Wanna know what's cool?

[BeatsPerMinute, BSN, RN]

When you perform chest compressions so hard you feel every rib of your patient crack under your weight, push through the burn and pain and exhaustion, muster the confidence to the shots of the code, have fellow nurses and residents follow your lead, keep going and going and going even tho it's looking hopeless for the patient...

....and then two weeks later that patient is smiling and waving at you from their bed, fully recovered, ready to go home in a few days

I love nursing

- cardiac ICU nurse, 8 months in, feeling like a bad-a$$

As nurses we experience true unfairness, are overworked and under-appreciated, literally get **** and peed and vomited on, and are made feel small by doctors and management and system leaders

But we make a difference, and have a damn cool job.

Cherish the winning moments

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

... and it is even cooler when, while you push with all the might you'd ever mastered, you hear the croak "get the **** off my chest!"

the guy, after all that, was apologetic to no ends for saying that four letter word to a lady. He was from the good ol' generation and kept his manners literally to the end. And, yes, he got outta there alive and, at least, breathing and speaking.

[LeChien, BSN, RN]

Or you push with all your might and the AED tells you "push deeper"