slower paced nursing in long term care?

[pepsi115]

I'm 50+ years old and just started nursing after getting laid off 4 years ago and not being able to find a job. I just started working in a hospital in an area that I am told is the best place to work in the hospital. Unfortunately, the pace is too fast for me and at this stage in my life I am just interested in a steady job until I retire. I am not interested in working codes, giving blood, or anything remotely risky or invasive and want something with low stress and slower pace. Is long term care a better fit for me? Please help. I'm at my wits end and dread going to work every day.

[joanna73, BSN, RN]

I work nights in LTC. It's anything but slow. If I have even 2 people out of my 30 who become acutely ill, I won't get much of a break. You're running a lot of the time. Many of them don't sleep at night, and bed alarms are going off like crazy.

We do IVs, tons of wound care, etc. There is a huge misconception about LTC. The med pass....on a good night I can be finished in less than 2 hours. Then there's scheduling, replacing shifts, MDS work. You're very busy.

[pocketpixie]

If you want a slow paced job look into School Nursing. Some schools/districts do not have Nurses, but others do. I sub as an RN for a school district. The nurses have a lot of responsibilities. They don't just give out medications, but overall it is a Mon-Fri 8-4 job. No weekends, no nights, no holidays. There is the occasional emergency, but for the most part it is slow paced.

[nursecheeks]

Quote::: Oct 15, '11 by beast master RN

also if your not opposed to doing nights , you might want to go there , talk about Slow paced easy , easy , easy job , some people may say other wise but from my experiences the hardest part about working nights at my LTC facilty is staying awake some nights, lol, all so try just about any psych unit if that doesn't drive you crazy::::: Quote:::::

I wish my noc shifts were slow paced. We are on the go from the time we get report to even after we give report a majority of the time and getting a lunch break has been few and far between since I started a little over a year ago. Of course though we have 3 wings and one is a rehab hall and only two RN's for these 3 halls and 3 CNA's. It can be very challenging at times especially when we are short a CNA. It's hard to do all your treatments, tube feedings, med pass, PRN meds, morning blood draws, charting AND do rounds q 2 hours in 8 1/2 hours.