Which nursing specialty or position is the most physically demanding?

Nurses General Nursing

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About to start nursing school and just exploring different specialties and wondering which of them is the hardest and most challenging physically.

Thanks

Josh

In my opinion, it's long term care. Not only is it physically demanding to provide total care for the frail elderly, with all its lifting, rolling, pulling, pushing, feeding, changing, etc., it's also mentally exhausting dealing with the behaviors that different types of dementias bring as well as trying to keep up with demands of regulatory paperwork which, if not done, means the care wasn't provided and the nursing home doesn't get paid.

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Specializes in Acute Mental Health.

I agree with all of us! I work psych and it can be quiet one minute and the next, you're running to take down a 250# pt that is a trained boxer!

I also worked ortho and boy those bilateral hip and knee replacements are heavy, and the earlier mention of battleing those ted hose is spot on!

LTC is no walk in the park either..... I can only imagine the burn unit.

Wound care it must be like holding up a tree trunk for hours trying to do txs.

After reading this, psych seems pretty good to me! Good luck with school :)

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I guess I need to clarify my post. I work ortho/neuro/medsurg. We get a little bit of everything including traumas, TKA/THAs, CVAs, diabetic foot ulcers, GI stuff. I mean everything!! Lol It's hard. I always wake up sore the next day.

Now this is what I see everyday and I work on a skilled nursing (SNF) unit...plus the dressing changes on the patients that take 2-3 people's assitance to hold a limb! Forget waking up sore, I go home sore! Lol.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.

Bariatric nursing for obvious reasons comes to mind.

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Specializes in OR.

The OR is very physically demanding. We have to position our patients in so many different ways after they're asleep, and then we have to get them off the OR table at the end of the surgery. We work with tons of equipment, and pushing and pulling it around every single day gets pretty rough. Not one day goes by where my shoulders don't ache from my job.

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Specializes in Emergency Department/Radiology.
About to start nursing school and just exploring different specialties and wondering which of them is the hardest and most challenging physically.

Thanks

Josh

After having worked in the ED for 28 years, I would say it is the ED, because you have all of the mentioned possible, the ortho/med/surg/psych....and you are always moving and pushing patients from one area to another.....

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I would agree about the er...codes..trauma..that bariatric broken hip came upstairs with a Foley because I put it there...I push my patients down the hall frequently to get their workups done...and when one pt is settled..they leave and I start over..not to mention the danger that new and ummedicated psycho patients present....so many injuries happen during takedown...restraining patients when they are out of control

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Specializes in Med/surg, Quality & Risk.
Psych :)

I say that because you sometimes spend entire shifts running from floor to floor, "wrestling" with clients (holds) and dodging punches, kicks, spit, etc.

Beyond that, you are doing medical cares on clients that don't always want them performed. Add to that doing ADLs (again on client's that don't always want them).

I always thought psych work would be mentally exhausting to me. Repeating myself so many times to them, being manipulated, etc. as a patient care specialist was so tiring!

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any job thats at the bedside is physically draining

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Specializes in Peds ED, Peds Stem Cell Transplant, Peds.

All areas have there demand. I worked an extremely busy med/surg floor (Renal diabetic) with 17 patients and 1 LPN. That was horrible, mainly due to the work load. But that could never compare to the H1N1 outbreak, with 395 patients in the ED in 24 hours. Thus I would say ED

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NOTHING compares to being a nursing home CNA. NOTHING.

As for nurses, M/S. Rarely enough techs, and the poor staffing means you never have enough people to do the lifting safely.

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Specializes in ICU/CCU, Med Surg.

My answer is that any unit regardless of specialty that is not adequately staffed is the most physically demanding...which is a lot of them a lot of the time. Because it means that you have fewer staff doing more work and having more patients per staff member.

Yes!!

I work both ICU/CCU and Med Surg...I've learned that it largely depends on acuity of pts and staffing ratios (which are almost always stretched to the limit).

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