i am 22 years old and have been working in the Neuro ICU for 1 year now. I do not like my job- for many reasons. 12 hours are hard, I now have back pain, hospital politics, only 30 min break, psycho patients who yell, hit, and bite, code blues, ANXIETY. I want to get out so bad. I've applied to other departments such as post partum or NiCU but none are hiring right now.
I got an offer for school nursing, and I'm unsure if I should take it. I don't make much now, so the pay decrease probably wouldn't effect me much.
I don't mind being "bored". After the stress I deal with on a daily basis I need a break. It is so bad that I get anxious THINKING about going back to work. I get anxiety attacks the night before and now I'm in a depression because of it.
i just don't want to make a mistake and regret leaving bedside. I think I might stay PRN at my unit to at least keep my foot in the door.
What do you guys think? Should I take it? What is your experience with school nursing? Pros and cons?
p.S- I don't have kids, it's just me and my husband
I am 24 years old. I worked in the hospital setting for a little over 2 years before starting school nursing. Initially I was in a float pool working between a cardiac stepdown, med surg, geriatric psych, and adult psych floors. Initially I was exactly how you described. Incredibly anxious before each shift and super stressed during my shift. It was pretty bad in the beginning. After 1 year I had definitely calmed down and became far more comfortable, albeit an anxious mess during my shift. Towards the end I fell in love with the psych floor. I found it to not be nearly has high stress as the medical floor (though perhaps some would disagree), but busy enough so that I was certainly not bored. Plenty of direct patient care. Also, I just generally find psych fascinating making it even more enjoyable.
I had to move however, and became a school nurse during that time. To be completely honest, I feel the school setting is far less stressful than the hospital setting. I'm not bored though. There is certainly always something that needs to be done and crisis do happen. While I may be rather busy doing various things like paperwork and such, it is not a stress/adrenaline type busy like it is in the hospital. In the hospital high stress/emergency situations typically happened the entire shift with no break, where as in the school those life and death type situations aren't happening constantly.. Therefore, I feel school nursing in less stressful because of that. I do personally though miss having those adrenaline type rushes while working, and I do miss getting to do direct patient care constantly so at times consider school nursing to be boring for that reason (not because I'm not doing anything productive). Does that make sense? It is hard for me to explain.
One thing that does stress me out about school nursing in particular is that the public knows you're the school nurse and you become almost like a public figure. That means people are watching you more (at least in my small rural area). Also, you're likely to have angry parents talk about you on facebook for whatever reason and your friends and even family may see it. While I dealt with angry family member from time to time in the hospital, at the end of the day I likely didn't see them again or hear from them again making it easier for me to move on. I hate when people don't like me or get mad at me so this is one of the hardest parts of school nursing for me. Also, I miss having other nurses around to help me and even to talk to during work. Teachers understand teacher problems and aren't interested in how the school nurse feels lol.
basketball13
29 Posts
I am 24 years old. I worked in the hospital setting for a little over 2 years before starting school nursing. Initially I was in a float pool working between a cardiac stepdown, med surg, geriatric psych, and adult psych floors. Initially I was exactly how you described. Incredibly anxious before each shift and super stressed during my shift. It was pretty bad in the beginning. After 1 year I had definitely calmed down and became far more comfortable, albeit an anxious mess during my shift. Towards the end I fell in love with the psych floor. I found it to not be nearly has high stress as the medical floor (though perhaps some would disagree), but busy enough so that I was certainly not bored. Plenty of direct patient care. Also, I just generally find psych fascinating making it even more enjoyable.
I had to move however, and became a school nurse during that time. To be completely honest, I feel the school setting is far less stressful than the hospital setting. I'm not bored though. There is certainly always something that needs to be done and crisis do happen. While I may be rather busy doing various things like paperwork and such, it is not a stress/adrenaline type busy like it is in the hospital. In the hospital high stress/emergency situations typically happened the entire shift with no break, where as in the school those life and death type situations aren't happening constantly.. Therefore, I feel school nursing in less stressful because of that. I do personally though miss having those adrenaline type rushes while working, and I do miss getting to do direct patient care constantly so at times consider school nursing to be boring for that reason (not because I'm not doing anything productive). Does that make sense? It is hard for me to explain.
One thing that does stress me out about school nursing in particular is that the public knows you're the school nurse and you become almost like a public figure. That means people are watching you more (at least in my small rural area). Also, you're likely to have angry parents talk about you on facebook for whatever reason and your friends and even family may see it. While I dealt with angry family member from time to time in the hospital, at the end of the day I likely didn't see them again or hear from them again making it easier for me to move on. I hate when people don't like me or get mad at me so this is one of the hardest parts of school nursing for me. Also, I miss having other nurses around to help me and even to talk to during work. Teachers understand teacher problems and aren't interested in how the school nurse feels lol.