"I don't want to do bed side nursing"...SAY WHAT!

Nurses General Nursing

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had a couple different nursing students say: "well, i'm going to school so i don't have to do bed side nursing". one even told me she want to work in plastic surg. office, not at the bed side. o.k. , i'm an "old nurse...47 yrs old", but when i went to nursing school in the 80's , we knew we knew we would most likley have to work our way into other areas of nursing after some experience in an acute care facility or some other such place. i hate to sound like i want to eat my young but, a part of me wants to see these new nurses go through the ranks like many of us did. not because i want to see them go through he double thooth picks, but because i feel , taking care of pateints, hands on , learning orginizational skills, pt. asses. , are the best way to learn nursing skills. as a critical care nurse of 27 years, i continue to be amazed at how much i can find out about a pt. during a bath and bed change. we have beds that turn, vents that suction, monitors that alert a critical care team half way across the city, bells, beeps and whistles,,,,what ever happened to good old hands on. i think it is funny that a nursing student thinks if she goes to a plastic surg. office she will only see tummy tucks, face lifts and boob jobs. she's forgetting the big ugly draining wounds , burns, and amputations etc..these office settings see. would love to be a fly on the wall when she takes care of her first pt. with these things and says......"oh my gosh, a plastic surg. takes care of these people too...!" guess i'll go into dermatology.... ha , if you've been around the block you know what awaits her there too. hee heee....but i swear i don't like to eat my young !:lol2: :rotfl: :clown: :lol2: :lol2: :uhoh3:

Specializes in PICU, Nurse Educator, Clinical Research.
rach_nc_03 - Your post was right on the money and I appreciate your viewpoint and agree wholeheartedly.

Deb - you too!

Count me in!

steph

TY, steph!

I don't jump in on every thread with which I disagree, but after I read this one, I had a vision of the floor nurse after my last surgery (who, instead of giving me pain meds when I came up from the OR, crying with 10 out of 10 pain, showed me the TV remote and my call button, then told me the next shift's nurse would be in soon)- sitting around at the nurses' station saying, 'well, you know, I'm only doing a year or two of med-surg because that's what you're supposed to do. I hate it, but I'm just doing my time until I can go into x/y/z/'.....

so I had to weigh in on this one. ;)

TY, steph!

I don't jump in on every thread with which I disagree, but after I read this one, I had a vision of the floor nurse after my last surgery (who, instead of giving me pain meds when I came up from the OR, crying with 10 out of 10 pain, showed me the TV remote and my call button, then told me the next shift's nurse would be in soon)- sitting around at the nurses' station saying, 'well, you know, I'm only doing a year or two of med-surg because that's what you're supposed to do. I hate it, but I'm just doing my time until I can go into x/y/z/'.....

so I had to weigh in on this one. ;)

Yikes! :uhoh3: :o Sorry about your unmet pain needs. That is just awful.

steph

Specializes in Med/Surg, Perinatal, Float.

I think the nurse the original poster was referring to would be great in a plastic surgery setting. This is only from what a fellow nurse who left being a nurse in a well-baby nursery to go to a plastics setting said after she came back! Not every pt, but a large number of them in plastics tend to have money and an attitude to go with it. If that is what she wants to work with, she can have it...!

Specializes in Government.

For the purposes of this thread, I think there is a huge difference between knowing what you want after school and disliking nursing care. I never did 1-2 years of adult med/surg either...straight to Peds. The people who call me and want my community health job? They know nothing about community health. When I quiz them a bit, they don't even feign interest. They want the hours or the schedule. What I hear is :

"well, I'm getting out of school and I don't want to do any icky kind of work. I don't really like nursing but want to make good money. Weekends and nights would cut into my wedding planning. How do I get your job?".

I've spoken to hundreds of nursing students over the years and many are genuinely interested in community health. I help them along. I was referring to those who don't really care about health care at all, even in a more remote setting.

Specializes in NICU.

Wow, I am a student nurse and can't imagine working anywhere other than bedside, it is why I am going into nursing, the direct patient care. I am currently in a paper/pencil-pushing job and I can't stand it! I am really great at doing paperwork, but it is not what I want to do - I don't mind charting and doing the tons of paperwork that goes along with nursing, but I want more, I want to be able to heal and to help people, I want to use my compassion to do good for people. I want to work at the bedside more than anything!!! :)

I don't think that people lacking in a passion for bedside nursing should be doing it, therefore I guess I don't really think all students should work their way 'through the ranks'. I would rather have a nurse care for me who truly cares about patients and loves bedside nursing than one who hates every minute of it and wants to be a manager/drug rep/whatever instead. That, to me, is scary! I am not one of those people who will ever want to be a nurse manager or an office-type, so I will be happy to take someone's bedside job who doesn't like it and they can do that part.

The great part is, not all of us want the same thing, thank goodness! Imagine if we all wanted to work bedside in a Med/Surg unit or if we all wanted to be nurse managers. There would be so many unhappy nurses because someone has to do all those other jobs. I think we should embrace the possibilities that are out there for us and be thankful that we are all choosing or in such a diverse profession where we can find our niche and actually get paid to do what we love. ;)

I truly hope that everyone finds what makes them happy in nursing and I hope that those who aren't going to be happy as nurses find that out before they have put very much effort into it and instead choose the correct path and follow their passion in life.

Specializes in OR.
I'm laughing becuase I can't help but wonder if plastic surgeons even hire RNs or they use medical assistants like most other offices?? ;)

If she's looking to work in a surgi center with a plastic surgeon I would "hope" that he would like a little bit of critical care of OR experience at least. :idea:

I'm all for doing what you love. If that's working in a doctor's office that's fine. The only problem I see is that most of your skills are really learned out in the real world so I think they would be severely limiting themselves by stepping right into an office. But to each their own. ;)

I went right to the OR out of NS and am glad I did-I love the surgical environment and don't think I would have enjoyed M/S as much. That being said, we get plenty of exposure to code browns, vomiting, pus etc etc etc. It is VERY hands on. The girl mentioned in the original post will need experience in an OR most likely-a lot of surgeons hire private scrubs and RN's from OR's they have worked in before. I don't agree with all nursing students being CNA's first though...some kind of healthcare experience, yes, but why should it be CNA work specifically? Some of us worked through NS and I got paid far better as a surgical tech than I would have as a CNA. Obviously, I'm not a fan of everyone starting out in med/surg...I wouldn't want someone taking care of patients feeling that they're just biding their time. We all have our strengths and interests and I believe as nurses we should make the nursing shortage work in our favor.

There is someone from my class who was working in a ER after grad, and told the nurse "I am not going to mkae that bed. That's the tech's job!" Needless to say she didn't last long there, esp after failing her boards. Then she was a tech on a tele floor and just stopped showing up. People like that are funny...I don't get them! I always help when I can. I don't think I am better than anyone. I am doing my time on the hospital floors but I won't be doing this forever. Maybe I'll go to the OR or something....I'll probably get my MSN. Who knows, but the floor is not in my long term future.....

Specializes in PICU, Nurse Educator, Clinical Research.
Funny thing is when people think of plastic surgeons they think of only the face lifts, tummy tucks, and nose jobs. They dont consider the Burn patient needing numerous skin grafts, or the gunshot wound to the face needing complete reconstruction, or the kid with the cleft palate/lip needing significant repair calling for multiple surgerys. Plastic surgery is not just the "making you pretty" aspect and I have found with a lot those new nurses seeking out plastic surgery offices without the med-surg or other experience are looking for surgery themselves (expect flaming lol). I cant tell you how many have told me this very statement when rotating a day through our burn icu. I've even heard students tell me they were in it "to marry a doctor" of all things LOL. I worked Burn ICU for years and most the docs were plastic surgeons and thier nurses were ARNP (at least in my area) or PA's.

Totally off-topic- but hats off to you for working with burn patients. I did a clinical rotation through a burn center and it was THE hardest work for everyone- docs, techs, etc...but ESPECIALLY the nurses. That was some hardcore stuff!:bowingpur

hee heee....but i swear i don't like to eat my young !:lol2: :rotfl: :clown: :lol2: :lol2: :uhoh3:

yes, but sometimes they sure need slapping around a bit, lol!

we have a plastic surgery floor at our hospital. haha i'd like to see them work it. it's considered the most hectic floor in the system.

Count me as one of those upstarts who knew what she wanted. No way was I interested in "doing my time" in the requisite 1 or 2 years in med-surg. I knew I did not want that.

I can't disagree, but I do want to add/emphasize. I wanted nothing to do with med/surg but spent a little time in it to help build up the skills I spent 2 years learning; and although medical nursing care is not my primary job task, assesment skills strengthened on a hospital floor/5 rights of medication and med administration/multitasking/problem solving/nursing process all helped me become a more well-rounded psych nurse. Also, I advocate getting some bedside skills immediately following licensure because it is the time when the information is the freshest; hospitals are the most patient (good ones at least); and if you get to your specialization and you find out it isn't what you had hoped it to be, having your medical experience still keeps your options wide open. But regardless of how logical my POV might be, I acknowledge that the decision is very individualized.

....

Oh and this lovely new nurse wants to work ICU now......she thinks it will be like TV (she actually said this) where the doctors will do all the dressing changes and replaces all the tubes, lines, etc.....She'll just have to sit and look pretty while she charts and passes meds. :banghead:

LOL - dh works in CCU and he sure wipes a lot more butts than he charts or passes meds (at least it seems that way to him).

DeLana :rotfl:

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