Who has more stess RT or RN?

Nurses Stress 101

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My SIL whom is very smart is trying to decide between these two programs. She doesn't do well with long periods of high stress(she gets anxious and depressed). I told her to try Respiratory Therapy as hospital nursing is very stressful A LOT of the time. The RT instructor told her RT is more stressful than nursing because of the critical care needs of many of the patients they deal with. She has shadowed both a rn and rt but is still deciding, she has until next friday to make her choice.

For those of you that work in a hospital, which would you choose to recommend to a family member if you had to pick one of the two based on stress levels.? She is dead set on working in the hospital in a patient care position...I originally suggested medical administration or medical coding but she wants to see patients.

Specializes in Med/Surg/Onc, LTAC.

I haven't been an RT, but I've worked with many many RT's, especially when I was working LTAC with trachs/vents.

In MY opinion (take it or leave it, just an opinion lol)... At the LTAC level RT's had it MADE. They get to monitor the vents/trachs, get to be in the best position during a code, but had HOURS of sitting and relaxing if they wanted (even napping), while nurses and cna's got the call bells, vent alarms and did trach care other than their scheduled times.

At a hospital, they do seem to work harder, but we don't need them much on my floor, so I can't say.

RN is much more stressful typically. However, if you hate math, RT school will be an absolute suck fest.

Specializes in Telemetry.

Someone else mentioned PT/OT and from what I can tell, at my hospital, they have it made!

They are not present at any of the codes, they simply get the patients up out of bed into a chair or ambulate them in the room or down the hall. If the patient is non-ambulatory, they do exercises with them in bed. There are always 2 (a PT and a PTA), so they don't need help. I get my patients up and to the bathroom/chair/reposition in bed multiple times a day so really, what are they doing differently?

They make recommendations for activity which the doctor approves. The majority of the time, they come looking for the nurse to ask THE NURSE what the patient's level of activity is and they go from there (drives me crazy, but that's a different topic).

Also, they probably make twice as much $ as me and get to call themselves "Dr." They see the patient for 15-20 minutes and if the patient is at a procedure, they leave and come back the next day. Easy, breezy.

But before I offend anyone with these comments, let me say that I am aware that PTs/OTs that work in long term rehab probably do SO MUCH MORE than the ones that work in acute care. I'm only talking about PT/OT in my hospital from what I can see...it looks super easy.

As far as the original question, I think RN is much more stressful than RT. But I'm probably biased;) TEAM RN!

Specializes in Med/Surg/Onc, LTAC.

WanderlustRN24- I worked with so many PT/OT who were awesome, knew their stuff, worked hard, had tons of schooling etc, very great people... but my god, they still had it SO much easier than us and they knew it too! Everything you said- they had their scheduled times with the pt's, saw the new admits charts before ME, had their hour lunch breaks as a group when I didn't get to eat until I got home at the end of the day.

If I could go back in time I'd do OT or PT, minus the schooling, they have it a thousand times better than us.

Specializes in NICU Transport/NICU.

They're both stressful. When we have a sick baby in front of us, I'm stressed to get an IV started, make sure the temp. is good, check pressures, to get fluids and sugar and meds in the baby, get labs, and make sure the situation flows as smoothly as possible. They are stressed to intubate if needed, get a blood gas, control O2 sats, etc. There are ups and downs during both of our days. She just needs to do what she loves and not worry about the stress.

Specializes in NICU, ER, OR.

i agree with noahsmama-- if she has a prob with stress, nothing healthcare related should be in her choices of professions....

Specializes in Telemetry.

Oh and I forgot to mention, if the patient soils themselves when the PT gets them up, PT comes running out of the room to the nurse so that the nurse can clean them up. In the meantime, PT is just hanging out or leaves the floor completely. And they have like 1 one-sided page of charting. Awesome.

But I still love my job.

i agree with noahsmama-- if she has a prob with stress, nothing healthcare related should be in her choices of professions....

A significant portion of the population of the United States has stress and depression issues. Many healthcare workers are on medications for these issues. I'm not sure I'd make a sweeping generalisation about career choice.

Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.

Tell her to go with PT, OT, or speech therapy. By appointment only and great hours.

On nights, we have two to three RTs for the entire facility. One of them stopped by our unit to do charting. His list of people he had to chart on covered an entire page! They have their scheduled treatments, labs, vent/BiPAP/CPAP set ups and monitoring, plus they get pages from the floors and from the ER for off-schedule needs.

I think they can be equally stressful in an acute care setting.

Laughing RN, I agree, and I don't think you sounded mean, she needs to do the research. Would you answer someone's question, "Should I be a nurse?"; no, its up to that person to figure it out.

I would recommend that she ask if she could shadow both jobs for a week each, or whatever is fesible. I think that would really give her an inside look to both jobs and she could make the decision well informed. Also, if possible, try shadowing different shifts during the week.

Best of luck to her.

also different units because an ICU RN/RT is going to have different stressors than a floor RN/RT IMO. At my hospital the RT's work both the floors and ICU's and rotate between them. I know there are some who really dislike certain units over others but they still have to work there.

Specializes in ICU.

Sorry. RN hands down. OKay, sure there's pressure when you have to intubate during a code, I'll give you that one. How about trying to get control of one patient who's crawling out of his skin with DTs, over powering his sedation, and trying to pull out every tube and line WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, your other patient is having chest pain with ST changes and needs to go to the cath lab/surgery STAT!? dash1.gif

RN or RT?

I can't speak to the relative stress levels between RNs and RTs however, my ex is a PT and if I was 30 years younger and had it all to do over again, PT is the route I'd take. Normal business hours, no holidays, no weekends, and an aid always at hand. Almost autonomous work environment and it seems that there is always some head hunter pointing money at her to switch jobs.

Your SIL will never get away from stress in any medical position but, on a pain scale of 1-10, PT ranks down there somewhere around a 2.

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