Nurse

I've been working as a nurse for 3 months. In many ways it's not what I thought it was. There's a lot more bullshit than just taking care of people. There's admissions and discharges, phone calls to doctors in the middle of the night, scheduling tests, and reporting off to the next shift. There are too many patients and not enough nurses. There's only time for the bare minimum in care; vitals, meds, and endless charting. Being on a cardiac floor you quickly realize that 75% of your patients ate themselves into the situation they're in.  A standard patient history includes coronary artery disease, heart attack, hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes. I'm cynical already because it weighs on you to take care of people who don't take care of themselves. To be yelled at because they can't have their pain medication any sooner than ordered, to be spit on by patients with dementia who need care that you can't provide. To be expected to somehow be with six patients at once. I still believe that not all nursing is like this. At a less busy hospital, on a less busy and short staffed unit, with a different patient population.

I do have to say that I feel a little like a bad ass being able to handle this madness right out of the gate. I'm becoming more confident, independent and am learning to trust my judgement. I think this job will make me a better person.

I still aspire to be a labor and delivery nurse. Like many of the other new grads on my floor, we took jobs to get experience so we could work the required year and quietly sneak away to the position that we really want. I almost took a job somewhere else, but I figure, if I can survive here, I can survive anywhere. I'll finish up the year, learn as much as I can, and hope my next job is in a quieter hospital, on a less acute unit, in Michigan.