I have been a nurse a decade this month. I have worked Tele, med Surg, emergency, travel, coordinator, and now home health roles. I have a BSN. I have never been fired, I have never had any complaints against my license, and I have received awards at several of the institutions I worked for. But being a nurse has made my life miserable. I have 30K of debt I still need to pay from getting the "ever so necessary" BSN. Which hasn't done a damn thing for my pay because I don't want to be a manager....which is all you can really do with a BSN to get more money unless you care to go further in debt get a masters. So should any of you decide to continue your endeavor into nursing please don't believe the hype that you need a BSN. Do LPN or ASN and find any job and get a year of experience and the big bad hospitals will hire you anyway, especially ASNs. You get paid like $2 hour less and have half as much debt...so maybe you won't feel as jaded about your pay. Then the hospital can pay for your BSN or MSN when you decide you want that....but I have no ambition to do the jobs of a BSN or MSN so my life would have been a way better had I just done the bare minimum required to get a bedside job.
I like people, it is a big reason I went into nursing, but now I really kinda wish I lived somewhere I wouldn't see another soul for weeks at a time. People are demanding and often entitled and ungrateful. I am not a nun and didn't sign up to be a door mat. I wanted to help people and then go home and have my life. That rarely happens. You never get off on time and on your days off people are calling to see if you can work...all the time!!! And now that I work home health they get upset when they can't get a hold of me on my days off to ask me about my patients. I turn off both of my phones on my days off and have been told by my boss that it is unacceptable for me to do this. Really?! I work part time...it is suppose to be 48 hours a pay period and I am often hitting 60 to 70 a pay period. This is why I will NEVER work full time as a nurse again. If I were full time I would be hitting 100 hours a pay period. I am tired of being to exhausted to live my own life on my days off. I don't care about what you think is appropriate dedication to the patient anymore. If I can't have my own life then I don't want to take care of any patients. Again I am not a nun, I didn't sign up to be one when I took my oath as a nurse. Please quit confusing dedication to my patients as something I need to sacrifice my life for. Hire enough nurses and we can both be happier!
If if you are not prepared for the oxymoron of nursing which is, "Don't do anything you don't feel comfortable doing to a patient without asking for help." You then ask for help. " We sent you the policy and a YouTube video, how come you weren't able to accomplish this procedure you have never done successfully by your self? You should should have let us know you weren't comfortable and asked for help." Really?!?!?!?! I have worked at 8 different organizations...this is how "training" happens at all of them. If you are not prepared to spend a crap ton on your degree and then work at a facility that will give you half assed training and then use you as a scapegoat the first time an error occurs, you don't need to be in nursing. I go to work and do the best I am able to do but still get done on time. To do that I often have to take shortcuts. I often forget things. Every nurse will tell you that he/she doesn't do that because the environment requires that to be the CYA response. But unless that nurse won the lottery for nurse employment then she/he is lying. I have worked at 8 facilities and 2 of them had fairly good expectations and support for their nurses. That is 1/4 of the facilities I have worked at. And even those 2 facilities would occasionally get so overloaded with patients that the "fake it until you make it" nursing was required. "Fake it until you make it" is pretty much the motto of nursing because there is not enough money to appropriately train and maintain training for the nursing staff. You will be put in a position you are uncomfortable with often and really the only way you are going to get the assistance you need is to be a mean *****. And that part of nursing stresses me out terribly. Because prior to choosing this profession I was a fairly optimistic, kind, bend over backwards for anyone, kind of person. I am a great deal more cynical and realistic than I use to be.
I am greatful to this career for the many patients I have met and lives that I have seen, mostly because I know that I can't waste anymore of my life in this career that is stuck in a futile mission that doesn't even come close to putting the one thing we promised to put first when we took our oaths of care. Our patients. So if you were thinking about going into medicine because you like and care about humanity, please don't. You will suffer a great deal and never accomplish that goal. Be a nutritionist, a physical therapist, occupational therapist, a fitness instructor, a massage therapist...but do not be a nurse...or a doctor.
