Hello, all. I made a career switch from magazine editing to nursing back in 2003. I left and went back to editing in 2004. There were a lot of reasons for switching back, both personal and professional. I am glad to say that I did provide safe and effective care during my short time as a nurse. It just wasn’t the right fit for me at that stage in my life. But now I’m at a point where I’m thinking of returning to nursing.
I went and bought some nursing textbooks at a used books store, so I could start brushing up at my own pace before deciding if I want to enroll in a nurse refresher program. I’ve just started reading a med-surg textbook last updated in 2013, and it talks about the IHI’s 100,000 Lives Campaign to save patient lives, launched in 2004, and about the (2006-2008?) initiative to create Rapid Response Teams/Medical Emergency Teams. This got me wondering about what has changed in nursing since 2004.
I’d love to hear from nurses who’ve been in the profession for 20+ years: Have there been any really big changes in the last 15-16 years, things that have changed what it’s like to work as a nurse?
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
I'm not really sure if it matters what has changed since 2004. The fact is you have only 1 year of experience and 16 years away. I think even if everything was exactly the same as it was in 2004 you'd still be in the same boat.
I think I would consult with someone from the Board to find out which refresher courses are recognized and what you can expect from them. Will you have to retake NCLEX? You might also want to try to get informational interviews with nurse recruiters to see what kind of new grad/returning RN internships are available.
I worked as an LPN in 2002 started in a hospital. Then I tried some other fields in 2009 and then went back to get my RN in 2014-a LOT had changed that I didn’t even realize because I was working in a different environment. It was a bit of a culture shock when I went back.
Hate EMR.
Hate the H on the front of the building that has been mistaken for a popular hotel chain.
Hate the fact that dinner wasn’t perfect somehow effects the nursing reviews for clinical care.
I have since left the acute care world. I loved it years ago, but with the above issues and huge politics that seem to fall into the job now-I went outpatient.
I'm not really sure if it matters what has changed since 2004. The fact is you have only 1 year of experience and 16 years away. I think even if everything was exactly the same as it was in 2004 you'd still be in the same boat.
I think I would consult with someone from the Board to find out which refresher courses are recognized and what you can expect from them. Will you have to retake NCLEX? You might also want to try to get informational interviews with nurse recruiters to see what kind of new grad/returning RN internships are available.
For sure. I’m under no illusion whatsoever that I can just slip right back into the profession with as little experience as I have and as long ago as it was! This question was really just about any really big-picture shifts in the profession since then.
It’s interesting to see so many people say EMR, and someone mentioned scanning meds. We had both those systems in place where I worked (a NICU in a big metropolis). I hated EMR too!
patients are sicker and nurse to patient ratios are worse, you are also now expected to do the many tasks that a secretary would have done (unless you are lucky enough to work somewhere with one), Nurse Assistants are a dying breed as well....they do not make enough money nor have enough raise an earning potential to want to stay in the job long so I have found (personal opinion) that the ones remaining do the bare minimum because there is no consequences for not and no reward for going above and beyond, Care coordination is another big thing due to readmission dings so you will work with them a lot as well as be expected to do a lot of the work of coordination because they staff them very critically, RRTs...but those have changed as well as they are nurses from higher level units that are pulled away from their patients to help handle responses, so I have found the burden of a rapid response is slowly being put back onto the primary nurse, lots of protocols and reflex orders, EMR, pixus for basically ALL medications, Telesitters in replacement of a physical sitter, portable communication devices and trackers....where I work the DON opted to spend the unit budget on a tracking system that tracks our every movement such as bedside charting, time in each room, hourly rounding, med pass times, and much , much more. Monitoring devices and pumps are now often hooked up to hospital wifi and notify you on your portable communication device of things such as fluid administration completion warnings, air in the line, occlusion, change in rhythm, a lead has come off, patient no longer on the monitor in an attempt to do away with all the beeping and alarms....it's extremely annoying at times and I think leads to what I have deemed as "notification fatigue" I feel the workload has only increased as well as all the interruptions.
patients are sicker and nurse to patient ratios are worse, you are also now expected to do the many tasks that a secretary would have done (unless you are lucky enough to work somewhere with one), Nurse Assistants are a dying breed as well....they do not make enough money nor have enough raise an earning potential to want to stay in the job long so I have found (personal opinion) that the ones remaining do the bare minimum because there is no consequences for not and no reward for going above and beyond, Care coordination is another big thing due to readmission dings so you will work with them a lot as well as be expected to do a lot of the work of coordination because they staff them very critically, RRTs...but those have changed as well as they are nurses from higher level units that are pulled away from their patients to help handle responses, so I have found the burden of a rapid response is slowly being put back onto the primary nurse, lots of protocols and reflex orders, EMR, pixus for basically ALL medications, Telesitters in replacement of a physical sitter, portable communication devices and trackers....where I work the DON opted to spend the unit budget on a tracking system that tracks our every movement such as bedside charting, time in each room, hourly rounding, med pass times, and much , much more. Monitoring devices and pumps are now often hooked up to hospital wifi and notify you on your portable communication device of things such as fluid administration completion warnings, air in the line, occlusion, change in rhythm, a lead has come off, patient no longer on the monitor in an attempt to do away with all the beeping and alarms....it's extremely annoying at times and I think leads to what I have deemed as "notification fatigue" I feel the workload has only increased as well as all the interruptions.
Pretty much all of this! Oh, and the Google nurses. Someone always "googled" something and think they're newly minted nurses.
Pretty much all of this! Oh, and the Google nurses. Someone always "googled" something and think they're newly minted nurses.
Don’t get me started with Google. It is the technology version of the devil. I have patients that will look up their results, Google the crud out of them on the internet, and then contact me in a frenzy because of what they found out they think they have because they ‘did their research’ on the internet....after a few deep breaths they relax, realize a blog is not a reliable source, and next time they have a question to contact the office and stay the heck off the internet.
When I worked in acute care the doctor would tell the patient something, they would ask no questions...then they would pull out their smart phone or tablet and Google away-panic-and now ask the nurse—-your doctor was just here. You said nothing—you go on the internet—check the sources people—blogs are baloney.
TriciaJ, RN
4,328 Posts
I'm not really sure if it matters what has changed since 2004. The fact is you have only 1 year of experience and 16 years away. I think even if everything was exactly the same as it was in 2004 you'd still be in the same boat.
I think I would consult with someone from the Board to find out which refresher courses are recognized and what you can expect from them. Will you have to retake NCLEX? You might also want to try to get informational interviews with nurse recruiters to see what kind of new grad/returning RN internships are available.
Good luck!