Sylvia
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Welcome. I hope you do very well in school, because we definately need more nurses with your positive attitude. I agree, these bulletin board could easily scare off anyone. But nursing is not a field for the faint of heart. Some people DO complain too much and some nurses are just plain mean and nasty. But mostly, this is a safe place for nurses to vent their frustration. Although it may seem very negative to you, sometimes nursing really IS that bad. I'm sorry, I wish I could tell you otherwise. I wish I had known some of the harsher realities of life before I went into the field. Don't get me wrong - I would have gone in anyway, because some people are born to be caregivers and I am one of them. But nursing instructors tend to paint an unrealistic picture of what you can reasonably accomplish in a shift. I wish you the best of luck. Welcome to one of the most frustrating yet rewarding of all professions!
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Linda, your poem is wonderful! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
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No, one nurse for 40+ patients is NOT reasonable and the number of CNA's for that number of patients is really pushing it! I, too, work in the South and I find that most "good" LTC facilities expect one nurse to handle everything (meds, treatments, flushes, catheters, charting, family members, supervising staff, etc) for about 30 patients and that is hard, but it can be handled by an experienced nurse. However, the number of patients you describe is ridiculous. I know. My very first nursing job was as a charge nurse on a wing with 38 patients and 5 CNA's (if we were lucky). I handled all of the above, plus wound care for yet another wing. The job was supposed to be 7-3 but it was more like 7-6. I loved my patients so much that (I realize now) I really ignored just how much a patient load like that jeopardized my beloved patients, not to mention the nursing license I had worked so hard to obtain. I finally left when the management decided that on top of everything else, the nurses should help the CNA's feed patients because they were tired of us sitting around on our lazy butts!