I realize that this forum is where people do a lot of venting about the profession. Venting is both normal and healthy. However, as a result most of the threads here tend to focus on negative aspects. Not all, but most. But there's got to be some positive stuff too, right?
So what are some things that you really enjoy about being a nurse? What are some things that pleasantly surprised you about the job, or at least turned out to be nowhere near as bad as you thought it would be?
The inner workings of the body fascinate me, whether they are working right or not - both are interesting. I like it when I look at my patients condition, their support, their medical dx & meds and understand the physiology of exactly what is happening, sometimes down to the cellular level.
I love feeling competent: taking only one poke to start and IV or get blood, going to the physician and being prepared to answer all his/her questions and having correctly anticipated his/her new orders, looking a patient that looks non-specifically "bad" and finding out later that I was right (not that I want patients to go bad, but glad that I made the right call). Part of competence is when I get assigned the sickest patients or the most difficult families and when those families say they like it when I take care of their loved one.
I love knowing that I REALLY did save a life today - even if I 'only' saved it by administering a tube feeding or IV fluids or an antibiotic. Dehydration and infection did and still do kill. A dose of ampicillin isn't chest compressions but antibiotic therapy is life-saving. Along with the idea of saving lives: I KNOW my work matters in the grand scheme of the world and that what I do "makes a difference."
I also love the flexibility offered by 12-hour shifts, the protection and benefits my union offers, the pay I earn in relationship to my educational level...
I realize that this forum is where people do a lot of venting about the profession. Venting is both normal and healthy. However, as a result most of the threads here tend to focus on negative aspects. Not all, but most. But there's got to be some positive stuff too, right?
So what are some things that you really enjoy about being a nurse? What are some things that pleasantly surprised you about the job, or at least turned out to be nowhere near as bad as you thought it would be?
Thanks and bacon planks.
Things I hate. Paperwork, millions of meds to be given in a two hour window. Patients families that think all the troubles with their relatives will be cured in an hour or less because Dr. Phil can do it. Government sticking their nose where they should leave medicine to the professionals.
I love the stories that patients have to share, I love that they are all unique and often times have wonderful life stories if we are only willing to listen.
I love organization, LOVE IT. I absolutely love doing the skilled parts of nursing, IV starts, complex dressing changes and having all my supplies lined up in the perfect order that I need them to be.
I love a nice clean patient, clean linens, gown ect.
I love educating people who really want to be educated.
I love leaving a shift and feeling like I did a good job.
I love having things set up for the next shift, isnt it great to have the time to stock up the room for the next nurse?
I love new stuff, like setting up for a patient you have all new tubing, new IV fluids, empty suction canisters.
And I LOVE new pens, my unit supplies them but once they run out it usually takes a while to get new ones in, when I see a fresh canister of nice new pens its like Christmas
I will try to make this as short as I can but my last shift truly encompasses why I am a nurse. I was working in acute in emergency, 4 patients, night shift. The lady in charge of the department is my mentor (she would know this, but never admit it) and I spend a great deal of time trying to be even half the nurse that she is. I have three, very sick patients and am snowed under. My sickest patient has AML and is septic but is holding his own, he is pancytopaenic, febrile, sore belly and looks peri-arrest but his numbers are ok. I worked in haematology for 10 years and I know that this man is going to rapidly decline at some point, I am just not sure when. Everything that can be done for him is being done and he is one of those painfully lovely people who you would do ANYTHING for. He has been seen and admitted by the medical specialists, and has had a review by ICU who are happy to just see how he goes. I tell the ICU doc that this man will not tell us how awful he feels because he thinks we are all wonderful to which the patient responds "I don't think you are wonderful, I know you are". The medical registrar and I both agree that he will end up in ICU though, so, wink wink, she says we "call me when he drops his bundle" We don't transfer him to his ward bed for this reason.
From 9pm until 3am he was stable. Meanwhile, I have a pt. with an ischaemic R) leg who has been transferred from another facility, he is stable too, but a bit funny, I couldn't quite put my finger on it but I was nervous about him too. The other two patients are sorted and sleeping. I get someone to cover me while I go outside for 15 minutes to clear my head. While sitting outside, I am running through in my head my priorities for when I come back inside. My co-ordinator has already asked me if I would like to move the haematology patient to resus or if I am happy to have him in acute. Given my experience in oncology, I think she felt that he was better off with me and was leaving it up to me to make the decision. I decide when I go back, that I will move him to resus just in case, given my gut feeling, and that my co-ordinator is thinking along these lines. I get back inside, take one look at this guy, and think yep, it's happened, in the space of 15 minutes. BP is 70 systolic (after being hypertensive on every reading, every half an hour for six hours) but I can barely hear it- move him to resus and of course battle stations from there, he went to ICU not long afterward. Meanwhile, my ischaemic leg decides to drop his BP and flick into rapid AF- another move to resus.
I come from the old school of nursing where if you can't handle your patient load, you are a failure. I found out later my co-ordinator had actually said to another colleague "she couldn't work any harder, but she still won't accept help- and she looks mortified if I try to take some of the workload away." She was trying to devise devious ways to lighten the load so I wouldn't be upset and had sent various nurses down to do things for me without me knowing! She spoke to me about it later, a conversation that ended with, "no one in this department could have looked after that man the way you did, stop being so hard on yourself, you are excellent." It was a rotten shift, but in the end, I came home feeling amazing, to get a compliment from this particular person (which never happens), and to look after such sick people who were so thankful are the things that make my job worthwhile. Being part of that team is fantastic. I saw both patients later in ICU, and they were doing well. To play a role in saving peoples' lives is a privelege I never take for granted.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Hospital smell is rather nice. Nursing home smell, not so much. :uhoh21:
:rotfl: You can say THAT again......I'd forgotten how bad it stinks sometimes, until my sister wound up in one for rehab after hip replacement surgery last week. Yesterday, her roommate had one of the raunchiest emanations I've ever had the displeasure of smelling---thought my poor sis was going to :barf01:as she used to be a legal secretary, and she's not used to such aromas.
Speaking of odors: I like it that I can tolerate so many unpleasant things. I was such a wimp as a young mom---I couldn't even clean up after my kids when they were sick, because I'd be puking right along next to them! Nursing forced me to grow up and learn how to deal with life's less attractive aspects; then again, my family might say that I've gotten just a little too comfortable with the nasty stuff, because I'll forget sometimes and tell a really gnarly poo story right in the middle of dinner.:uhoh21:
And speaking of stories: Nurses have the most interesting collections of 'em anywhere on the planet. There's nothing better than a good nursing yarn to pass the time between call lights when you're yawning through your cortisol trough around 0400.....especially when they're funny and involve a very confused lady named Jennie who went into a male patient's room one night and ripped his Foley out.
#1,I love that working 3 days out of a week is considered full time.
What motivates me to keep pushing the last four hours of my shift is to make sure that the nurse that follows me has a smooth organized shift.
#2. I love having everything ready and easy for the oncoming nurse, especially if it's the night nurse. (all patients resting in bed, pain meds or next antiemetic not due until at least 830pm. having everything settled down so patient's can rest)
#3 My greatest satisfaction is rolling the patient down to the car on day of discharge. (it is so rewarding & encouraging.)
#1,I love that working 3 days out of a week is considered full time.
What motivates me to keep pushing the last four hours of my shift is to make sure that the nurse that follows me has a smooth organized shift.
#2. I love having everything ready and easy for the oncoming nurse, especially if it's the night nurse. (all patients resting in bed, pain meds or next antiemetic not due until at least 830pm. having everything settled down so patient's can rest)
#3 My greatest satisfaction is rolling the patient down to the car on day of discharge. (it is so rewarding & encouraging.)
If only every nurse loved getting everything ready and easy for next shift! LOL! :)
I feel like I complain a lot, so I'll say a few things about what I *do* like about nursing:
I love explaining a patient's condition to them - putting the pathology into terms they understand, answering their questions, giving them educational materials, etc.
I love consulting my textbooks, getting out the calipers and looking up new drugs.
I like my coworkers, always there to lend a helping hand and to answer my silly questions.
I like being there for patients when their families are too scared to be there with them.
I like seeing a patient a couple of days after extubation, chowing down on some soft food and smiling.
One thing I absolutely love, and am humbled by...ushering patients into the next stage - being there when they pass on to the next dimension. Such an honor....
First, I love our presentation!!!!!! Our Uniforms are Sexy whether you admit it or not!!!!!!!!!!:redbeatheSometimes you gotta love the Superficial Parts TOO!!!!!!
1. I Love the Stethoscope:redbeathe, It is like a marine's gun, or a cop's badge.
"This is my Stethoscope. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is special to me. . ."
2. The White Lab Coat, I mean is there anything in this world made to work in that is as SEXY as a lab coat? I'm
talking knee length, big buttons, with my name in BLOCK not SCRIPT!!!!
3. The Scrubs, particularly White or Surgical Green scrubs with a material like the ones we steal from the Surgery
department (once again whether you admit it or not!!!!!!!!)
4. The way our spouses look at us when we are totally decked out with lab coat, name tag, watch, stethescope over neck
perfectly symetrically resting there. We are starched to a tee, and shoes that could pass a white glove test, we ARE HOT!!!
5. And yes, all the ushy gushy helping stuff, and teaching stuff.
6. Getting out of speeding tickets and traffic laws because of that great secret alliance nurses have with Law Enforcement.
7. Seeing a patient who came in with the odds in the Reaper's favor, walk or ROLL out with their families with a neat
new perspective on life, and living,:bowingpurto the TRAUMA TEAM!!!!!!!!!
8. When you reach a patient. I mean when you really connect for no specific reason like devine intervention. Like the Lord
put you there to affect the life of this person or vice versa, THE PATIENT YOU REMEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:loveya:
9. THAT FIRST CIGARETTE AFTER 5 HOURS NONSTOP HOOP JUMPING AND BOOT CAMP FEVER!!!!
10. Driving home and Defragmenting to some good tunes, on the way to get bite to eat, See the Wife and Dog, and do it all
over again!!!!!!!!!!
11. VENTING AND CELEBRATING OUR WONDERFUL PROFFESION ON ALLNURSES!!!!!
I love making people comfortable (or at least as comfortable as possible) the most. Taking someone from experiencing excruciating pain or crushing nausea to feeling ready to go home is just plain satisfying.
I like the mental challenge. Things change very quickly and I must adapt to keep things flowing. I always have to think at least 3 steps ahead to avoid failure. But I have to be ready to leap onto a different stair case if the situation warrants it, such as if the patient starts displaying signs of a stroke during emergence.
AnonRNC
297 Posts
The inner workings of the body fascinate me, whether they are working right or not - both are interesting. I like it when I look at my patients condition, their support, their medical dx & meds and understand the physiology of exactly what is happening, sometimes down to the cellular level.
I love feeling competent: taking only one poke to start and IV or get blood, going to the physician and being prepared to answer all his/her questions and having correctly anticipated his/her new orders, looking a patient that looks non-specifically "bad" and finding out later that I was right (not that I want patients to go bad, but glad that I made the right call). Part of competence is when I get assigned the sickest patients or the most difficult families and when those families say they like it when I take care of their loved one.
I love knowing that I REALLY did save a life today - even if I 'only' saved it by administering a tube feeding or IV fluids or an antibiotic. Dehydration and infection did and still do kill. A dose of ampicillin isn't chest compressions but antibiotic therapy is life-saving. Along with the idea of saving lives: I KNOW my work matters in the grand scheme of the world and that what I do "makes a difference."
I also love the flexibility offered by 12-hour shifts, the protection and benefits my union offers, the pay I earn in relationship to my educational level...
...and that "hospital" smell. :heartbeat