I have had good paying jobs in the past($22hr), but it was the most unrewarding job I have ever done!!! I was miserable!! It was production work!!
I have always wanted to help people!!!
My question is--- Is nursing for the very tender hearted!! Just after I had submitted my application for nursing, within a week I came upon an automobile accident!! I knew the young girl was gone!! I cried all they way home and half the night!!! My mother asked me was I sure I could handle this!! I just feel if I dont make a difference in someone's life, then my life will just continue to be just as unrewarding as before!!! Any thoughts or comments!!
I cry at Onstar commericials, so I was a little worried about this, too, but I really think it is a good thing, not a bad thing. We just need to learn to hold it together long enough to get past the family before we start crying.
I am an extremely soft hearted person who is fairly emotional. While I am learning how to reign in some of that emotion, I feel that it's a pro rather than a con that I care so much. I have a long post under First Year in Nursing titled something like "Both my patients died the other night" where I talk about how it felt to lose both patients in one shift. I attended the memorial service of one of those (the lady had been a nurse for 40+ years, was an instructor at my school, and attended my church). Many told me it was a huge mistake, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I do not feel like I'll burn out, but who knows? Most of my family felt like the ICU was not the right environment for my personality, but it's turned out to be a great fit. There is nothing more rewarding than transferring a patient out to a less acute level and then seeing them walk into your unit a few months later, healthy and happy. They more than make up for those who pass away in our ICU. And the ones who do pass on; I cherish the moments I spend with their family members.
Some of my fondest memories are those of the donors and their family. Nothing makes you appreciate life more than watching and/or participating in the care of a donor and the decisions their families must go through. I come home and hug/love on my husband and kids; I call my folks and remind them how much I love them. It's the most difficult patient, emotionally (for me), especially when there are similarities between me and the patient (I'm quickly learning NOT to make comparisons). And then they have a large, loving family, it's even more difficult (especially if there are younger children involved). But it teaches and reminds me to love life and live it like there is no tomorrow. We get so wrapped up in things sometimes, we forget to take time to slow down and look at the wonderful people and world around us.
I've only been in the ICU since December 2003 and have only been an RN since August 2005, but I've come to love my job 90% of the time. There are days when I don't feel like dealing with death and those are the difficult shifts. But the good shifts outweigh the bad ones by a long shot. After giving my patients the best bath of their hospital stay, doing skin care, oral care, and making sure they are turned q2hr, I feel as though I've made them just a bit more comfortable and have made a difference. Sounds silly considering I'm also responsible for all the critical care gtts and machines keep them alive, but it's the little things that make me feel like a good nurse. Anyone can calcuate the gtt rate of dopamine, suction an ETT, and administer multiple abx for a 12 hour shift.
That being said, I am considering a per diem position at a same day surgery center rather than working OT at my current job. I feel this will prevent me from getting sick and tired of my regular job while providing me with extra income. The per diem rate is $40 and I receive $39 an hour for OT at my job. Plus, the facility is 5 minutes from my house vs. 30 minutes for my regular job. It's boring work, but it will be a nice change of pace from the ICU environment.
You will never know which unit/area of nursing is right for you until you explore your options. I was lucky enough to do clinicals in every part of the hospitall as well as in a psych/chemical dependence facility. I worked in the ICU througout nursing school and was always happy/relieved to return to the critical care environment after being on the other areas. For now, it's the right environment for me to be in; who knows in 5 years where I'll be?
The problem is, sometimes nursing is production work, as well.
I worked in a factory for ten years (very low pay) and have been a nurse for 14 years.
Sometimes in facilites where the work load is unreasonable, "production line nursing" is pretty common. It leaves you feeling very badly about nursing.
Ask nurses in your area to be sure working conditions are not like that where you are.
As for being tender hearted, of course you have to care about your pts and what's happening w/ them, but you have to be able to take it and hold yourself together on the job.
I don't think that the above experience has any relevance with deciding upon a future nursing career, but you (and everyone) should think long and hard about your emotional/pyschological make-up before deciding upon nursing. You need to have the ability to detach. Thing is, you have to get through clinicals with appropriate behavior. One may graduate and be a school RN, office RN, insurance RN, etc but you must be able to get through hospital clinicals while composed. Everyone breaks down now and then, but you cannot routinely break down. It is usually distracting for the patients and their families and puts the focus on you and your emotional state, which isn't appropriate. Some things to think about. For all of us students.
I'm very tenderhearted. I just THINK about certain things and I can start to cry. I am always weeping over TV commercials. When people start telling me their woes, I start to cry with them even though I have no connection to whatever is bothering them. I'm just a big ol' crybaby.
And I have cried at work. I've cried when patients have died - whether they were my patients or not, on my shift or not. I've cried during codes.
At first, it interferred with my work.
Now, it helps me relieve a bit of stress but when I do happen to cry, it's more of an afterthought. I don't do it while I'm working anymore - I'll do it afterwards if I need to. It's not that I don't feel the same way - it's that I am so focused on my job that I don't get as emotionally overwhelmed as I used to. Instead of freaking out and crying, I'm busting my butt trying to save that patient. I think I've matured a lot as a nurse.
Specializes in M/S, OB, Ortho, ICU, Diabetes, QA/PI.
I worked in Maternal/Baby and 99.99% of the time, it's the happiest place in the hospital, but your tender-heartedness is what will get you through that .01% of the time when there's a bad outcome and it becomes the saddest place in the hospital...........
Heck tender hearted? I can cry at a Hallmark commercial. But in a given siutation when you know youve done what you can and cant do any more, you stand by the family, feel their pain, try to console and maybe even cry with them. That doesnt make you tenderhearted, it makes you human.
The last time I cried during a movie was watching The English Patient, during the part where my cat got bored and climbed up my leg. Well, I will admit, there are a couple of scenes in Field of Dreams where I do get legitimately choked-up. Generally, though, tears don't come easily to me, and in two years of nursing school and one year of nursing, I haven't shed any. Frankly, I was pretty sure that as a middle-aged man, I wouldn't be as prone to it as some of the twenty-something girls I've worked with, and I suppose I wasn't entirely wrong. On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago I was so close to tears over a patient that the difference seems pretty academic, and she wasn't the first, nor will she be the last. Whether or not you're openly weeping, this stuff gets to you.
That said, there's an awful lot we have to think about. The patient on a morphine drip is only one patient, and on some level I think most of us are able to balance caring for the dying and their loved ones with the need to look after those who will recover. It isn't a matter of being human or professional, but of being human and professional. I'm not suggesting that's always easy, but it's a skill most nurses seem to learn.
My unit is neurology/neurosurgery. It requires a fair amount of critical thinking. We probably have a higher-than-average percentage of patients who aren't expected to recover (glios, some strokes, etc.), so it requires a certain amount of emotional resiliance, as well. But I still maintain that two of the key attributes of any good nurse are a strong back and a soft heart.
Of course, I do worry a little that somebody may look at how many trips to the Pyxis I made last weekend and decide I was a little too soft-hearted. (But I did have orders for everything I gave.)
I think it takes a while to get used to death, I witnessed a devastating death before I was nurse as well, I was in shock for like 2 months. I deal with death all the time now and I am usually okay with it. When I first started I just did a lot of soul searching and kind of came to peace with the idea of death. I realized that death is okay, it's a natural progression of life and there is nothing wrong with it. We fear it beacause we don't understand it and because our society shields it from us our whole lives. In other cultures they are much more accepting of the dead--they handle the bodies in ceremonies (or do other things we find absolutely appalling).
However, things do still get to me. I cried for the first time at work in a year when I had to tell a vibrant young woman and her husband that she had terminal cancer. I waited until they left and then just excused myself to the bathroom, no one ever knew that I broke down. (My aunt died from the same type of cancer a few months earlier).
Anyway, you will be just fine, it's okay to care and you will get used to it.
I have had good paying jobs in the past($22hr), but it was the most unrewarding job I have ever done!!! I was miserable!! It was production work!!
I have always wanted to help people!!!
My question is--- Is nursing for the very tender hearted!! Just after I had submitted my application for nursing, within a week I came upon an automobile accident!! I knew the young girl was gone!! I cried all they way home and half the night!!! My mother asked me was I sure I could handle this!! I just feel if I dont make a difference in someone's life, then my life will just continue to be just as unrewarding as before!!! Any thoughts or comments!!
I think you do need to learn to be able to put your emotions aside to a certain extent. You can't let yourself cry and grieve for a dead patient as much as that patient's family for two reasons. First off, you will burn out. You just can't maintain that level of emotional pain forever. Secondly, you have to be in control to provide support and care to others. If you are so emotional that you can't help others, then you won't be much good as a nurse.
That isn't to say there aren't days that we all still go home and cry. I think there is a balance to be found. You shouldn't be emotionless, you shouldn't be too emotional. There's no reason you can't find that balance.[/quote
JaxiaKiley
1,782 Posts
I cry at Onstar commericials, so I was a little worried about this, too, but I really think it is a good thing, not a bad thing. We just need to learn to hold it together long enough to get past the family before we start crying.
Good luck to you!
~Jax