Second Thoughts???

[ARmickie]

I saw some of your posts, and I was hoping one of us would get somewhere! :) I'm only kidding. I did sit down and write my essay today, and I think it's a rather good one, if I say so myself. I, like you, am not willing to constantly take a lot of BS w/o making some noise about it. I am going to continue my pursuit of the nursing field, and I know that both of us will find our niche somewhere.. it's a big field.. there's plenty of room for everybody to play ball! Good luck!

[Truly_Blessed]

i have often questioned my decision to go to school for nursing. but, the more and more i think about it...there is nothing else in the world i would rather do. i have tried other jobs, i was even part of management...but that left me feeling empty. researching nursing, coming here and conversing with other nurses, and now being accepted to a nursing program has sealed my fate. that is the greatest feeling i have ever had in my life. i believe it all has to do w/an individuals attitude going in. i am ready for the good, the bad, and the ugly. in the end i know the positive will outweigh the negatives, and i will feel like i have a purpose on this earth. it's obvious you want to be a nurse. like everyone said, keep in mind this is a place nurses and students can come and vent when other people in their lives don't understand what's going on. like nike says, just do it. be blessed.:)

[RNSuzq1, RN]

But, these people seem so generally aggrivated and disgusted.. it's really making me second guess myself on this career. I mean, if you are short handed, I would think they would be more than happy to have new grads come along, as it will be more help.

ARmickie,

My brother and his wife have been RN's for 20 years and the only real complaint I've heard out of them over the years is being short staffed and ending up with too many patients per shift. That leaves them with only enough time for actual Nursing Care and no real time to connect with their patients (running their buns off all night). The problem at their hospital isn't that they can't find enough Nurses to hire, it's the fact that they only hire so many people and give them extra patients to care for. All the Nurses at their hospital belong to a "Union", I'm not sure what goes along with that, but guessing that could be why they only hire a certain amount of people.

I've worked in all sorts of jobs and even people who say they "love their work" will undoubtedly find something to complain about once in awhile - that's pretty normal. A couple of years ago I was a Secretary for a group of "Pediatric After-Hours Advice Nurses" - we took calls from patients all night and on weekends. The group of us did 12 hour shifts sitting in individual cubicles - I could at least get up and move around once in awhile, but the Nurses were "literally" tied to their computers with headphones (the phones never stopped ringing) and they were timed at how long it took them to handle each call - very stressful job. I was always talking about going to Nursing School and several of them would yell at me and say they wouldn't wish the job on their worst enemy. I said - what the heck are you doing here if you hate it so much - their answer was always the same - the job paid too well to quit. One Nurse said nightly that if "Wal-Mart" paid enough she'd get a job there in a flash because it didn't look like a stressful job. I told her to take a good look at "Wal-Mart" employees because a lot of them don't look too thrilled with their jobs either and probably wish they were someplace else. And - I'm sure there is plenty of stress in their jobs dealing with all those customers each day.

Whatever path we take, we have to make the best of it. SusanNC