RN's in hospitals. What is the worst part of your job?

[GCTMT]

Hello.

I am scheduled to start Nursing School next fall. I am really excited about it and am looking forward to becoming a Nurse and getting into the workforce. I am not worried so much about the curriculum and caring for patients. I figure whatever a nurse has to go through it is often harder on the patient anyway. But I am concerned about the paperwork and the bureaucracy, I have heard horror stories about Medicare, Medicaid, and the dreaded HMO. So please give your thoughts and experiences. Is this an area that doctors are mainly responible for, or do nurses have to deal with it too?

Thanks..

Also, feel free to elaborate on anything you want regarding the work of a nurse. While my decision to become a nurse was well though out and with good intentions... I can't think of everything.

[Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN]

]Well, I'm an American, so I hope I don't scare you off, heh.

]

]I believe it was the late Rodney Dangerfield who said (repeatedly), "I get no respect!"

]

]That's what it boils down to...lack of respect.

]

]Patients don't respect nurses. I've been told "I'll have your job" because the blood pressure reading I obtained manually was different than what the Dinamap said and that meant I was "allowing faulty equipment to be used."

]

]Families don't respect nurses. There is such a push for customer service in the healthcare industry that it seems like it doesn't matter if our patients are healthy, as long as they and their families are waited on hand and foot.

]

]Doctors don't respect nurses. I overheard a resident saying, "the damn ER residents are going to call the surgical team down every time an NG tube needs to be dropped. Like they can't do it. They think we're just monkeys who take their orders when they can do it themselves." A fellow nurse turned to her and said "now you know how nurses feel." The resident was shocked; she'd never looked at it like that, but she made no apology and said, "well, this is different," as if to say "well, that's YOUR job, not MINE!"

]

]Techs don't respect nurses. I've seen a tech yell at a fellow nurse (who is amazingly helpful and an all around wonderful person) because she wouldn't "help" the tech take vital signs because she "kept looking at charts all night." You think that was for fun? Gosh, there's a reason we are paid what we are paid!

]

]The public doesn't respect nurses. I overheard people at a nice restaurant in the Virgin Islands discussing how dumb nurses are. "They make so many mistakes...they leave bubbles in IVs! Think of all of the people nurses kill by their errors!" I heard that, told my friend sitting next to me (who is also an RN) and her aunt and uncle practically needed to restrain us to keep us from giving out pieces of our minds!

]

]The media doesn't respect nurses. Even one of my favorite cartoons, "Animaniacs" oversexualizes our image and dumbs us down.

]

]Last but not least, NURSES don't respect nurses. We fight with each other, we take a nibble off of each other every now and then, we talk about each other, and we degrade ourselves by allowing ourselves to be treated like crap sometimes.

]

]R-E-S-P-E-C-T

]

]Sock it to me...please!

]

]*~Jess~*

[Magsulfate, BSN, RN]

I have not read any of the replies yet. As a nurse, I have never had to deal with any insurance companies or medicare. Never. You will only have to worry about insurance companies if you work as a case manager. As a bedside nurse, you will never think twice about what insurance the patient has.

Congrats on choosing nursing! It is a wonderful career!~

[April, RN, BSN, RN]

As a newer nurse with 1.5 years of experience, I wanted to chime in. Please don't let the negative comments that you read here scare you away from nursing! I read this forum when I was in nursing school and often questioned my choice in careers. Now that I have been working for awhile, I realize that while some of those negative comments are very true, there are many more positives in nursing! I'm very happy and haven't second guessed my decision to become a nurse.

That being said, I'd have to say that the worst part of my job is the ridiculous requests/demands/comments from patients and families (and sometimes MDs). No, I can't have Whole Foods deliver meals to you. Also, my specialty involves a lot of teaching about post-op recovery and lifestyle changes. Sometimes I feel like I'm babysitting teenagers! We spend so much time educating our patients and their families, just to find them lying in bed all day, sneaking too much fluid, eating Chinese food, etc. I've become a pro at the "you need to take responsibility for your own health" lecture. We can only help so much; the patient has to want to help themselves.

Oh, and we certainly do not get paid enough for the amount of responsibility we carry!

[9livesRN, BSN, RN]

Charting is the bane of my nursing existence, but it wouldn't be so bad if the department of redundancy department didn't have me charting the same information in 3 or 4 different places. I am darn good with my time management skills but I still have the occasional night when I am on the floor well past the end of my shift documenting a ton of information. And I don't get paid overtime for that.

Really? do you have to chart- past your shift (because you were busy of course/ton loads on info)

and you dont get paid for that?

.

that is insane isn't it?

darn!

[DLS_PMHNP, MSN, RN, NP]

Helicopter families.

I apologize for my ignorance, but what is a "helicopter family?"

[srgmom]

Already answered.....they hover about...getting in the way.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I apologize for my ignorance, but what is a "helicopter family?"

A helicopter family member hovers over the patient in the same manner that an actual helicopter would hover over the land below.

Helicopter family member = annoying visitor who needs to get lost.