What if you don't feel compassionate enough to be a nurse?

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Nursing is something I have considered because I love learning about science and medicine. And of course with nursing all you hear about are all of the opportunities. Is there anyone out there that had doubts about being sensitive and caring enough to handle the patient needs? Is this something that is learned along the way or are people like me better off working in a lab where they can apply there interest in medicine?

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Specializes in High Risk In Patient OB/GYN.

what about research nursing? Or administrative.

If you don't have compassion, stay the hell away from patients, IMO.

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Specializes in Labor/Mother/Baby Nursing.

Compassion is a feeling. You are taught to be empathetic, not sympathetic in nursing school. Can that really be taught? Maybe it stems from deeper roots in one's soul that compels one :redpinkhe :redpinkhe to become a caring person, thus a caring nurse.

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You don't need to be sensative and caring and compassionate and all the warm and fuzzy bs... what you need is competence. And it helps if you like the job... just like any other profession. Go for it... if you want.

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Specializes in High Risk In Patient OB/GYN.
You don't need to be sensative and caring and compassionate and all the warm and fuzzy bs... what you need is competence. And it helps if you like the job... just like any other profession. Go for it... if you want.

The warm and fuzzy bs? wow. I hope you don't work in Peds. Or OB. Or ER. Or Oncology. Or hospice. Or....

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Specializes in icu, neuro icu, nursing ed.

there's a saying that sums it up quite well: "they (meaning the patient) don't care how much you know til they know how much you care".

my own physician is not "the sharpest tool in the shed" -- but i know that when he comes up against something that he's not sure of, he will refer me to someone who will take care of it -- ask yourself: how are your personal relationships? what are your working relationships like? how are you as a team player?

the knowledge and skills are necessary. but one also needs to care enough to know when to get help.

i think caring gives you what we call "intuitive knowing". the ability to see ahead, to anticipate where the patient is headed -- and to summons help to head off a catastrophe (what we refer to as "rescue nursing").

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.

If I'm the patient I'll take competence over "warm and fuzzy" any time...

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yeah, ultimately i'd have to choose one's capacity for critical thinking vs. compassion.

but, compassion is right up there, if one wants to qualify nsg as holistic.

leslie

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Specializes in L & D.

My nursing instructor recently told us that nursing school takes all the reasons we wanted to become nurses - caring, compassion, etc., - and beats them out of us with overwhelming amounts of information, procedure & policies!

I think nursing has to be a combination of both competence and compassion. While I adore my family, my husband & our daughters, I don't think of myself as being terribly compassionate in genreal. I've learned in clinical that once I meet my patient and begin to talk to them, I want to care for them to the best of my ability!

Beth

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>>Is there anyone out there that had doubts about being sensitive and caring enough to handle the patient needs?

Sure. I've spent 20 years as a computer programmer in the Air Force. My job entails fixing emotionless computers and chewing out young people. I have doubts about my compassion all the time (still a pre-nursing student).

But, I want to be a nurse. The more I hear about it, the more I know it's the job for me. My guess is I will be just fine. I figure if a person is too emotional for me to handle (such as a sexual assault), I'll just call in one of the kinder-gentler crew to help them. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.

To be honest, I view nursing as my opportunity to turn a new leaf. My pastor always says that a life not invested in the welfare of others is a life wasted. I suspect he is right. I can do this, just learning to be compassionate will be particularly hard for a guy like me.

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I've experienced plenty of wenchy, uncompassionate nurses. I don't think being warm and fuzzy is a requirement at all, though maybe it should be!

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Specializes in MICU, neuro, orthotrauma.

What specifically are you worried about?

Frankly speaking, there are days where patients have broken the camels empathic back, and I take care of their needs, but I do not get involved in their dysfunction, family or personal. Some days I just don't have the energy to try and take care of that on top of everything else I am supposed juggle. When a repeat sickle cell patient has thrown a specimen cup at my head and screamed obscenities at me, it's hard to maintain empathy. I took care of his basic needs, including pain medicine, obtaining samples, but I no longer tried to comfort him. There are times when you just can;t do it.

I do think that trying to comfort a patient is part of the job of nursing. But it is not the biggest part. The biggest part is trying to sort how how to keep them alive and safe and free from nosocomial infections, and inept resident orders.

Maybe you'll never be a psych nurse where the emphasis is taking care of emotional needs, but you could be another type of nurse, like ICU where most of the job is worrying over keeping the patient alive, and comforting family and patients are a smaller part of the job.

In all nursing jobs, though, I think that compassion is requisite to do the job properly.

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