enchantedlife

Welcome to the real world kid. School doesn't paint a clear picture of reality. The ED can be highly stressful at times. It's an uncontrolled environment. Anything can happen. Patient care isn't what it used to be. Before it was about providing services and getting paid for it. Now it's more about quality of care and pt. surveys. Old timers are seeing the changing healthcare system. More and more pts. are being dumped on nurses. They risk losing their license everyday. Not a great feeling coming into work. not to mention all the stress and pt. complaints they have to listen to all day. And doctors that abuse their nurses. Then the nurse will take it out on the techs. And the techs will take it out amongst themselves. Healthcare used to be about serving the public for the greater good of mankind. Now its really about money, power, control, and screwing people over. So yeah, the reason your shocked is b/c this isn't what you expected. Not every1 and i would argue that many people are in this field simply b/c its a job that'll pay the bills.

Do you have a pulse? Can you read? Do you like poop? lol, no i'm joking. They asked me typical questions. What do you know about the hospital, strengths/weaknesses, future plans, what u think the job will entail you to do, hour/shift preference, scenario questions (what you would do in this situation).

Wow, thank you so much guys for the supportive comments. You've convinced me to stay and finish. I mean im so close to graduating! and I haven't even finished all my rotations yet so who knows! i may find a specialty i really like. I'm glad to know that others feel the same way and i'm not alone. Yes, I agree with the consensus by 100% that you need to start on the floor to gain experience. I have had someone told me that icu is probably the best experience you can get since you learn so much. I would absolutely consider research and advanced practice nursing in the future post bsn. And the person that said you can't start in your dream job right away is absolutely right, you have to start out somewhere. In regards to clinical vs lab, i really enjoyed the lab setting. I take my time, did chemical experiments in chem lab, i found the different solutions you can use to be fascinating and i found micro lab to be fascinating as well working with different kinds of bacteria, and gen bio dissecting organs and working with plants. I even volunteered in a greenhouse and enjoyed studying the different varieties of plants and studying them. I'm also considering any business aspects of nursing. I know my interests sound different from floor nursing but i see a lot of opportunity in this field nonetheless.

no im saying it'd be great idea doing 1:1 homecare but i need the hospital experience first. I never said i'd jump right into it.

what year did u graduate with your first degree and what type of major?

i have heard this. I guess whats stopping me is that i'm so close to finishing. Everything out there seems like it requires hospital bedside experience. I was thinking of doing home care but that needs acute care experience. Being 1:1 with a patient would seem a lot better for me as opposed to having 6+ patients. And i have 20k in debt so i think i have no choice really but to finish, pay off my loan and plan my next move. At his point i need a good paying job to pay my loan.

lol, well since you brought poop, i did have a c-diff patient for the first time and his poop smelled so bad, my goodness, i almost vomited. Even wearing a mask didn't help that much. Yeah i guess im more of the introverted type. I really enjoyed the class and lab setting because their isn't that much interaction with people. I've always considered myself a thinker, i just love to sit there and think but not do much talking. I was always the quiet type. the hospital is too dynamic and interactive for me.

welcome to the world of nursing lol. At my job i saw 1 doctor literally screaming and i mean screaming at the nurse. Everyone a mile away could hear it. I dont know exactly what happened but i think it was some kind of med error. Another time at clinical i saw a nurse being yelled at by a doc. She was questioning a doctors order and he was basically telling her im in charge and you'll do what i tell you to do. He wasn't messing around lol, old school type of doc. Anyway, the point of this comment is to prove a point. I've seen very angry docs, family members going after nurses, and yes even nurses eating their fellow colleagues. What your going through now is probably only a small taste of what to come. I think most nurses out there have made some sort of mistake. Whether its dropping a patient by accident, or giving a wrong med, or forgetting to flush a line ect ect....depending on the severity of the incident you may have to answer to the doc(s), nursing management, hospital admin, family member(s), and yes even lawyers and possibly getting sued, let-go, or fired. It's a lot of stress. You have to get used to it. Learn from your experiences now. And if nursing truly isnt for you, find something else.

I came across this as well. When I was rotating some nurses came off as very hostile. I think it's because they are so busy they don't have time for you. As a student your paying money to learn but keep in mind they are so busy that they forget this fact. Some just don't care. Also it takes time to show someone how to do something and it's sometimes quicker to just do it yourself. Also your not technically an employee so your not being paid and some may feel that this isn't expected of you. Although it depends on the school and your experiences, don't expect much learning. Try to get a hospital job while your in school so you can learn at least some of the basics.

Hi all, new to this forum. I'm glad that i came across it. A little background about my journey first. I did my pre-reqs. and enjoyed it!. I fairly enjoyed learning anatomy, microbio lab, human development, nutrition, and so on, I thought these classes were very interesting! I took a few other classes like general bio and chemistry and I thought these classes were even more interesting and also more challenging. I enjoyed spending time in the lab to dissect or conduct experiments. After completing the prereqs and some other classes for my bachelors requirement like history and English (I loved history), I decided to apply to my schools nursing program and got accepted. Before I was an undeclared major. So I was now going into nursing theory and the clinical phase. All of the sudden the excitement for my classes i had started fading. I would go into clinical not feeling very well prepared as my pre-reqs seemed not to have much in common with this new environment i'm in. We were learning skills in the lab while going to clinical although i felt those skills should have been taught before hand. Anyway, I felt like a small bug in a large and vast hospital. I didn't really feel like i fit in. I enjoyed the classroom or the lab more than being in the hospital. I won't go into detail but there were somethings that I did not enjoy doing. I was talking to my friends and they said that i was just probably scared and that i need more real-world experience in order to feel more comfortable around patients. So they told me to apply for a student tech job at our local hospital to immerse myself with bedside care. I told myself to give it a try. I eventually got a job there but I ended up not liking it. 2 semesters have passed and I only have 2 more semesters left and not even a year to graduation. I kind of blame myself for not having shadowed a nurse before considering nursing school. I think i would of went an alternate route. My option now is 1) switch majors or 2) finish my bsn and find a non-traditional career in nursing. Do you know anyone that didn't work at the bedside and did something completely different? I'm willing to go to grad school if that will make me more competitive for non-traditional nursing job? Also can you guide me and list me a few careers that nurses go into that are unique? thanks, that way i can research them