What nursing field do you think is easiest and hardest?

Easiest nursing job are the ones who are in those private practices who make appointments and go in to take your vital signs and then leave. Seriously. Maybe sometimes they'd give you your vaccine after the doctor tells them to. How come no one's mentioned these! And they practically have a 9-5 nursing job!

Easiest: Dr offices, health department, etc.

Hardest: Telemetry.

@wooh

So freaking true!! I hate it when nurses say any other profession is better than nursing, they are only saying this because they have not worked as a banker, teacher, dr, dentist, lawyer, social worker etc. Other people's jobs always seem easy.

Wow! Psych is easy?! I personally do not like psych, I just can never deal with those patientS. Everything about psych pts is heartbreaking. However, I know it is not easy at all. RNs who work in medical surgical units get so annoyed when a pt asks for meds, water, teaching can you imagine having to explain and guide, and supervise psych patients? They are strong people, they get physical with you, they are lonely, and they need someone to talk to. Psych pts are people too and they too have heart, kidneys, liver, infection problems etc. No psych is not like babysitting.......and some nurses wonder why doctors treat them like...............

In my opinion, ICU nursing is extremely hard regardless if you love it or not. The patients are in critical condition, they may seem stable now and and the next minute they start coding. This field requires frequents assessments, frequent documentation, these patients are in lots of meds (especially MICU), most patients in MICU have terrible outcome, and so many of them start coding. My heart belongs in ICU, I love the Adrenaline rush :)

i suspect everyone has a different idea of what's hard and what's not. i'd hate psych or home health nursing, and don't have the patience for rehab or ltc. icu suits me perfectly.

Actually found my psych placement quite hard as I just felt I was banging my head against a brick wall and they always made me work with this awful woman with a personality disorder because no-one else wanted to!CCU I found difficult too but that was probably more because I didn't like it as a specialty - just wasn't for me.Post surgical rehab was a bit of a doddle

I did clinicals on a med/psych unit awhile back and we had a woman with delirium. She had just had surgery and when she came out of it, she had delirium. She was so fiesty! She had a mouth like a sailor, constantly tried to escape, very combative- everyday it was a wild ride.

She did get better the following week. She was a completely different woman too. Very sweet and polite. She was definitely a challenge but very interesting.

IMO, based on amount of work-stress-downtime:

EZ-mode: psych nursing, its like baby sitting

Hard-mode: MedSurg, mainly because of the large census

Have you ever tried baby sitting?!?

Hardest: Skilled Nursing Facility.No joke. 18 patients with wounds and foleys and a million PO meds that have to be taken one at a time.... It's IMPOSSIBLE to get it all done. Working at ANY SNF, regardless of how nice it is, is a huge liability for nurses. Patients are too sick and the ratios and ways of doing things have not adjusted.

And I would have to say the easiest are the laser hair removal centers. They are "required" to have a nurse in the building but they don't do jack. I know first hand, my friend does it and makes 35/hr... She probably has forgotten ALL of her nursing skills but if easy is what you're looking for- That's where it's at. And Doctors' offices.

And psych is not easy. At all.Not even a little bit. As far as easiest departments in a hospital I've heard postpartum/L&D. Hardest- med-surg, tele.

Easiest: Probably postpartum, or a doctor's office.

Hardest: I would guess med-surg or LTC. They have high pt loads, especially LTC. LTC also doesn't get the respect they deserve.

I work ED. It's not easy, it's often stressful, but I like it, so I don't think it's too bad.