I just wanted to say that I've noticed that a lot of these posts are just b****ing and moaning. I get it; believe me! I'm not a nurse, but I am currently in school. As you all know, nursing and nursing school is NOT a walk in the park. But, I'd like to say something.
I just want everyone to reflect on all of the great times we get to have as nurses/nursing students, along with the bad. Yes, sometimes our days are total crap, but in our profession, we have the ability to help people when they're at their worst and not many (if any) other people in other professions can say the same. Take a look at how lucky we are and don't forget the reason that you went into nursing in the first place.
The reason that I'm going into nursing has a lot to do with my dad and my aunt. Both of them acquired AIDS from blood transfusions due to their hemophilia. My dad spent 6 weeks in the ICU with feeding tubes and anything else you can think of before he passed away. My aunt died 6 weeks after my father. Her death was speedy and I'm eternally thankful that it was. I have yet to meet someone that was as caring as my aunt. She always told my grandparents that when she died she didn't want us to put flowers on her grave, but to spend the money on a toy for a kid that couldn't get it otherwise.
When I was little, my mom always told me that she was sure that "Aunt Sally was taking care of all of the babies in heaven that didn't have their mommies around".
Being an only child and only grandchild, I spent most of my childhood in hospitals and spending the day watching my grandma give injections to my dad and aunt at the kitchen table. I read a ridiculous amount of Highlights magazines.
Every time I look at a patient in a hospital bed, I think of my dad and my aunt. I don't look at them and reflect with grief; rather I look at them as someone else's dad or aunt. I want the best care for them.
In a few months, I will start working in the same hospital that my father died in 18 years ago. The thing I will be thinking about the most isn't the memories of my father's death, but the care I will be giving to my patients.
I hope you all will think of patient care the same way. Remember, no matter how crappy your day is and no matter how much you hate nursing for a split second or longer, think of those people in the beds. Think of why you became a nurse.
Love you all. Thank you for all of the advice that you give me on a DAILY basis. I respect you all so much!
Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.
Lots of us have stories of family heartbreak that brought us to nursing. Mine is because my oldest son died at the age of 13 from cancer.
I don't need anyone to remind me why I got into nursing. Believe me, I think about it every minute of every day. I carry it with me every hour, every minute, every second and I admit, I resent anyone even implying I might forget it. I recognize I am not alone in this - my story is just one in a sea of tragedies that brought many of us to nursing. Our idealism does not carry us past our humanity and often it is the inspiring reasons that we first pursued nursing that makes the realities of nursing very hard to swallow. You just aren't there yet. Any implication that the need to vent means we have forgotten or are somehow failing to honor our personal journey is just plain unkind and misguided.
I admire you for trying to inspire people and I have no doubt your life experiences are going to help you as an RN. But until you get there, you can't dismiss people's need to air things out. Its okay not to read them if it isn't your time in life to relate yet. You are idealistic right now, which is right where you are supposed to be. And when your honeymoon period is over, you'll be glad this place is here, because friends, family, spouses who are not nurses or in the medical field lack the perspective needed to relate when the Code Brown hits the fan (or the floor or the shoes or the scrubs). And the higher your noble reason for doing this, the more difficult it is when things like budgets, greed and indifference get in the way of best nursing practice.
I got into nursing because I needed a job that paid well. That is pretty much IT. Yes some patients I do actually care about how they do . Others I can barely walk into their room because of their attiude and behavior, I know they are sick, but so is everyone else there.. Honeslty, it would make me a wreck to care as if everyone person was a my mother on her deathbed, i do my job, and hope everyone make a full recovery, but i try to not think of them at home or outside my shift. . I enjoy reading the vent threads and have had many of my own. It lets me know I am not alone and how to handle similar situations. Nursing school is nothing like being the actual nurse. nothing. I am a newer nurse so clinicals are pretty fresh in my mind.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Lots of us have stories of family heartbreak that brought us to nursing. Mine is because my oldest son died at the age of 13 from cancer.
I don't need anyone to remind me why I got into nursing. Believe me, I think about it every minute of every day. I carry it with me every hour, every minute, every second and I admit, I resent anyone even implying I might forget it. I recognize I am not alone in this - my story is just one in a sea of tragedies that brought many of us to nursing. Our idealism does not carry us past our humanity and often it is the inspiring reasons that we first pursued nursing that makes the realities of nursing very hard to swallow. You just aren't there yet. Any implication that the need to vent means we have forgotten or are somehow failing to honor our personal journey is just plain unkind and misguided.
I admire you for trying to inspire people and I have no doubt your life experiences are going to help you as an RN. But until you get there, you can't dismiss people's need to air things out. Its okay not to read them if it isn't your time in life to relate yet. You are idealistic right now, which is right where you are supposed to be. And when your honeymoon period is over, you'll be glad this place is here, because friends, family, spouses who are not nurses or in the medical field lack the perspective needed to relate when the Code Brown hits the fan (or the floor or the shoes or the scrubs). And the higher your noble reason for doing this, the more difficult it is when things like budgets, greed and indifference get in the way of best nursing practice.
I wish you luck in your studies.
Quite possibly one of the most AWESOME posts ever written. :w00t:WOW!!
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Lots of us have stories of family heartbreak that brought us to nursing. Mine is because my oldest son died at the age of 13 from cancer.
I don't need anyone to remind me why I got into nursing. Believe me, I think about it every minute of every day. I carry it with me every hour, every minute, every second and I admit, I resent anyone even implying I might forget it. I recognize I am not alone in this - my story is just one in a sea of tragedies that brought many of us to nursing. Our idealism does not carry us past our humanity and often it is the inspiring reasons that we first pursued nursing that makes the realities of nursing very hard to swallow. You just aren't there yet. Any implication that the need to vent means we have forgotten or are somehow failing to honor our personal journey is just plain unkind and misguided.
I admire you for trying to inspire people and I have no doubt your life experiences are going to help you as an RN. But until you get there, you can't dismiss people's need to air things out. Its okay not to read them if it isn't your time in life to relate yet. You are idealistic right now, which is right where you are supposed to be. And when your honeymoon period is over, you'll be glad this place is here, because friends, family, spouses who are not nurses or in the medical field lack the perspective needed to relate when the Code Brown hits the fan (or the floor or the shoes or the scrubs). And the higher your noble reason for doing this, the more difficult it is when things like budgets, greed and indifference get in the way of best nursing practice.
I am a nurse who loves nursing! As you will soon see for your self, most posts are vents about things other than nursing, that we as nurses have to do ( nurse/patient ratio, spiteful coworkers, management, copious paper work, hours of charting, doc's .... ). I love helping patients when they need me the most, I wish I had more time with the patient but reality is quite different. So for the few moments that I have with the patient I am grateful, and I say I LOVE nursing!
I derived 110% satisfaction from the work I did as a CNA.
I loved it so much, I did it for over 20 years.
When I decided I wanted to be a nurse, I did it for the paycheck.
Yes.
I did.
I had to do it.
So, if you ask me to remember why I got into nursing, my memory will not be a pretty one.
There is nothing that rips my soul out than sitting behind a stupid desk and going through convoluted, redundant and pointless paperwork.
What a ridiculous (or rediculous, as it is "diculous" more than once, lol) waste of time.
I think it's pitiful that nurses are so dumped on and ill-used that if they get to do more than chart and fart, then they are happy.
Today, I took my time with a dressing change. What a marvelous time to talk to my pt and just let this poor old man he is still worth talking to!
To me, that is a big part of being a nurse.
But, whoa! Did I pay for those precious minutes...
Yep, I'm already burnt, and I'm a new nurse.
It is nothing like being a student and it is only the responsibility to my kids and sense of pride for sticking with it that cause me to come back every day.
Everyone has their reasons for going into nursing whether they be noble ones or not. I don't believe many people have forgotten the reason they became nurses in the first place, but simply use this site as a way to vent since doing it at work will get you fired, doing it at home will have you're family ready to fire you, and non-nurses simply can't relate. I became a nurse because as a child, I spent a fair amount of time in the hospital as a patient and understand the feelings of helplessness that patients experience. I also hope that you keep up this optimism once you become a nurse...because you're being a student and being a nurse are not the same. You're on your honeymoon period and after getting a job...reality will set in. Print your thread out and keep it where you can find it...so when you want to up and quit within your first couple of months working as a nurse...you can remember why you went into it in the first place. Good luck.
I worry more about the nurses who can't wait to leave work. Who are able to forget that they're nurses. Who stopped learning new things and growing professionally in 1980. Or, whenever. The year doesn't matter. Those are the people who have forgotten that they are nurses, much less what led them to enter the profession.
Sure, we come here to vent, but also to make professional and educational connections, to learn from other wiser nurses, to see what other nurses are up to...to see what other areas are out there to explore, to look at something from another angle. Our colleagues are all over the map. We are curious and reaching out.
Venting, comes from caring about doing good work. Sometimes it is very difficult, a struggle. It would be much easier to not care. To not worry. To leave our nurse selves at the time clock, and not think for a moment about it until the next shift. But that is not how we are here.
Fiona59
8,343 Posts
I didn't realize my mother had another child!!!