Uneasy feelings from observing for a nursing school clinical

[love for nursing]

I am a nursing student. For clinical today, I was required to observe in a busy family physician office. I got the feeling from some of the nurses that they truly hated their job. The nurses that hated their job have been there at least three years, and have never received a raise. They also totally dislike the new office manger who has been there approximately a year and a half. (The nurses voluntered this information). I only asked the nurses for what they liked most about their position. I have to do a paper on my clinical experience and I am totally unsure of how to handle this. I am sure they are experiencing burnout.

Thanks for your help.

[Will'smum]

Hi there, I'm not sure what it's like in the US, but I work in a General Practice (I assume that's the same as a family Physicans office) in Australia.

I love my job. It can be hard and frustrating and yes we are all very underpaid (money is not why I work!) and some of us are undervalued, but I am lucky to work with a group of Doc's who see me as an equal and we have great support from our reception staff.

I think that if you love your job, you'll stick at it and maybe thenurses you spoke to need to move on. They are probably burnout as you said.

As far as your paper goes you have to tell it like it was. Rather than smelling roses you can style your paper around the fact that these nurses are burnout and that unless there are changes this is not an area that you would be interesting in working in

Hope this helped a little;)

[llg, PhD, RN]

I think you are really lucky to have stumbled upon the raw material for a great paper! Instead of some bland hogwash about the nurses spend their time at work, seem nice, like their job, everything is perfect, etc. .... you can discuss some of the problems with nursing careers.

Perhaps you can speculate about why those nurses do not leave their jobs and find better ones ... or why they can't solve the problems they have with their current jobs.

It could be a great paper.

llg

[J Lynn]

Boy, after reading some of these posts I realized how good I have it.

I guess sometimes you have to find an office that everyone works well together. The office I work in is very small. It's just me (LPN), two CNAs/recpetionists, and one Doc (Endocrinologist). Try to look for a small office rather than a large family practice. There is even an office I know of that when the Doctor is on vacation....her whole staff is on vacation.