Too Smart for Rehab Nursing

Specialties Rehabilitation

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I am too smart for Rehab Nursing.

This is what I hear whenever I tell people that I enjoy working in acute rehab and that when I am done with nursing school this Fall I think I am going to stick around on the rehab floor. I am a Nurse Tech who has worked on this floor for about a year. I am an A student who gets rave reviews from my clinical instructors. "Work in cardiac!" I hear often, "Go to progressive care!" "Rehab?!? You're too smart for rehab, you'll get BORED"

Bored?!? Have these people ever been on a rehab floor? They seem to think all we do is give pain meds and take teetering old ladies to the bathroom. Rehab combines med/surg nursing with a great deal of psych nursing and ortho nursing AND neuro nursing AND oncology nursing! We get all sorts of people on this floor! You have to be ready for anything.

Also, I enjoy the patients. I like getting to know them and their families and there is no greater joy than watching the patient that was not able to even move his/her legs on arrival finally stand up and take a few steps for the first time. Rehab nursing is about being a cheerleader some days and a drill sergeant the next. You have to use tough love sometimes. . .but also know when to just hug a patient and let them cry. We also laugh a lot on my floor.

Yes, there is a TON of paperwork for the nurses (I hear them cursing FIMs every day). Yes, it is physically hard. Yes, there are a lot of pain meds. No, there isn't the constant excitement of Trauma nursing or ICU. But there is magic and fulfillment and some days you truly do feel like a guardian angel.

Does anyone else love working in rehab and hate the comments about how boring it is and how a "smart nurse" shouldn't work there? Because some days I start to doubt myself and I start to think that maybe I should go to a med/surg or tele floor when I graduate -- I am afraid of being pigeon-holed forever as a "rehab nurse" But would that be the worst thing in the world?

I worked in subacute rehab for two years, and I have ten years of long term care nursing experience. You do not learn anything new in subacute. It is best for a new nurse to go to a medical hospital. Subacute is nothing more than an extension of the nursing home setting. 98% of the population in a subacute setting is geriatics.

Like I said earlier in this thread, when people make a generalization like this it's naive and probably meant to be insulting. If certain nurses actually spent any significant time in rehab they would see that it encompasses many different disciplines instead of pigeon-holing a nurse into one certain specialty. To be an effective rehab nurse you have to rely on all your skills and you have to be able to do that without the resources many acute care hospitals have the luxury of falling back on.

ALL nursing specialties work hard and exceptional nurses are everywhere. Unfortunately, there are others who feel they make themselves appear better than others when they try to tear other specialties down.

There will always be a peanut gallery.

Like I said earlier in this thread, when people make a generalization like this it's naive and probably meant to be insulting. If certain nurses actually spent any significant time in rehab they would see that it encompasses many different disciplines instead of pigeon-holing a nurse into one certain specialty. To be an effective rehab nurse you have to rely on all your skills and you have to be able to do that without the resources many acute care hospitals have the luxury of falling back on.

ALL nursing specialties work hard and exceptional nurses are everywhere. Unfortunately, there are others who feel they make themselves appear better than others when they try to tear other specialties down.

What kind of insight does a PCA background give you as a registered nurse anyway? I am very curious to know. Isn't that the same as a nursing assistant giving advice about being a registered nurse?

Specializes in Emergency Department, Rehabilitation.
What kind of insight does a PCA background give you as a registered nurse anyway? I am very curious to know. Isn't that the same as a nursing assistant giving advice about being a registered nurse?

Actually, I AM a registered nurse and work in an acute rehab hospital and my comment was directed more at the tone of your previous comment. I was insulting toward fellow nurses who find fulfillment in rehabilitation nursing, subacute or otherwise. Don't we get enough misconceptions about our work from ill-informed patients and the medical community without tearing each other down? Because you didn't like working in rehab doesn't make it right for you to put down others who do. I didn't care much for oncology but the nurses there were amazing in their capacity for compassion.

As for my having been a PCA, I'm quite proud of the work I did and I dare say the nurses I worked for appreciated my abilities. Hopefully, I made their days easier by giving my best effort. Instead of putting down rehab why not encourage the original poster of this thread and share with all of us your years of knowledge. I'm sure it would benefit the readers here more than putdowns.

Specializes in Emergency Department, Rehabilitation.
What kind of insight does a PCA background give you as a registered nurse anyway? I am very curious to know. Isn't that the same as a nursing assistant giving advice about being a registered nurse?

I haven't updated my profile in a while.

Specializes in LTC, Acute Care.
Actually, I AM a registered nurse and work in an acute rehab hospital and my comment was directed more at the tone of your previous comment. I was insulting toward fellow nurses who find fulfillment in rehabilitation nursing, subacute or otherwise. Don't we get enough misconceptions about our work from ill-informed patients and the medical community without tearing each other down? Because you didn't like working in rehab doesn't make it right for you to put down others who do. I didn't care much for oncology but the nurses there were amazing in their capacity for compassion.

Jerzee, I'm not an RN yet; still a few classes shy and I absolutely love Acute Rehab ( I also work per diem in LTC and hardly see any simlarities between the two) and while there are some geriatrics as patients, most of my patients have been in the 30-50ish age range and are usually post brain injury with a few joint replacements thrown in. The joy I get out of rehab is that I am able to see these patients progress with a goal of returning home to their lives pre-injury. There is really nothing routine about acute rehab at all. And like I said before all nurses should do what makes them happy regardless of what others may think.

I'm 6 months out of nursing school and was hired straight to an acute setting Cardiac Rehab floor, attached to a large hospital in NYC. Our patients are generally 7-10 days out of CABG, valve replacements, etc. I deal with IV abx, heparin pumps, PICC's, wound dsgs including JP's and vacs. I've been in on numerous MRT's and one complete code. Nurses who have been to other places say this floor is busy for a rehab unit and is more like med-surg at times. Many of these patients probably should not acutally be in rehab but pressure on the attendings causes them to be transferred to us early. I'm working nights, which I don't love but I am dealing with it okay. The leadership and other nurses on the floor are supportive and I do feel like it has been a good learning environment for me as a new grad. My assessment skills may be better because I don't have as many monitors to rely on. However, as someone else mentioned I am afraid of being "pigeon-holed" into rehab nursing. Any ideas on how to present yourself in an interview to show you are competent to handle med-surg like problems? I feel that in an interview I could describe the kind of patients I deal with, but on paper I am a rehab nurse and that might detract from furture employers even wanting to interview me. I like my floor and I'm okay for awhille. But things are slow on nights...rehab patients sleep. At least they should be. We all know that's not how it always goes. It definitely has moments of craziness but it also has moments of being boring. I see myself moving on. Though I don't know what it would be to...I just think I want to do something else....at some point.

Specializes in FNP.

When I took the review course for certification (haven't tested yet, but hope to next summer), we didn't discuss cardiac rehab at all. I guess I always thought it was a completely different specialty from 'rehab' as I see it, where our patient population is a majority of strokes, TBI, spinal cord, amputations, multi-trauma, etc. We do get some cardiac patients, but they are usually anoxic injuries after an arrest.

I did my leadership hours on a tele / cardiac floor, where most patients were in for observation, very rare to have an IV running, patients were up and walking and on their own - to me, that seemed less like med-surg type nursing, yet it counts much more than rehab... I didn't get that.

I don't know where that balance is, if there is one, when you present yourself. Your cover letter is your first impression, so be sure to include a blurb about your competencies and maybe even a 'typical' patient to show that you know more / do more than they may expect. Then, once you get the interview, you can expand on that even more.

Specializes in acute rehab, med surg, LTC, peds, home c.

amalbon, I think the fact that it is exclusively a cardiac rehab is in your favor. On your resume you could say something like: Acute cardiac rehab floor-Cared for post op cardio thoracic surgical patients in an inpatient acute care hospital setting. I hate that rehab gets such a bad rap. I too work on an acute rehab floor in a hospital, but people see rehab and they think nursing home. LTC also gets a bad rap BTW.

Just wanted to say how inspiring this thread has been. I'm a licensed massage therapist, now in the process of finishing up pre-reqs so I can apply to nursing school. I work out of a medical office and deal with a lot of patients with pain issues who often have complex health issues as well. I love seeing them improve and think it's the greatest thing when they don't need to see me anymore, or at least not as often.

I'm going to keep an open mind as I go through nursing school, but so far rehab nursing sounds like it may be the best fit for me. (I'm not too worried about not being valued as a rehab nurse -- I deal w/that all the time as a massage therapist, although thankfully not from my patients or the people who know & work with me! I'm old enough [42] to know that I just want to do something that I enjoy and to help people as well).

So thank you, rehab nurses!! :)

Specializes in CTICU.

The older you get, the less you'll care what other people think about your career choices.

Because really, who hasn't been told "You're so smart, why didn't you do medicine?"....

[i say "well, because then I'd end up being a doctor"]

Do what you enjoy.

Specializes in Emergency Department, Rehabilitation.

Because really, who hasn't been told "You're so smart, why didn't you do medicine?"....

[i say "well, because then I'd end up being a doctor"]

LMAO! Classic.

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