I am in nursing school and during almost every clinical, its guaranteed that I will see a nurse that is miserable, that looks like this is the last place he/she wants to be. I am sorry, but no one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to be here.
Nobody likes being in a hospital, and it really brings you down. Seeing someone who is positive and overall happy helps the healing process IMHO. If a patient is sad and depressed, and then sees a nurse who is miserable and just not happy, it doesnt help the overall mood of the patient. I know this first hand because my mom was in the hospital for over 3 months and her biggest problem was negative nurses. She even yelled at a couple of them saying why are you miserable, your not the one in the hospital bed.
I know we are all human and nobody is perfect, but at least try to mask some of it or try not to let your emotions show. I get it, nurses are underpaid and overworked and underappreciated. Well, that can be said to almost every other profession out there. So please, for the sake of our patients, try to be a little positive and look at the big picture, it can always be worse!
You can be happy or miserable in any job. I have done nursing / admin / coordinating theatres - many different jobs over 25 years in hospitals & elsewhere, and admin staff are just as miserable as nurses. But you are right -no-one is forcing them to stay in that job. It always puzzles me as to why people stay in a job they absolutely hate - but won't apply for other jobs. They get too comfortable whinging and making others around them miserable and they lack skills (social and work) to do another job. So they stay in one job for life, and whinge. I feel sorry for them wasting their life.
However nursing is completely different. You don't have an admin job where you have sat with a burns patient or listened to their mother crying & sobbing on the phone cos her daughter might not survive; you may not have cuddled a mother who's precious child was born dead, and you have to somewhow comfort her while she's cradling her baby; you have not had to prepare a patient for surgery who is having a limb excised; you may not have cared for a dying patient when his family are bargaining with the nursing staff to try and 'keep him alive' or to somehow 'buy him more time', when you know the patient has no more time, but the family won't accept this.
The culture of Nursing (I use a capital N deliberately), is very unique and no matter what nurses tell themselves, we do get depressed and miserable with all the above situations we have to deal with. The public turn to us for comfort and support, and that is part of our job, but sometimes it is extremely hard to deal with.
I remember after a baby we looked after died, the primary nurse I was working under, went into the pan room and threw all the bedpans around. Then she took a deep breath, and went back out to comfort the family and to get on with the job. She said sometimes throwing things around helped. I really, really admired that nurse; she was extremely compassionate and very strong.
So don't be too damning please. Wait till you have come home and balled your eyes out, can't sleep, are stressed out from too many patients, have sore feet, feel waaay beyond tired, feel like a zombie, and you are having to be strong for patients. It absolutely DRAINS your soul somedays.
Can you help these miserable nurses in anyway perhaps?
I am in nursing school and during almost every clinical, its guaranteed that I will see a nurse that is miserable, that looks like this is the last place he/she wants to be. I am sorry, but no one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to be here.
Nobody likes being in a hospital, and it really brings you down. Seeing someone who is positive and overall happy helps the healing process IMHO. If a patient is sad and depressed, and then sees a nurse who is miserable and just not happy, it doesnt help the overall mood of the patient. I know this first hand because my mom was in the hospital for over 3 months and her biggest problem was negative nurses. She even yelled at a couple of them saying why are you miserable, your not the one in the hospital bed.
I know we are all human and nobody is perfect, but at least try to mask some of it or try not to let your emotions show. I get it, nurses are underpaid and overworked and underappreciated. Well, that can be said to almost every other profession out there. So please, for the sake of our patients, try to be a little positive and look at the big picture, it can always be worse!
God lord almighty.....this is going downhill and fast.
I want to make something VERY clear to you. You are still a student. You are still in school.
After you first year working the bedside (Med/Surg or Tele) review this post you made.
DO NOT TELL ME AND ANY OF THE NURSES ON HERE THAT WE ARE IN YOU WORDS "MISERABLE"
You would be miserable to if after all your schooling, your new employer insisted that you fetch ffod, magazines and movies for patients while also providing care during a 12hour shift
You would feel miserable too if all your hard work in preventing major medical crisis' in patients overall health was credited not to you but to the physician.
You would feel miserable to if you were working extra shift after extra shift just to pay the bills and realizing that Uncle Sam takes most of the money anyway - so why bother.
You would feel miserable to because of lack of appropriate staffing on a patient care unit to even get basic care done.
You would feel miserable to if you were spit, slapped, punched, cursed at, hit, molested, and assaulted at work - and then told by upper management that being a nurse has certain risks. you would feel miserable that you were victimized and them blamed for the entire assault.
You would feel miserable after a 12 hour shift and trying un-successfully to sleep for 7 hours so you can return to work for yet another 12 hour shift.
In summary, you are still a probie (firefighters term) - give it a year then you will (hopefully) have a better understanding of a nurses reality.
Specializes in Infusion Nursing, Home Health Infusion.
I think this student sounds like she has a kind heart but your view may be a little simplistic.I am always kind to my patients unless I have to pull out the BIG guns. You assume that every patient will respond to a kind ,caring and smiling nurse.....WRONG!!!!!!!!! There are some days that the percentage of abusive patients I encounter far outweighs the kind and appreciative ones!!!! Of course, I tend to get these patients b/c no one else wants to deal with them especially when it comes to starting an IV in them. Perhaps your assessment of the miserable nurse is inaccurate..perhaps their patient just died..perhaps they were just counseled ..perhaps they just got an admit that made their day very busy..perhaps they have answered so many calls they are hrs behind now..perhaps they are dealing with a difficult family member....you see you are assuming a lot. Perhaps they are having a personal problem and it shows on their face.....but there they are doing the best they can. Hospital nursing is a very intense and stressful job and traditionally nurses have not had a big say in how we deliver care. Some of that is changing now that some states have mandated ratios and others are also looking into it....none the less ..get in the trenches and get back to us
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
What sort of personality do you expect the nurses to have? How do you tell who is miserable and who is simply quiet or serious? The "little Mary Sunshine" personality is not always appropriate either.
You come across as both naive and judgemental. Since you clarified that you were only talking about 30% of the nurses you have come across, why not write them all notes sharing you impressions? If you title a thread "Stop Being So Miserable" I don't know why you are surprised by the irritation being expressed here-- and "are you nuts?" is way out of line.
You can be happy or miserable in any job. I have done nursing / admin / coordinating theatres - many different jobs over 25 years in hospitals & elsewhere, and admin staff are just as miserable as nurses. But you are right -no-one is forcing them to stay in that job. It always puzzles me as to why people stay in a job they absolutely hate - but won't apply for other jobs. They get too comfortable whinging and making others around them miserable and they lack skills (social and work) to do another job. So they stay in one job for life, and whinge. I feel sorry for them wasting their life.
However nursing is completely different. You don't have an admin job where you have sat with a burns patient or listened to their mother crying & sobbing on the phone cos her daughter might not survive; you may not have cuddled a mother who's precious child was born dead, and you have to somewhow comfort her while she's cradling her baby; you have not had to prepare a patient for surgery who is having a limb excised; you may not have cared for a dying patient when his family are bargaining with the nursing staff to try and 'keep him alive' or to somehow 'buy him more time', when you know the patient has no more time, but the family won't accept this.
The culture of Nursing (I use a capital N deliberately), is very unique and no matter what nurses tell themselves, we do get depressed and miserable with all the above situations we have to deal with. The public turn to us for comfort and support, and that is part of our job, but sometimes it is extremely hard to deal with.
I remember after a baby we looked after died, the primary nurse I was working under, went into the pan room and threw all the bedpans around. Then she took a deep breath, and went back out to comfort the family and to get on with the job. She said sometimes throwing things around helped. I really, really admired that nurse; she was extremely compassionate and very strong.
So don't be too damning please. Wait till you have come home and balled your eyes out, can't sleep, are stressed out from too many patients, have sore feet, feel waaay beyond tired, feel like a zombie, and you are having to be strong for patients. It absolutely DRAINS your soul somedays.
Can you help these miserable nurses in anyway perhaps?
Thank you carolmacca66 for seeing my main point.
Nursing most definitely is unlike any other profession. My first clinical day, there was a family who was coming from the ICU to a room so their grandmother (going off life support) could be around her entire family. As they entered and were all crying, I started getting emotional because it reminded me of a personal event. Its human nature. But it was almost at that moment that I knew I was in the right profession.
However, these are not the nurses/moments I am talking about. I am talking about the nurse who doesnt like his/her job and doesnt care. They give meds, do assessments, paperwork, etc all by 10:30, and then put it in cruise control till 6:30. They dont like having conversations with students,peers, patients, etc. even while they are browsing the internet for places to eat that night (sadly yes this has happend to me lol).
"Furthermore, I dont think I would answer my post any differently in the future either. I know what nursing entails. I understand the politics of it, the good, the bad, the ugly, etc. Just because I am a student doesnt mean that I dont see the things happening around me. I see doctors treating nurses poorly (unfortunantly), patients getting mad, stressing over time management, meds, family, etc etc. "
I have been a nurse for a little less than a year, and I promise you that you have NO idea what the politics are, nor the good, bad or ugly. When your a student you THINK you know, but you do NOT. They protect you from the good, bad and ugly. You do not see what happens behind the scenes. I thought I knew, but I had no idea. Even when I graduated and started to work I didn't fully get it. It wasn't until I passed NCLEX, and was fully licensed, and totally responsible for the patients in my care. Then you have the patients who scream at you for not being happy, while the charge is telling you to take one more patient on top of the 6 you have, the manager is jacking up your schedule, and instilling fear just for fun, the DON is creating lots of new paperwork because you don't have enough to do, and the hospital system is telling you to speed up so they can make money, but to slow down so people are happy all at the same time. And did I mention the that while all of this is going on you have a few co workers who love drama, and gossiping, and are stirring the boiling pot just for kicks. Your right in the middle of the brew working 13 hours on 5 hours sleep, with one 30 minute break (if your lucky), tired sore feet, hungry, kids who are at home sad cause they have literally not seen you in 3 days, and possibly sick because there is NO excuse to call out unless its planned in advance. Forget things like get to tie your shoes, change your tampon, eat, sleep, be ill, or human. Your a nurse now,and you had better SMILE.
Really? I love caring for people. I have always wanted to be a nurse, but the politics bite. YOU JUST WAIT !!!!
lol... This only happens to me when I haven't had any coffee yet! Otherwise, I'm fine and dandy all the way :)
People should always think of the song -- the sun will come out, tomorrow... bet your bottom dollar that's tomorrow.... there'll be sun. I don't remember who sung it, but I like it anyway.
P.S.
For people who are crabby/snappy, etc... etc.. the following are the usual reasons: Not getting/not enough sex, constipation, need to take/stop meds or switch to better meds. Water retention? OR feeling fat.
OR, they just plain out have relationship issues. OR, maybe they're in constant pain of some sort due to -- gas problems.
Love the humor after everyone is getting so serious about what a nursing student posted. It's not that serious people!
So, you can't take what you dish out?
No one can judge you when you started a thread where you make judgements about nurses?
I don't care how much you smile or how much you think you're helping the nurse, you're doing nothing but creating a mound of extra work for him or her. Now, instead of just getting things done and monitoring her patients, she's going to be behind on her mess so you can pass a couple, she's going to have to go back and double check everything you do ( regardless if your instructor us present.) you have just totally thrown off her day. She's got to now babysit a student AND protect her patient from them.
Some nurses live teaching and having students (I'm one of them) but a lot of times a nurse had no say and is given mo advance warning that a student is going to be messing with her assignment.
One of the many ways a nurse is able to be a nurse is if she shadows a nurse while in nursing school. So all the nurses that hate the fact that a student nurse will be working with them, understand that you were in that same position and stop complaining.
First off, while you might not think you are judging....you are.
I invite you to come back and revisit this thread after you've held your license for 2 years and see how you feel about your original post. Don't tell me how to act when you've not walked a mile in my shoes. Your 2-3 clinical days of 8 hours each (or however your school does it...it doesn't matter) Does NOT give you a real world view of what it's like out here. The world of hospital nursing is a 100% different ballgame that what you are exposed to while in nursing school clinical. It does not even begin to compare to the day in and day out reality.
Having gotten that out of the way, I think I am going to end my post here. I have to say that it has been rather eye opening to say the least. I started a post thinking I was going to be enlightened and hopefully gain some insight. But all I have received are reasons for it being okay to be miserable. I cant win this conversation when everyone thinks its okay to be miserable. As a profession, nursing can be sad, and occasionally will be, but all of our patients dont die on a daily basis. (Miserable = people who dont like thier jobs, not nurses dealing with emotional issues like death, family, etc)
I have a degree in marketing, and I have worked in the corporate world. Its really not that different. Your company asks too much of you, pays you too little, and wayyyy under appreciates your hard work. This type of corporate culture is not exclusive to Nursing. This is more of a societal problem IMHO really.
Again, If I have offended anyone in any manner or seemed rude, please accept my sincere apologies.
She was on Fentanyl pain patches, and some of the nurses left the old patches on, not bothering to take them off. When she asked about them, they told her it was ok. After almost overdosing, she was a little more careful. I hope that is reason enough to "yell" at someone. Plus, add to that the fact that she was supposed to have day surgery, and ended up over 3 months in the hospital because the anesthesiologist ruptured her esophagus when placing an endo-trach tube for her surgery.
But this conversation isnt meant to determine why my mother was yelling at people. When any of us are mistreated in any profession, from nursing to plumbing, we tend to get angry.
I think my overall point is being missed here. EVERY profession has crappy days. I used to work for a cell phone company, and it was great pay, but I hated my hours, my co workers called in, and if you think people treat you badly when their sick, try dealing with them when their cell phone isnt working. Sometimes i would swear to god that people would love money more than their own health. I am just simply saying that a little kindness goes a long way IMHO.
Sounds like your mother has an anger issue...which might have something to do with her fentanyl patch. Just sayin...I deal with addicts and quite a few of them have anger management issues. There is NO reason to EVER yell at anybody! I bet the nurses were just falling all over themselves to be your mother's nurse every shift because she's the BEST patient ever!!! The doctor is the one who made the mistake with your mother's intubation and I'm sorry for that but it wasn't a nurses fault.
And as far as a little kindness? You have lumped ALL OF US NURSES into one with your original post. We are not all miserable at our jobs. NURSES have good days and bad days just like anyone else. To expect me to be all roses and sunshine all the time is expecting a bit much.
Did your mother get her medicines on time? Did she get pain medicine in a timely fashion when she asked for it? I too have been a patient, a post-op patient and rang for my pain medicine because I was starting to get uncomfortable and didn't want to wait for the pain to worsen before requesting something. The aide came to my room , stated she'd tell the nurse...30 min later, I rang again. Again, I was told she'd tell my nurse...90 minutes go by...FINALLY the nurse brings me my pain medicine apologizing that she got "called into the principal's office" and forgot...did I rant and rave and tell her she's a miserable nurse? Nope. I accepted her apology, took my medicine and then a nap
Your mother obviously had a nurse who for whatever reason was having a bad day...did she just get her 4th or 5th admission? Maybe she got some bad news..or was just in the office getting reprimanded by her boss for some silly infraction.
There are days where I'm just NOT in the mood to be at work...like the night I found out my husband was cheating on me.... it was too late to call out and besides there was NO ONE to replace me so I sucked it up as best I could and went to work but really I just wasn't into it that night. I did the best I could and if I appeared miserable to my patient well, at least I was there to take care of him.
Until you are a licensed nurse, please cut the rest of us some slack. What's that quote? "Be kinder than necessary because every one you meet is fighting some kind of battle". This goes for nurses AND patients and their families.
This is a place where MANY of us come and vent. If you don't want to read it/be exposed. I advise you to jump on over to the student forums and stay there
carolmaccas66, BSN, RN
2,212 Posts
You can be happy or miserable in any job. I have done nursing / admin / coordinating theatres - many different jobs over 25 years in hospitals & elsewhere, and admin staff are just as miserable as nurses. But you are right -no-one is forcing them to stay in that job. It always puzzles me as to why people stay in a job they absolutely hate - but won't apply for other jobs. They get too comfortable whinging and making others around them miserable and they lack skills (social and work) to do another job. So they stay in one job for life, and whinge. I feel sorry for them wasting their life.
However nursing is completely different. You don't have an admin job where you have sat with a burns patient or listened to their mother crying & sobbing on the phone cos her daughter might not survive; you may not have cuddled a mother who's precious child was born dead, and you have to somewhow comfort her while she's cradling her baby; you have not had to prepare a patient for surgery who is having a limb excised; you may not have cared for a dying patient when his family are bargaining with the nursing staff to try and 'keep him alive' or to somehow 'buy him more time', when you know the patient has no more time, but the family won't accept this.
The culture of Nursing (I use a capital N deliberately), is very unique and no matter what nurses tell themselves, we do get depressed and miserable with all the above situations we have to deal with. The public turn to us for comfort and support, and that is part of our job, but sometimes it is extremely hard to deal with.
I remember after a baby we looked after died, the primary nurse I was working under, went into the pan room and threw all the bedpans around. Then she took a deep breath, and went back out to comfort the family and to get on with the job. She said sometimes throwing things around helped. I really, really admired that nurse; she was extremely compassionate and very strong.
So don't be too damning please. Wait till you have come home and balled your eyes out, can't sleep, are stressed out from too many patients, have sore feet, feel waaay beyond tired, feel like a zombie, and you are having to be strong for patients. It absolutely DRAINS your soul somedays.
Can you help these miserable nurses in anyway perhaps?