on students, me in particular. I don't know if it was because I am a male coming into a female dominated career that they were harsh or what it really was? I had one instructor tell me in the first year of my LPN schooling that all of the students that got C's (i'm not super book smart) would never pass nursing school at all. Well I rushed in after my boards to tell her in fact that I had passed my boards first time when a few of the other A+ students had not passed because they stated they did not need to study. After this, she was a lot nicer and explained that she never did try and hurt anyones feelings with her remarks. The second instructor I had went down a looooong list of things I was not good at like patient care, time management, med administration, care plans, etc. I later learned that she had said this to most of the students so I did not feel so singled out. I had a hard time getting over what the two instructors said, but now that I am a nurse and work in the hospital, I have an overwhelming amount of patients tell me how kind and compassionate I am so that dispels anything I was told in school! Basically, keep your head up, you'll be an amazing nurse I just know it!!! :)

I really enjoyed this article a lot!!! I graduated from nursing school as an LPN in 2010 and had a hard time finding a job. When I did find a job, it was in a hospital (one of the top 100 in the country,) and I feel completely blessed. I work the night shift 7p to 7a and I will continue to most likely until I have kids, or forever if my future wife decides to stay home and raise the children. I completely agree with the fact that nighttime nursing is like one huge family, I could not imagine working during the day with doctors breathing down your neck, and all of the families in and out asking 100 questions. I have been at this hospital for almost 8 months and have really grown to love nursing more than I already did. I know I picked the right career, and would never go back on choosing to do nights as my first nursing job.