Where can I actually help people??

umcRN, BSN, RN · Nov 28, 2012

I usually feel like I have helped my patients, and sometimes their families. I work in a pediatric cardiac intensive care unit and I love it!

loriangel14, RN · Nov 28, 2012

I work on a Complex Continuing Care unit. I get physical rehab pts ( lots of hips),some medical pts, palliative patients and seniors waiting for nursing home placement.I do enjoy getting to watch people get better and go home or help pts and families through that final journey.

MedChica · Nov 28, 2012

I work with the elders and the mentally ill.

I feel like I make a difference in their lives by being there for them.

We're stepping up when their loved ones are unable to or just flat-out don't want to. You get to know these people and you build relationships with them. There are good times, yes. Lots of them. I'll have to leave LTC for the hospital at some point (to increase my skill level), but I'll definitely miss my geri's.

The mentally ill, I love. I even like the combative dementia patients. LOL We have one little guy who wanders in out of rooms.

He'll go in there straighten up the beds. It's funny. He's in his 70's, but he's spry -- and he used to box!

Let me tell you, something: When he squares up? Get the hell outta there. I was helping an aide change him. He grabbed her and wouldn't let go. I tried to talk him down gently (which usually works because the aides have an act of 'swarming' and grabbing him. Bad idea. If one person loses their grip and he gets a hand free? That's it. Up comes the fists and he's just swinging. Everyone let's go and backs off. He's a little guy, too. 5'5. Slim, but very STRONG.).

She ran out of the room. He started after her, then came after me. Running.

I ran out of the room through the bathroom, as I marvelled at his shocking speed. LOL He came out, saw her...and ran after her again, but she took off down the hall. He was cursing in spanish. 5 minutes later, he was wandering down another hall. I gave him a sandwich. He smiled.

We were best friends, again. LOL

Granted, some disorders are difficult to handle. I have a little lady with borderline + BP2 disorder. That is the most hell-raising-est woman I've ever met. She once ranted and raved for 4 hours. Nonstop.

She had her sister calling the nurse's station screaming at me in frustration. Why? The resident was calling the sister nonstop. Crying. Whining. Screaming.

Bless her heart, but she sucks the pure life out of me. With her screaming 'Rage Attacks' and, when she comes down, with her depressive 'nobody likes me/I'm gonna cry in my room and slit my wrists' moods.

I have to consciously check my own responses to her as well. Ensure that I'm not treating her any differently simply because she rattles my nerves (arguably, most of the time). LOL She rattles everyone's nerves. Every shift, I'm having to save an aide from her 'Rage Attacks'. She ran her roommate out of their room with her screaming whines.

In the midst of the tirade, I have to consciously repeat in my head, "She...is not her disorder. She's sick and can't help it. She is not her disorder. She is not her disorder." to maintain my bearings and boundary setting.

There's a behavioral health seminar coming up and I'm going to attend. Hopefully, I'll learn better ways to manage help and help her manage herself.

...but I'm here for her. We all are. She needs help. The mentally ill need our help and support. Society just want to throw them (and our elders) away and it's wrong!

The most frustrating thing to me, though? The constant refusal of meds.

Many of these people had lives and children before their disease took them down. It's sad.

I still hold out hope that this or that person can be high-functioning if they just tried and we helped them.

... but how you explain to someone with paranoid schizophrenia that the meds aren't poison? That they need their medications to manage their delusons and heart conditions. One of my little ladies is the hardest. Once it took another nurse and I AN HOUR to get her to take her antiHTN, lasix and antipsych meds. Had to bribe her with diet coke, too. We usually have to hide her meds in her food. Her insulin? I have to wait until she's in the bed half-asleep.

She'll still fight me on it, but not as hard.

She has daughters but they don't come around and I understand. It's difficult thing to be a child of a mentally ill parent. I've had one adult child say that her mother's been sick since she was 12 and it's always felt like... her mother was 'dead'. All that's left of her 'is a shell'.

Then, she started crying. SMH. She was trying to explain because she felt shame. She thought that we, the staff, looked at her harshly b/c she never came to visit. As if we had this attitude, like "What kind of person are you?"

No, never that. I couldn't imagine living with the sort of reality. It doesn't take much to understand the real reason why that woman stays away: It hurts her. She mentioned that she was seeing a therapist and that's why she was able to come to her mother at that time.

Baby steps.

anotherone, BSN, RN · Nov 28, 2012

I work in med surg so many pts are going to be like the ones you described . But I have found that there is more teaching, really helping with surgical pts. for example a pt comming in for a thyroidectomy, tah/bso usually is more understanding if the need fir lab work, etc than one comming in for the next fix and tray

elkpark · Nov 28, 2012

You make a difference and "help people" wherever you practice nursing. If you're upset because you're not getting enough of a feeling of personal gratification from working with your clients (they're not grateful, appreciative, and obedient enough to suit you), I'm kinda concerned about your future in nursing -- you're not going to get a lot of what you are apparently looking for, wherever you practice.

MInurse.st · Nov 28, 2012

My surgical floor takes the liver and kidney transplants. Tons of teaching, and these patients are almost always eager to learn (and compliant w/ meds, treatments. etc).

elkpark · Nov 28, 2012

My surgical floor takes the liver and kidney transplants. Tons of teaching, and these patients are almost always eager to learn (and compliant w/ meds, treatments. etc).

Interesting you should say that -- I work at a major academic medical center with a big transplant program, and we see lots of our transplant people back in the hospital later precisely because they're not compliant with their follow-up tx. Blows my mind ...

Daisy_08, BSN, RN · Nov 28, 2012

I work palliative. Love it. Lots of care for the pt, education for the family and support for both. I feel like I can help the pt have the most symptom free and dignified death and help support the family though a difficult time.

I also worked LTC and felt like I really helped them, just by taking a little extra time. I personally like providing care and getting to know my pts.

paradiseboundRN · Nov 28, 2012

If you are willing to leave the hospital, being a home care nurse is very rewarding. You can really make a difference in someones life by teaching them how to care for their disease and keeping them out of the hospital. Also you do alot of wound care which is rewarding when the wound heals. Of course, home care has its negatives too but it is rewarding.

BrandonLPN, LPN · Nov 28, 2012

Well, *all* nurses actually help people, of course. And *all* patients need a good nurse. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's those pain-in-the butt, non-compliant, manipulative med seekers who need a good nurse the most.

Let's be honest, it's easy to "feel good" about taking care of some cute little 6 year old with an acute, curable condition. God forbid your taking care of some middle aged guy who's a hot mess of various uncurable chronic conditions and co-morbidities. Not so much a "feel good" patient. Never mind that that represents most of our pt population.

And sometimes it seems like we're preconditioned to believe that the only "real" nurse is the nurse who's

out there saving theworld and somehow curing everyone. And the only "real" patient" is the innocent ingenue who's faultlessly stricken with some calamity. And we swoop in to the rescue. They get better and they go home. Everyone's a hero. Yay team.

I don't know about you, but I don't see scenarios that play out this way

too often. Like elkpark said, I think you might have a hard time finding what you're looking for.

I'm reminded of that Edgar Allen Poe poem about the knight who

wasted his life looking for a city of gold that never existed:

And as his strength failed him at length

He met a pilgrim shadow

"Shadow", said he, "Where can it be- this land of Eldorado?"

"Over the mountains of the Moon, down the valley of the shadow."

"Ride, boldly ride," the shade replied- "If you seek for Eldorado."

Jim-El · Nov 28, 2012

Obviously you help people where you practice nursing. I feel like you are twisting the original posters words a little bit here. Personally, I can relate to what they're saying. It has less to do with "receiving appreciation and obedience" and more-so to do with genuinely feeling like you made a difference in their lives.