What is it like to work in a hospital

[mcclot1993]

I only work as a nurses aide right now in a nursing home. I might go to become and RN and hopefully work in a hospital one day. What is it like to work in a hospital as a nurse. in the nursing home I work at the nurses come in and they get their shift report from the previous staff nurses and they go on with the rest of their shift passing a lot of meds, doing blood draws, doing iv's blood sugars, and so on. Is that how things work in a hospital. How many patients do you get to take care of. what are the different kind of units to work in at a hospital. Do I have to do extra time of schooling to work in med surg or to work in the ICU or if I can get a position working there that could be my permanent unit to be on and I would already be an ICU nurse. Someone fill me in I am not 100% sure how things work in a hospital.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

I would STRONGLY suggest you read through the forums here, as there is ALOT of information to be found. Describing all that you want to know in a single post is daunting at best and unreasonably time-consuming at worst.

The answers you may receive to your questions will vary GREATLY depending on State, region, type of hospital, type of floor IN the hospital, etc etc. You won't be "100% sure of how things work in a hospital" without seeing how very many different setups there are.

One thing you can do, proactively, would be to contact HR at a nearby hospital and ask if you can shadow a nurse for a day or two, to get a feel for what might be in the nurse's job in such a setting. Might help you to know what questions to ask later.

Read around for awhile, that will help....and good luck to you!

[s0ad]

You might inquire about shadowing a nurse in a hospital, that could be very helpful.

My typical day is usually this (I work on med/surg unit with a focus on oncology, with tele monitors. Typically 5 to 6 patients)

Come in at 7am and get report/look up patient info. Pull my meds. Do chem strips. Draw up the needed insulins. Tell the case manager anything important before starting. Do my med pass and patient assessments. After that I try to chart, but typically have to talk to case management, social work, hospitalists, specialists, dietitian. Call to get things for my patients.

I also usually have to do things like replace IV fluids, grab pain medicine, take phone calls, or get lab specimens, or I assist the aides with max assist patients, or help feed if we have a lot of feeders. Usually I don't start charting until about 11am. I usually have at least one discharge or admission, so they are my next priority. By this time I am also verifying new orders (not all docs are on the computer) and checking new computer orders and fulfilling them. I also talk to A LOT of family during the day. More meds. By 1 I'm trying to catch up on charting, doing some more meds, talking to more people. At 3 I give report and thats usually 30 - 40 minutes. On most days I am out by 5pm. 4:30 pm is typical, 3:45 on good days, and 6:00pm on bad days.

Sometimes I have to prep patients for procedures, hang blood or platelets, etc and that takes some extra time.

I hope that helps you a bit.

[Nurse ABC]

It's hard. Some days it can be satisfying but for the most part there's too much to do and not enough time to do it all. I never feel like I get to spend enough time with my patients. I'm on med-surg and we all run our tails off for 13-14 hours and rarely get to sit down. It's exhausting. You don't need extra school for any unit-you will be trained and oriented to whatever unit you get hired on. Research the boards. Nursing much more stressful than anyone realizes and is never how you think it will be. It's also very hard to find jobs in a lot of areas. Don't want to be a downer-just want you to go in with your eyes wide open.