I looked out the window and It's such a pretty day outside here..sunny and a bit cool....springy! I actually smiled and felt good. I havent felt that way in a long time. I will have been a nurse fr a year in June and although I have gotten good experience and made decent money, I am going to go back to school. I am not really sure what but I dont think I want to be a nurse full time anymore......it has drained me emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. There is a laundry list of cons. How many other professions make u feel guilty for cramming a sandwich down your throat because someone may die since u decided to eat something before you pass out? I havent been taking care of my self or making time for what is truly important -my family and friends. I am worn out from the job. One day we will all have health issues or challenges in life......I dont want to invest 10 years in this career and be miserable, I want to enjoy life. I want to be able to have energy to go walking on a spring day or go to a barbecue.....or get excited over stuff again in life. I have become increasingly depressed, anxious, stressed, and sad since becoming a nurse. Believe it or not, nursing school seems like the good ol days now! Now dont get me wrong, I do like the money and occasionally u have patients how appreciate you and you feel like u are doing something........but 85% of the time I just go through the motions, I am a good nurse and I am caring but I am becoming worn out and at times bitter and miserable. So.....I am excited! After my year is up, I will work PRN.....I will like the flexibility and go back to school for something else........the people who decide to stay in nursing, I applaud you guys but it isnt for everyone.......life is too short to put so much time in a career that you really do not fin joy in......my family and friends are important, my health. But after almost a year of nursing I feel like I can do anything!! I do feel more confident and am finding being a nurse feeling more natural.......its starting to "click" but I know in my heart I dont want this to be my PRIMARY career, I will work PRN while I am in school and then afterwards to keep my skills and plus I think I will like nursing better in small doses.....and it will help financially. I was gonna get my masters but I cant imagine investing 2-3 years of my life and more loans for something I dont truly want to do full time. But I feel good. What are your plans after the 1st year?
It will be a year for me in June. I'm planning on starting grad school next spring to become an adult nurse practitioner. It's what I've always wanted to do. I'll continue to work in critical care while I'm in school.
I wouldn't make it as a staff nurse too long. It's too stressful for me and honestly I don't think my body could handle it. I'm 23 and my back always hurts by the end of my shift no matter what I do. I wish I was stronger...emotionally and physically.
The only reason I'm still in nursing is because we have so many job options. If we didn't then I probably would be in a different profession.
Specializes in Wound and Ostomy care, Neuro, Med-Surg.
It will be a year for me in July. I'm still on the floor surviving, but I'm weighing my options. I want to find work outside the hospital.... I hate working in the hospital. I want to find a job that I really like. The one I have now is on a neuro unit, its okay for now, but I'm already itching to move on...... quickly as I can.
As for the whole career of nursing, I'm still sketchy. Everyday I wonder what other things I could do besides nursing. I agree with others that family and friends are by far more important that a career... at least to me.
Don't know what I'll be doing in a few years down the road, but I certainly won't be in a hosptial.
IOh heck maybe I will just go into NICU, let see the patients cant talk, check, easy on the back, check, Patient cant ambulate, check, patients are always clean and smell nice, check, makes u feel good and warm inside, check, Ah I love being a nurse.
Not sure what you meant by this but the NICU isn't easy. Let's see...little babies facing more pain and misery than I will ever know, check. Moms and dads making decisions about their child no parent should have to face, check. Little babies fighting to live, despite the fact that all they know about life is pain and being sick, check. Every single patient of yours being there because of an unfortunate situation, no patient in the NICU is there because of poor choices they made in their lives, check. Seeing babies die, check. Not knowing what your patient needs because they can't talk, check. Little babies looking at you with sad eyes when you do procedures on them that cause pain because they don't understand you are helping them, check.
The NICU may be a bit easier on your back, but it isn't an easy place to work at all.
first year is almost done in a couple months... It's the best and worst of times. What I want to do is make a mini camcorder so I can do an indepth behind the scenes documentary on what nurses really do!!! I can dream right????
Seriously I'm putting in applications at potential places because I hate where I am right now.... There's another thread on this somewhere......
I will be at my first job for a year in July. I work on a surgical unit at a large teaching hospital in Philadelphia. I am extremely happy with my job. I have an amazing group of supportive coworkers and for the most part I really like our patient population.
I was a nursing assistant and extern throughout nursing school and even while having both of those jobs I still did not realize how much nurses really do and are responsible for. Some mornings I get home from work and am so drained emotionally and physcially but I just let everything go and sleep it off. But for the most part I am really starting to feel comfortable, when I do things I now am starting to realize why I am performing the "tasks" and starting to see the big picture.
I think that overwhelmed feeling is something we will always have in nursing, even the older, more experiences nurses get that sometimes from what I've seen. Our jobs will never be a perfect, planned out day! But that is what I love most about it. I love walking in and having no clue what I am getting myself into.
I think I am going to start going to grad school In January '08 or summer '08 since my work pays full tuition. I don't know yet what exactly I want to get my masters in, I still have plenty of time to figure that out!
Well, my first year will be up in July and I am for the most part enjoying my job. I plan on staying! I am just looking forward to being done with school (completing my BSN in May)! I plan on just taking some time off (will be on Maternity Leave from July to September), enjoying my new little princess, Hannah, enjoy spending the summer with both my girls before Sabrina starts kindergarten in September, then going back to work and doing the best I can there. Maybe in about 5 years, going back for my NP, but we'll see.
My first year will also be up in June! How quickly it is going by..
Like a lot of people, I feel the panic of everyday nursing is starting to subside a little. Now when I panic, it's all internal (nobody sees me freaking out inside!) and it's over something legitimate (huh, why did your BP just go to 70!!??!?)
I bought a house and just moved in!
Will start studying for my CCRN...
Will start ADN-BSN program next January.
And as always, will still try to have a baby.
:balloons: Here's to a good second year to us all!:balloons:
(BTW, after our first year is over, we will no longer be new grads! Just new nurses!!!! )
Actually, I will hit 2 years in June, and am quitting my regular med-surg job to take a float positiion in a large teaching hospital. I am also going to be a teaching assistant in that hospital's nursing school in the fall, and I am really looking forward to it.
It will be interesting to see if I like floating or not. The advantage will be no regular on-site boss with the associated politics, etc. Sometimes I think the biggest problems on the floors (besides lousy ratios) are the insane/psycho managers.
As I mentioned in a previous post, bedside nursing is like taking an exam with 3000 questions, and if you miss one, you flunk. Our manager drags us into her office regularly to chew us out about stuff which is usually not that big a deal, and is usually the product of having too many high acuity patients at one time. Sorry, you can't be perfect and take care of 6 very sick patients with traches, IV fluids and antibiotics, foleys, G-tubes, NG tubes, pressure ulcers, dressing changes, discharges, admissions, cranky/needy families, cranky doctors, etc. It is just a law of nature.
And until hospital administration figures this out, hospitals with just be a revolving door for new grads who get a year or two in and get the heck out. Sad.
any 1st year midwives, child or mental health nurses on this forum?! I am curious as to how you are finding your course and placement. I am doing Adult Nursing and am interested in discovering how your placement differs from what I am doing.
I have to say this is very discouraging to read all these stories after all those years of hard work to become an RN. This why I will most likely go to straight to working in the OR to avoid the bedside dumping of grad nurses. I still believe nurses should have a mandated internships like physicians do, to train them properly and give them an experience of what it will really be like for them. I still do not understand how hospitals are hiring brand new grads straight into ICU's with no experience. Oh heck maybe I will just go into NICU, let see the patients cant talk, check, easy on the back, check, Patient cant ambulate, check, patients are always clean and smell nice, check, makes u feel good and warm inside, check, Ah I love being a nurse.
LOL.. You know thats how I thought the NICU would be..then reality set in.. you cant hold them, you try not to extubate them by accident. most of em lye in their nice little isolate, being feed thru a NG tube. and waiting to get their diaper change. Dont stimulate them. Dont want to agitate them cuz you know they might burn a calorie or two and that would not be good. Thank god I switched to Pediatrics. Where I can love on all the kids I want. I love to love on the babies. I get amused routinely by two year olds. I argue with 8 year old frequent flyers about how you cant run around Naked on the Unit. I get to feel guilty every time I have to poke a kid, Then I get to be the one to comfort them afterward if Mom and Dad arent there. I I learn something New every day. There are mornings I leave work thinking oh my God what have I gotten myself into. Then there are the nights I really love when I have gotten an 11 year old to smile because she is sad her mom cant be there. I have convinced a Two year old that if she drinks, drinks drinks, she will get to go home! I have gotten to listen to same two year old sing "itsbitsy spider as she gets rolled around in her wagon putting a smile on all the other nurses faces. I get turned down for a date by a 9 year old who politely tells me he doesnt like "girls". Those are the nights I wouldnt trade for anything!
incublissRN, BSN, RN
286 Posts
It will be a year for me in June. I'm planning on starting grad school next spring to become an adult nurse practitioner. It's what I've always wanted to do. I'll continue to work in critical care while I'm in school.
I wouldn't make it as a staff nurse too long. It's too stressful for me and honestly I don't think my body could handle it. I'm 23 and my back always hurts by the end of my shift no matter what I do. I wish I was stronger...emotionally and physically.
The only reason I'm still in nursing is because we have so many job options. If we didn't then I probably would be in a different profession.