Is nursing worth it?

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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Hi everyone.

I'm feeling very negative as of recently when it comes to pursuing nursing. Is it even worth it? I'm employed as a surgical services aide and I absolutely HATE it. We're understaffed and I'm undertrained. I've barely been working 2 weeks and I'm being called left and right, I don't really know what some things are equipment wise and I'm about to start working alone. We are supposed to be a team of 6 and it's only 2 of us. I'm only working 2 days a week starting next week but full time shifts and it's insane. Everyone tells me nursing will be like this, where I'm taken advantage of constantly. Overworked and under paid. I live in Chicago, Il and I'm aware it's different in every state. Is there any advice you can give? It isn't that I can't handle this work but because I'm not well trained yet it all feels so overwhelming and I'm really doubting pursuing nursing as a career. I come home in tears some days because it feels so bad.

Asking if nursing is worth it, is like asking if God exists. Nobody can give you definite answers, since all of it is subjective. In my opinion, nursing just like any other profession is hit or miss. Sometimes you find a hospital with great admin, coworkers, with appropriate nurse to patient ratios, you get all the training you need, your patients are all peaches. However, most of the time it may not be the case. I think it is a job, and just like any job you will have to work hard to the brink of exhaustion, with little support, rude patients, and money not worth your stress. But like I said, it is not like this all the time and in all of the places. It just takes time to find your niche.

Specializes in Med-Tele; ED; ICU.

You absolutely hate a job at which you've only been working for 2 weeks? Honestly, in that short period of time it's hard to picture how you could have had enough experiences to form any kind of judgment about it.

Of course there are many things with which you're unfamiliar... you're brand new.

You have 2 people doing the work of 6... of course you're feeling overwhelmed, especially since you're new.

As to nursing, it really just depends on what you're doing, for whom, and where.

Is it worth it? I don't know. What are you hoping to achieve in your life by becoming a nurse?

A lot has happened since starting, believe me. It's just as fast paced as an E.R. I've been left alone to work and they have turnover times. You need to switch equipment out, make sure you sterilize everything properly and make sure you move quick enough to get to the next room. If a case gets messy it takes more time to clean and deal with but if there are 2 cases back to back it gets so hard to keep up with it. Some days are slower than others but I'm working long hours with little to no help and I'm in school. A lot of the hospitals near me are community and public. They all seem to have similar issues. Slower paced and higher rated hospitals are farther out, almost an hour or more away. I'm supposed to work less hours but I've been doing full time and nearly every day of the week. It's only this week that I've started doing less days, but it still is hard to build a routine.

As for nursing, I was hoping to get more time with patients and actually feel like I'm helping someone. I want to play an active role in someone's life and this position doesn't fit it. I took this just to gain experience and network. As a nurse I was hoping to accomplish many more things, grow and help others grow and I know that can still happen, but things like this put me off.

I'm not one to quit so I'm going to stick with this position until I finish school, but it's just overwhelming and I'm concerned that I might never adjust to this. If this is a "basic job" I'm worried that I won't adjust to being a nurse. I've heard mixed things, that it isn't too bad and that it is the worst. I know my own work ethic and I can learn things quickly but I feel as if I went into this blind and that I was deceived a little.

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