I've only worked at the family practice for a month (I wrote another post about quitting this job soon), and the people I work with think being a nurse at a hospital is so damn easy. They think working at a doctor's office is really complicated and difficult, and being a nurse at a hospital is a breeze. One is an LPN and has worked at a hospital, and the other girl is an MA and doesn't understand why people think working at a hospital is hard.
Have any of you done both? Hospital and Office nursing?
I work week-end nights as a staff nurse/charge relief in a busy 33 bed telemetry med/surg floor. During the week i work evenings in a family practice urgent care clinic. Both jobs are busy in their own ways. Working closely with docs in a clinic esp. if they are demanding call be quite stressful. But as a hospital nurse for more than a decade i can honestly say that hospital nursing ranks 10 out of 10 on the stress meter for me! It is physically and psychologically demanding and back breaking work. Pt acuity is higher now than it was when a was a new grad nurse. Some pts that used to be considered ICU type pts are now placed on regular tele flrs where nurses take 6+pts. Codes are then inevitable, because by the time you realize "hey this pt is not stable" the pt pretty much has one foot by heaven's door! pretty scary! So i laugh at those who think hospital nursing is "easy breezy":lol2: Let them walk a mile in my shoes..they'd cry and walk out on the job!
I know this doesn't compare apples to apples but just wanted to throw this in. I have a friend who has worked in LTC since graduation. Her job is horrendous. 50 plus patients, aside from that I often wonder about the safety of her license and the patients. She called the other day and said "ohhh I just got a job at X hospital, I'll have 7 patients on average, that is going to seem like a dream, it's gonna be so easy!!".
Ummm, easy? no. Different? yes. Safer? yes. I tried to explain to her that the work is different and that 7 pts sounds good on paper compared to 50 but they are more acute etc. She didn't get it. I didnt try any further to burst her bubble. lol. Looking forward to 6 months from now when I ask her what she thinks. LOL
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Ask your co-workers if they would like the X-tra large can of Grow Up, or will the medium be OK for now. It's really a juvenile remark not to be taken seriously, but I'll take a stab at it anyway. The first part of my career was in the hospital, and the second was in every ambulatory care/ doctor/ clinic imaginable sooo. . .
Hard/easy is too simplistic a yardstick for comparison, because it's quite likely the office nurse logs in more foot-miles than a hospital nurse, and many times you are insanely busy running like a crazyperson to keep the train moving along.
The difference in my mind is that the doctor's office usually is a controllable chaos, because it's possible, though very unpleasant, to halt the chaos without repercussions to life and limb --usually--and it is predictable --usually-- in the hospital the stakes are higher, and not very predictable.
I know this is somewhat a generalization but the hospital nurse has a new job (new pt, new dx etc) and the office nurse has the same job every day, and if things go horribly wrong, in an office you know what is causing the wrongness ie doctor tells you "oh by the way. did I mention I am leaving for a 3 wk ski trip on Friday? I didn't? Well ha ha my memory is just like a sieve, huh?"
One thing a office job is great for - learning to multitask and move fast, the need for efficiency, and the chance to develop people skills quite different from the hospital, such as politely explaining to an irate older gentleman that no, we did not steal your wife's insurance card and use it to run a secret underground black market of insurance cards -- I so wish I was kidding.
The most uncontrollable office chaos is OB without a doubt because of that mandatory birth/, bleeding/ c-section interface that some people thrive on but emmm no thanks, no like reschedule patients at the last minute!
When I first read the title of this thread, the immediate thought that popped into my mind was something I shouldn't say here...but the 1st part of the word was "bull".
I don't think any nursing is easy, each field of nursing has it's own stressors. As a peds med-surg nurse, I struggle dealing with kids that are acutely ill. Last week, me and my fellow nurses coded a 7 week old baby. Sure I "only" have 5pts, but I might be running my you know what off with new orders, meds, labs, and feeding them every 3 hrs.
I also work adult med-surg. While with med-surg, I can have anywhere to 3-6 pts, I am always very busy. Every pt it seems has PO and IV meds, several diabetics to give insulin too, labs to draw, new orders, and heaven forbid you have any confused ones. Yesterday I had 3 pts for a good part of my day and I was busier that I've been in a while just trying to work with a confused pt.
I think we should all appreciate nurses that work in other areas and be grateful for them.
I have done both. I worked in CCU for 7 yrs then went to work for my favorite cardiologist. The work in the office was just as busy but we just had a little less stress After He retired and I went back to the hospital, but I ran from the moment I got there around 8 and then running to the hospital to help him make rounds. Going thru mounds of holtor monitor data. setting up stress tests and still had to set up patient rooms then when I got off I still had to run to the hospital and make sure everything was good.
So all those who choose "complicated and difficult" over "sooo easy" are masochists ??? I'm with Viva, but I do know this: when hospital nurses get behind, they don't eat or pee; when you call your client's Dr's office to send a fax to the pharmacy on Friday morning, you know it doesn't get done until Monday.
In the past 20+ years, I have spent 30 % of my time working in a Dr's office working for a 13-provider clinic that did everything from vasectomies to colpos, endoscopies, and your basic run of the mill "I-don't-feel-swell-today" to a teaching clinic with brand new residents rotating through every year along with MOUNDS of well-baby shots (**shudder**), and 65% of my time working in acute care doing everything from Med/Surg to ICU.
Hospital nursing is waay more stressful/harder/go-go-go/get-it-done-now/24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays! There is a reason why I make about 45 more dollars an hour working in the hospital than when I worked in clinic care.
The patients are more acutely ill in the hospital; What do clinic staff do with patients who are showing signs of a heart attack? ----Send them over to the hospital ASAP. In the hospital, we pull their labs, take care of their arrythmias, wade through the 15 family members who are all around the patient - there's no doctor at the bedside for the family to talk to....they want to talk to YOU and have you answer how long their family member is going to be in the hospital for, start lines, place them on a cardiac monitor and babysit that EKG rhythm the entire time along with having the accountability of having to know when its a good rhythm versus a bad rhythm as well as knowing what to do immediately if its a 'bad' rhythm, and so on.
I had more than my fill of clinic nursing, I could do it in my sleep.
Get to work in AM. Set up clinic - unlock cabinets - print out visit sheet for providers - look at procedures scheduled for the day - get equipment ready for procedures - see a chart in the rack and room the first patient; v/s, height, wt, what are you here for? - tell the doc that their patient is here - go in the back and have a little coffee and OOOoooo look...someone brought in bagels YUM - pull out a stack of Rx's that are left over from the day before and start deciding whether or not someone is drug seeking again - okay some refills and send faxes back to the pharmacy - see another chart in the rack and room another patient - 5 year old 'well-child exam' (great....get out the ear plugs, here comes an MMR sigh....),..............rinse and repeat for the next 7 hours and then go home. Nobody to report off to at the end of the shift and explain "well....the reason I didn't get this prescription refilled was because...."
I know this doesn't compare apples to apples but just wanted to throw this in. I have a friend who has worked in LTC since graduation. Her job is horrendous. 50 plus patients, aside from that I often wonder about the safety of her license and the patients. She called the other day and said "ohhh I just got a job at X hospital, I'll have 7 patients on average, that is going to seem like a dream, it's gonna be so easy!!".
Ummm, easy? no. Different? yes. Safer? yes. I tried to explain to her that the work is different and that 7 pts sounds good on paper compared to 50 but they are more acute etc. She didn't get it. I didnt try any further to burst her bubble. lol. Looking forward to 6 months from now when I ask her what she thinks. LOL
Actually her LTC patients might not have been less acutely ill then the hospital pts. Not everyone is an elderly DNR. I agree with you that hospital nursing is not "easy" on the other hand LTC/SNF are not what they used to be. More LTCs are actually SNF & rehabs, corporate is taking vent pts with no RTs on staff or on call for backup, trachs galore, neuro injuries, a few are even doing blood transfusions. I think your friend is excited by the fact that she will be in a hospital where there are doctors that are actually in the building, unit secretaries, rapid reponse teams, code teams, iv teams, RTs, a pharmacy that is in the same building, security etc. What LTC/SNF has now is higher acuity pts then ever seen before with absolutely 0 money spent on anything. Forget about the absurd nurse to pt ratios.
I so wish I was kidding.
I'm with Viva, but I do know this: when hospital nurses get behind, they don't eat or pee; when you call your client's Dr's office to send a fax to the pharmacy on Friday morning, you know it doesn't get done until Monday.
newwavegirl89
13 Posts
I work week-end nights as a staff nurse/charge relief in a busy 33 bed telemetry med/surg floor. During the week i work evenings in a family practice urgent care clinic. Both jobs are busy in their own ways. Working closely with docs in a clinic esp. if they are demanding call be quite stressful. But as a hospital nurse for more than a decade i can honestly say that hospital nursing ranks 10 out of 10 on the stress meter for me! It is physically and psychologically demanding and back breaking work. Pt acuity is higher now than it was when a was a new grad nurse. Some pts that used to be considered ICU type pts are now placed on regular tele flrs where nurses take 6+pts. Codes are then inevitable, because by the time you realize "hey this pt is not stable" the pt pretty much has one foot by heaven's door! pretty scary!
So i laugh at those who think hospital nursing is "easy breezy":lol2: Let them walk a mile in my shoes..they'd cry and walk out on the job!