nurse anyone?

[pupslover]

I am in my first semester of nursing school and i was just curious if anyone here is a nurse or a retired nurse, etc...and if they have any stories, experiences, words of wisdom, or anything you could share of the profession.

i'm quite excited about it, but there are also so many nurses out there that degrade it, so it's sad too. anyone to cheer me up? just please be honest

[cookieluver7]

I'm not a nurse but I know a couple of nurses who just love it. Don't be nervous. Be kind and have fun! Good luck.

~Best Wishes~

[lizzielou742]

Oooh, my dad's an RN. He worked for 19 years in an ICU, now he works in a Level 1 Trauma Center. He works 7am-3pm Monday-Friday, every other weekend and every other holiday. Weeks that he works weekends, he gets a Wednesday off. So it's surprisingly regular schedule. He's even got to fly in the helicopter (they call it CareFlight here) a few times to go pick up injured people. Very cool.

He always has crazy stories. Hosing people with chemical burns off in the parking lot...nasty impalements...the stupid ways people break bones....hunters that shoot themselves while hunting in the woods and crawl for miles to get help. He loves it. He has always been very good at leaving the emotions out of it....I've never seen him get sad at home about a patient. I think for me, that would be very difficult. People at his work are always telling me how funny he is, and how he makes his patients and co-workers laugh.

If he had to give you advice, I know (I've had friends ask him for advice on nursing before), he'd say:

laugh a lot - having fun is important to let off steam
leave emotions at the door (leave work at work)
don't smart off to doctors, they can get you fired

Anyway, good luck in school! When do you finish?

[pupslover]

thank you for your post lizzielou. inspring! i'm in a 2 year program and our first semester is over very soon, so i still have a year and a half. long haul, but i know it will go super fast!

thanks again!

[Logan]

Sandra (Tatsxxx11) and Debbie (Sirrahbed) are both nurses. There may be others too. Hopefully they will see this and respond.

I started out with Nursing as my major in college. Wish I would have stuck with it, to tell you the truth!

[K9karen]

My mom always wanted me to be a nurse (and wear a white cap) Seriously, now that I home care my mom and can rival any doctor with a diagnosis ( she was misdiagnosed for almost a year and I found what she had on the internet and it basically saved her life) I'm sorry I never persued it. What an admirable field. The nurses who took care of my mom 5 times this year (once in ICU) were the most loving, compassionate, hard working people I've ever met. Nurses don't get the recognition they deserve. In my day, there weren't really specialized fields (MRI, CAT) etc but if it wasn't for the math and science (I stink) I would go back to school. I know Sandra (Tatsxxx) is too modest to admit it, but she's still awesome in her knowledge and is caring and giving and compassionate. You have to be a special person to endure the hours and stress. I've seen nurses cry. My mom was on the same hospital floor 4x so they all recognized her and treated her like gold. it maade us feel secure and safe and special. Good luck to you, and congratulations on chosing a very wonderful field. You must be part angel.

[sirrahbed]

Hi I have some funny and happy memories of nursing school that I like to tell folks. Things have probably changed quite a bit since I went to school in the late 70's. But, one of my favorites was *learning to give injections*. We had to partner off and practice on each other with normal saline. I was with my best friend and our instructor was Helga the Hun (j/k) but everyone was scared of her and we were soooo nervous. My friend Carolyn was just about perfect in everything but this instructor was SO intimidating. Anyway, I stood there waiting for her to give me my injection and suddenly I have blood all over my arm and it is on Carolyn's finger's too She had stuck the needle through her finger and into my arm That instructor - I had never seen her laugh before but that day I think she wet her pants Carolyn is now a retired Nurse Practitioner but when I see her we still giggle over it.

Then there was "Mr. Penis" We did not really know what the clinical was going to be that day because the instructor brought in a plain black briefcase and a plastic bag full of paraphernalia. hee hee - well it turned out we were going to learn how to catheterize a male patient. She whips open the briefcase and LO and behold - a soft vinyl male torso with.....Mr. Penis!!

Once I started working for real, I was a very picky and slightly neurotic nurse. I made a mistake one day and was about ready to quit I felt awful!! My supervisor saw what a wreck I was and did not write me up. I was working the OB ward and gave a new mother a 9AM dose of PeriColace (laxative) that she had already had at 9PM as intended. Guess she had no problems going.

My favorite work of all was RN on a regular med/surg unit and on the graveyard shift. Things are pretty quiet before it is time to start pre-ops and what I loved to do was very old fashioned (my mom was an Army nurse in WWII) and go around to see who was having trouble sleeping and offer a backrub. I don't think nurses today have the time for stuff like that I LOVE caring for the elderly.

I also have my teaching degree in Education/Literature, but Nursing is special and wonderful. It DOES take a toll emotionally - at least it did on me - but I also have wonderful and sweet memories of soothing frightened folks and holding hands - simple things like that. I am also very detail oriented and nursing really challenged me more than any of my other classes - I loved the learning and staying on top of every drug, treatment and new development in medicine. I still read like crazy and try to keep up. My original major was Pre-Med, but....well, I wanted to get married and did not have the commitment to stick with THAT program - but glad I went with nursing or I would have missed the one-on-one that I liked the best.

My sister, persianmom (Carol) is a nurse and is currently working - she may be able to tell you some stories too. We sat the other day and laughed so hard because she had her schooling recently while mine was so long ago. She has unit dose injections and I had to calculate and draw everything up (take glass ampules, wrap the neck with gauze and break them to withdraw the injectable for everything) Only a few meds still come this way as most everything is unit dosed. We also did not have ANY bubble pack tablets or pills. Everything on the drugcart was done by hand. Tubex was new and exciting and now it is a joke Tubex is like a metal syringe contraption that you load with a glass cartridge for injections. We thought they were sooooo high tech!! Anyway - we had some good laughs about the way *I* had to do things.

ENJOY!!

[tatsxxx11]

My advice is to never give up! They'll be some really challenging times, especially in your last year. I went to a hospital school of nursing, living there, which was really tough. No breaking up clinical work from your time at the college, i.e. complete all your liberal arts/science courses first, like you can do now a days at a lot of junior college programs. You ate, slept and breathed nursing 24/7 and they really put you to the test, especially near the end. Do they still have you do "mass meds," that is give meds to the entire floor? That was the most stressful; one med error and you were OUT! Some people were weeks from graduating, when that happened to them. They were allowed to return the next year to retake that last semester. On avearge, only half of the starting class graduated. But it was all worth it and my graduation day was one of the proudest of my life! Psych was the worst for me. We had to LIVE in a state psych. hospital for the entire summer! That nearly did me in and to this day! And oh yes, how well I remember doing my first male cath! No practicing on Mr. Penis for us! lol! Of course it couldn't be an unconcious, older guy, NO, he was in his 30's and gorgeous. I just about died on the spot! One funny story...a few weeks before graduation, we all were, well, partying...on the roof (flat) of the nursing school, which overlooked the cemetary and a very busy main road. "Someone" stole from the nursing Lab "resus-a-Annie," the human sized replica we practiced our CPR on. Well, seems Annie was feeling a bit despondent and hurled herself off off the roof into the cemetary below! People driving by thought a nursing student had attempted suicide and within minutes, the police, the MICU van, the entire ER staff were out there! Wow, did we get in trouble Luckily, they let us graduate! Hang in there...it will all be worth it! And oh, may I recommend the OR/Recovery Room??? BEST job in the hopsital!

[sirrahbed]

Hi Sandra!
Your "annie off the roof" story cracked me up. Poor suicidal student nurse! My mom went to a hospital program as well - Mt. Sinai in NY - and had to live at school. Mine was a two year ASN at a university back in 1978. We also did mass meds It took FOREVER to get everything ready and on the cart and OMEGOSH what stress!! That error I made was because the drug cards were all handwritten and color coded in ink. Blue for daytime hours, black for hs and red for prn. The PeriColace was in black and I just saw the 9 since I was doing all the morning meds for the OB floor. SHEESH. I thought I had committed murder. I think the concept is so different now - are you working anywhere?? Not me I taught school awhile and now I am full-time kitty meowmie and hubby is semi-retired

[RICHARD]

Originally posted by tatsxxx11
And oh yes, how well I remember doing my first male cath!

You never forget your first......

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At the other facility worked at I had a MASSIVE crush on a red headed nurse who had the nicest complexion.*sigh*

I just so happened to come into the Urgent Care area after crashing my motorcylce and nurse Peggy was on duty. So was very professional and ordered me to drop trou so she could see my road rash.

Her: Take your pants off...

Me: No................

H: Take your pants OFF........

M: NO!

Stuck between the the pain, the embarrassment and the knowledge that I was "sans underwear" that day, the conversation went on for another minute-until I admitted to her that I couldn't because I didn't have anything on underneath..

She laughed and that embarrassed me even more, THEN she grabbed me a sheet....

I was treated and told to sell my bike every time I had to deal with the Urgent Care staff until the old gang moved on.


Nursing Rule No. 1???

Don't treat people you know.....With or without underwear!


Good luck!

[guineapiglover4life]

Originally posted by RICHARD
You never forget your first......

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

At the other facility worked at I had a MASSIVE crush on a red headed nurse who had the nicest complexion.*sigh*

I just so happened to come into the Urgent Care area after crashing my motorcylce and nurse Peggy was on duty. So was very professional and ordered me to drop trou so she could see my road rash.

Her: Take your pants off...

Me: No................

H: Take your pants OFF........

M: NO!

Stuck between the the pain, the embarrassment and the knowledge that I was "sans underwear" that day, the conversation went on for another minute-until I admitted to her that I couldn't because I didn't have anything on underneath..

She laughed and that embarrassed me even more, THEN she grabbed me a sheet....

I was treated and told to sell my bike every time I had to deal with the Urgent Care staff until the old gang moved on.


Nursing Rule No. 1???

Don't treat people you know.....With or without underwear!


Good luck!

I literally felt like falling to the floor and laughing when I read this! TOO FUNNY!!!

[tatsxxx11]

Are you sure you've never been in a NY/NJ hospital, Richard??? I think you've passed through my hands before, lol! You had me peeing in my pants

Funny how some guys come out of the OR into the RR feeling all frisky and such! My question....WHY??? On more than one occasion, a proud and obviously "in the mood" guy would throw back the covers to show off his enamored state. Our reply??? "Oh dear! Well honey, we can do something about that for you!" Ever hear of the butterfly flick? The ultimate WMD "weapon of male deflation" for nurses!

Oh Sirrahbed, mass meds was perhaps the MAIN reason for me putting in a transfer to a unit after only one year of floor nursing! That and the fact that the drs. never gave floors nurses the respect they deserved. It was SO easy to make an error with mass meds! We didn't have colored ink, we had different colored little med cards with the drug, dose, etc. I'd come in an hour before start time, maybe 6am, just to organize my cards and start pulling meds! Pericolace...how many of those did I dole out in the course of a day! At least it was Pericolace and not Dig. God only knows what errors I may have made and never knew And people wonder why nurses have to take million plus malpractice ins. policies! I ruptured a disc pulling up a 250 plus spinal patient (spent the remainder of the day changing CBI bottles; not too smart) and that did me in for a while. Went back to school for botany and horticulture and since then, have been dabbling is a bit of everything, mostly dog rescue I do miss it though. Nothing like the gratification of knowing you helped to make someone more comfortable, allay their fears, take away their pain. BTW, I spent my psych rotation at Greystone in NYC. The original "snake pit!" Mt. Sinai is an awesome institution!