janemulligan

It is understandable to feel the nerves and stress at this point. But you need to relax first and avoid burnout. With exam in just four days, you don't need to cram everything at once because it will only make you more nervous. You have studied hard, so have faith in yourself. All the contents you have studied should be enough for the exam. It is time to practice as much as you can and revise. Focus on your improved scores. It is good that you are also focusing on the questions you got wrong on UWorld. Understanding them this time will improve your morale. Other than that, best of luck!

Finding a job fresh out of college can be difficult, so volunteering can surely help with finding a job from references from peers and buddies. Besides, volunteering is always good to go out and get the firsthand experience of real life working in a hospital setting. It can help you brush up your skills and put your training to good use. Employers also prefer candidates with some experience, no matter if it is from a volunteer assignment. It may even be helpful in finding a job, as you will get in contact with other nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals. Go out, volunteer and expand your network. And think about all the sick and injured you will be helping. But make sure to get complete information about the volunteering job first. You may not want to be stuck doing something you don't like or weren't trained for.

Nursing shortage is expected in the upcoming years, as the baby boomers are aging and the need for health care grows. Moreover, nursing schools are struggling to fill the gap. The effect of this shortage shows mostly on the areas that are not considered the most attractive to work, live and lead a life in. Such areas suffer the most. And, there is a shortage of nurses, who specialize or are experienced in certain fields like critical care. Due to the aging population, the demand of nurses is increasing rapidly and it will increase the career opportunities for nurses in different parts of the world.

OH! Believe me, I kept thinking... would this be, just might be, my last chance to enter the nursing profession or would I have to choose an entirely different career. I knew I was a nurse when I started looking for slip-ups in every medical show I watched (no kidding). NO! It had to be nursing forever and ever. The journey of cracking the nursing school interview to being a nurse who demands to be treated well, as she can walk as slow or as fast as she chooses to get that pain medication the patient has requested for, has been a long, long one, indeed. While my friends used to dream of lavish mansions, posh cars and holidays in Europe, not me, I used to dream of normal work hours and a regular sleep schedule (as an ER nurse I still dream of the same). They don't lie when they say that it takes a special kind of person to be in this profession and breathe it in and out. I sat in the interview with thoughts running like fireflies in my mind. What would the professor ask me - Why do you want to become a nurse?, Why did you choose this program? What are your strengths and weaknesses?, What sets you apart from others? And yes, a hundred other similar questions you get to read here and there and almost everywhere when you start preparing for your nursing school interview. All you do is keep your fingers crossed until you crack the interview. This time, however, I was the one who broke the silence! "Will it be easy?," I asked the professor. He looked at me for good sixty seconds, and then uttered, "Are you expecting an answer like - not easy but worth it?" We both broke into a laugh! A good sign it was. I had already impressed him by making him part of my dilemma. The interview wasn't half as stressful, as everyone had said it would be. You know your dream career is in the line, so you give your best shot because you do not want to be anywhere else, honestly. I took the program of my choice. ER Nursing. All nurses are made equal but, only the finest ones become emergency room nurses. The pathway suggested earning a Bachelor's Degree and so I chose to go through it. People who try to compare nursing with any other major, seriously have no idea. For me, getting into the nursing school was only half of the battle. I looked clean and natural, wore simple overalls, kept my jewelry way simple, and avoided heavy perfumes. Nursing school brought to life the nightmares of living on junk food, hardly sleeping or sleeping very little, biting my nails, suffering from intense fatigue and having crying bouts. Not to forget the worry about deadlines. The thought of being just an average-nursing student always sent chills down my spine. The journey of cracking the nursing school interview to being a nurse who demands to be treated well, and in turn treats her patients well has been a long, long one indeed. Going down the memory lane, just reminiscing the situation, I kinda feel that it was all about checking out how I reacted to questions like "Where do you see yourself after a 3 years?" Was I nervous? Totally! Did I let it show up on my face? Absolutely Not! And that's how I cracked my nursing school interview! If you have some inspiring story or moments when you just stepped in to this profession, share it with us. We would love to hear your amazingness... Related... https://allnurses.com/resources/common-nursing-school-interview-questions-r4/

Sure female nurses outnumber male nurses by a huge margin. I guess I am lucky that the place where I work, doesn't really discriminate between the two genders in terms of money. I have male colleagues at the emergency department here, and even though it is against the policy to reveal your salary to your colleagues, general discussions like this one have made me aware that male nurses with the same experience as I have, are earning just as much as I do. The reason, however, that at other places there is a huge difference in the salary of male and female nurses might be that the management believes that male nurses are comparatively more efficient than female nurses. Which, in the first place, is not true. Female nurses are as efficient and dedicated as male nurses.

Not me by God's grace. But, at my workplace, I've met this highly sensitive nurse who suffered from an over-stimulation problem, unfortunately to top it she was not able to say 'no' to any task because she didn't want to hurt or offend others. All that she did during her regular downtimes was to stay isolated in her flat. She would even avoid sharing her room as much as possible. However, with time she learnt to stay 'no' and people around her respected her boundaries. She also started maintaining a list of tasks that she had to do. In the quest to know herself in a better way, she started connecting with people of the same personality so that she would feel understood and accepted. It's okay to be different; one just has to appreciate that sensitivity can be managed with some help and cooperation.

We all have already gone through a thousand of quotes about nurses and how this profession is the noblest of them all. But the best thing our nursing instructor ever said to all of us in the class was – "Our job as nurses is to cushion the sorrow and celebrate the joy, every day, while we are 'just doing our jobs'." I had read it somewhere earlier too, yet, I was kinda filled up with a sense of pride, and promised to be the best nurse I can be.

Keep your calm dear friend! It's a positive thing that you're in love with being a nurse because of the diversity of individuals you're exposed to. When I entered the profession, almost four and a half years back, the only promise I made to myself was that I would be the best nurse around. No doubt, I have seen many nurses in the emergency department suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but what I have learnt about nursing that does not get any easier, YOU JUST KEEP GETTING STRONGER. As far as the anxiety attacks are concerned, you must definitely take the help of a good counselor or have a doctor prescribe some mood stabilizers till you feel better and more in control of your situation. After your NCLEX take a few months or a year off, travel, watch movies and unwind. A few months off might not hurt your future prospects much, if you can justify your desire to explore. Meanwhile you could keep looking for jobs online. Good luck and Chin Up!

As the famous quote goes – It never gets easier, you just just get stronger. Of course, there are nursing career beyond the bedside. You can opt for the following – •Legal nurse consultant •Nursing Informatics •Case Manager •Healthcare risk manager •Cruise ship nurse •Certified diabetes educator You can follow your passion and have the privilege to serve those with the greatest needs. You can serve your passion to cure and treat beyond the bedside. All the very best! :)

I really hope and wish that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helped you with this type of stress. I must say, where there is an administration with indifferent people, there are other places too, where you'll get sensitive as well as sensible enough people around you. I agree – nursing is the hardest job you'll ever love. Do not let yourself sink. Swim through it. It might mean leaving that place. Switching the place. And also, you can raise this issue to the administration. But do not sink. Always remember, for an individual as compassionate as you, love and care are the only things that you deserve.

If you ask me how it feels like to be a Registered Nurse at the emergency department for these four and a half years, here you go: Think of a place where phones are going off, you hear voices all around and every room is stuffed with people. Once you're done with reading this particular paragraph, close your eyes and imagine that when you turn around, you are seeing all the hallways are full of patients, mostly on stretchers. Can you see those 15 people on the board signing in? Oh! The moment you will be ready to get one of your ICU patients upstairs, there will be another one waiting for you. Moreover, there's no chance that I get time to eat or drink. Barely, I get a chance to go to the restroom- during my 12-hour shift. Am I the only one? When I asked the fellow registered nurses working at the emergency departments (I am a part of various communities with internet-based websites), I came to know that I am not the only one who's going through this - post-traumatic stress disorder - as they name it. Yes, it sounds like quite a heavy word, for that matter. Digging around the web (I was curious), I found a study which says that in the year 2007, there were 24% of ICU nurses and more or less 14 percent general nurses who were diagnosed positive for the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Immediately, the first thought that came to my mind after reading this fact was, "Big deal! Even the quote goes like - 'Nursing - the hardest job you'll ever love.' Ah, yes. Nursing." Don't get this wrong in anyway. I am certainly in love with being a nurse. But it is now more than ever evident that nursing has long been considered as one of the most stressful professions (no wonder!). Do you know why? Whenever researched, and I felt it myself too that if it's the stress, it has to come down to the organizational problems in the hospitals across the globe. In addition, the reasons may include the cuts in the staffing - low staffing and low wages, that's what nurses are mostly stuck with. My personal experience, however, screams aloud that hiring more nurses won't really fix things back to normal. There has to be another solution. It may also include reconstructing the hospitals, for this way (I am sure), the administrators will pay more attention to what nurses have to say about the workflow and the patient care. I know no nurse (thankfully!) who'll not concord with a training program, which aims to help him/her to relieve stress and deal with the ethical dilemmas that occur every now and then. If you ask me, what it's like to be a nurse - often at times I am stretched to the limit. I've seen a clinical nurse when driving, vomiting on the way to work - all because of the unimaginable level of stress. My friend once asked me, "Isn't there any place where you can go, sit and just be alone, in a quiet room, for a couple of minutes?" To which, all I could reply is, "I could have a patient on the death bed, or I could have a patient die and I get no break. Can you beat that?" And when that's not enough, in case there is any addition of new forms of documentation, and even addition of the electronic health records, the extra work is assigned to a nurse. No person other than a nurse can understand how the workload gets larger than ever when such things happen. It should not be this way, certainly. As compared to the general population, I find myself much more prone to have stress, anxiety and depression, and many fellow registered nurses feel the same too. All I can see and I am worried about is that in this time and era, hospitals think of a nurse as a cost to be cut. Shouldn't it be considered as a revenue stream on the other hand? Who set the mindset that a nurse is an easily replaceable resource? The administrators will keep on complaining about nurse's burnout, but they won't ever link it to the moral distress that nurses go through. I've seen a good number of cases where a nurse knows what exactly they are meant to do, but hardly are able to act on it, thereby turning the clinical situation critical. The solution could be a series of in-person workshops where a nurse is trained to deal with moral distress and the ones that involve simulations to practice how to make ethical interests heard at the workplace. It's high time for the administration to set a goal to help the nurses communicate in a better way with the team members and the staff members as a whole. It's high time they think of a nurse not as a cost to be cut but as a scarce resource that calls for to be invested in, respected and supported. It's time to wipe out the deafening sounds of stress.

Hi, Nursing is and always have been a bright career option. Many parts of the world provide many number of nursing jobs. Almost every part of the world is in need of skilled nurses. Apart from Canada and New Zealand, there are many other countries where practicing nursing can be the best. According to current scenario, USA is in need of skilled nursing professionals. So, Australia, UK, USA can be considered the best option as there is a high demand of trained professionals. You can choose from them as per your choice.