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I am a guy and my undergrad was in nursing, so let me say your reasons are totally fine and the people in this thread suggesting you need to be passionate for nursing from the start are idiots. For starters, nursing can easily lead you to positions where you see exactly 0 patients. There are all sorts of jobs in public health, education, administration where you can go with a nursing degree. Similarly, there are many schools which emphasize this work, so if you do your degree with them you may never wipe an rear end in your entire career. And that's fine. Or you can go to acute care, wipe asses, save babies, and be a good nurse independent of any passion for nursing per se. In either case, don't listen to anyone who tells you it needs to be your passion or you'll burn out. Personally I really enjoyed nursing because I enjoy medicine, generally, and am intrigued by the healthcare process. Someone in this thread said you need to, essentially, get emotionally invested in every patient. That, again, is utter dogshit. Being a good nurse involves two things: 1) treating people with respect, and 2) competency in the processes of care. The former is what building rapport and "therapeutic relationships" revolve around. It's also the cornerstone of any interpersonal relationship. Be honest with people, treat them like adults, give a poo poo about their situation. Virtually every patient will be satisfied by this (their families, however, are another story). The latter just means not phoning it in when you're doing your assessments, and in general knowing what the gently caress is going on and what your expectations are. Do your labwork. Do your vitals. Pay attention to and assess your patients for the possible complications of their situation/your interventions. If you do these things, you will be an amazing nurse and better than the vast majority currently working. Dogfish posted:Just seconding this. Taking care of people who need your help is emotionally and physically exhausting if you care even a little bit, and if you don't care even a little bit you are dangerous as hell and shouldn't be allowed near the people we're trying to keep alive. You can only do it if the rewards are as great or greater than what you put into the job, and money alone isn't going to cover it. If you're just looking for a job that you can do anywhere and that pays well become a plumber, electrician or HVAC specialist. Basically nobody who has worked in any health care profession for an extended period genuinely cares about their patients beyond a vague "I'd rather not see you die". You can't get emotionally invested in everyone, or you'll find yourself dying a little every time they do, and you'll burn out. The reality of health care is that the only way to deal with the endless death and suffering is to build a wall between you and your patients. You say the right things, you do the right things, but you don't let it affect you when they die. You document your activities, reflect on your practice, and you carry on. Medicine is loving depressing and the reality of life is the bleakest poo poo imaginable, with young people dying of cancer and old people like emaciated skeletons lingering for months in agony. You can't do your job if you let this poo poo affect you. Sheep-Goats posted:Nursing is still a female dominated position. It won't really matter that you're a guy, no one is going to cut you down or lift you up because of that appreciably (you will have people tell you that the ER and psych prefer male nurses but they don't give a poo poo). However once you find a job the environment is going to be a little catty and backstabby especially compared to a bar. Be nice to coworkers until you figure out who really hates you and who just lacks people skills, do your work by the book so if you get a genuine harpy she can't get her claws in all the way. This kind of stuff won't matter at all at some places and in others will be the worst thing about your job, so it just depends. I actually found that I got treated quite well as a male nurse. Other female nurses seemed more accommodating, and of course everyone likes the 6'4" guy who can help them lift that patient who took a spill. Sometimes female patients will not want you to provide their care (e.g. bathing, catheters, etc) but that's okay. For real though, I got the impression that female nurses treated me better because I was a guy. Like, some kind of reverse sexism. It was a bit disheartening. They were definitely catty with each other but I pretty much never got that from them myself. I also went out of my way to help people with whatever I could, though, so that might have been a factor. As an aside, always help other nurses and never cut corners that make work for people after your shift ends. Other male nurses are usually cool. The kinds of guys who can hack it as a nurse are usually a superior caliber, anyway, and we all get along because we all know we're rockstars. Lassitude fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 02:42
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Also, yeah, as someone said, become an RN. Do not gently caress around with any of the inferior nursing degrees. RN is internationally recognized and gives you all sorts of amazing opportunities, and you have options for more advanced degrees which can afford you work comparable to family physicians (without the bux and respect, but still). An extra two years in school means jack poo poo compared to this. Do not even consider anything less than RN unless your marks are terrible and you can't do anything to improve them. And I feel compelled to say, the prospect of cleaning poo poo out of old lady vaginas can be daunting. Nobody likes doing it, but we all do it without making a face. Every nurse ever has been intimidated by the prospect of doing gross stuff. But I guarantee you, once you get into a situation where you're the man on point and that's your rear end to wipe, you'll do it, and you'll wonder what the big loving deal was in the process. These things intimidate because they're an unknown. They make everyone second-guess themselves about nursing. But once you do it, you realize it's nothing, and it becomes a total non-issue to spoon up some diarrhea for a stool sample afterward. Do not let the prospect of gross stuff deter you. It's only a thing because it's an unknown. Once you get your feet wet, it won't even phase you. Ditto for anything else you might feel trepidation toward, whether it be wound care or running IVs of serious poo poo or getting a corpse ready for the morgue. At the end of the day, it's just a job and you do what you need to do. If you've even considered the possibility you can do this stuff, you can do it, and after the first time it'll be like nothing. I say this because I was deterred from nursing by this stuff initially. Lassitude fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 04:00
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Sheep-Goats posted:This varies. The lady nurses catting out on the guy nurse is an issue at some facilities per stories I've heard from other murses. My nursing experience is relatively limited so I wouldn't be surprised. In hindsight I'd also chalk some of it up to, as mentioned, going out of my way to help other nurses with whatever if I had any free time. Putting in extra work to help your colleagues goes a long way. That said, maybe I just got lucky and was working at sites/floors which had reasonably good teams. I know, talking to other nurses (female nurses) about places they'd worked, something that invariably came up was how people working on the floor got along. Some floors were notorious for being awful to each other, other floors people would be jealous of because they'd heard everyone was awesome and worked great together and helped each other out. JibbaJabberwocky posted:I wipe up a lovely rear end at least once per shift I work. I'm not sure what magical world you live in but I'd like to go there. Other than a select few units, patients in most hospital units are elderly and are likely to poo poo themselves on the reg. If you're in there when they do, RN or LPN or CNA doesn't matter, you gotta clean that rear end. Agreeing with this. If you're in acute care (ie., working where patients are actively being treated), there are LPNs floating around every floor but they usually focus on stuff like bathing/oral care/etc. and aren't likely to find your patient incontinent before you do. I routinely wiped asses/change diapers. The only way you're not going to wipe asses as a RN is if you choose to work somewhere where all your patients are always independent, or where you simply do not have patients. But, seriously, it's no big deal. It's intimidating before you do it, but then you do it and you realize the idea of it is way worse than the reality, and so who cares. If anything I kind of like doing it, simply because I know it must be a relief for my patient to get cleaned up. Lassitude fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 02:10
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Dogfish posted:Actually, I've found that my colleagues who don't care about their patients burn out quicker and also enjoy their work much less than those of us (including myself) who do really care. It doesn't have to be your passion, it doesn't have to be the thing that you look forward to most when you wake up in the morning, it doesn't have to be your whole life but if you're not invested, you're not getting anything back. Some days you phone it in because nobody is Super(wo)man but ultimately if you don't find your work personally rewarding then you're not really getting anything back for all the work you're putting in. Maybe I gave the wrong impression. Not "don't care about your patients", but rather "don't get emotionally invested in every patient". That goes for everyone in health care working with patients. The point I was trying to make is that nurses don't need to be some kind of paragon of empathy. Anyone can do it, you don't need to be a living saint, and he shouldn't worry if nursing wasn't his first career choice or he otherwise doesn't have a deep passion for what he imagines nursing is like. If he thinks it might be interesting and offers good options/money, that's good enough, as nursing is those things. All he needs to do, then, is to be a decent human being with his patients and know what he's doing/not cut corners and he'll do good work. There absolutely is satisfaction in doing a good job and seeing people through a tough time without any kind of unnecessary complications, and of course unless he's a psychopath he won't help but want his patients to do well, but he shouldn't think that there's any major requirement to be abnormally compassionate and empathetic.
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Sep 30, 2015 16:44
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They were pulling your leg and/or dick, I think.
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Oct 3, 2015 03:20
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