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What's it like being a Nurse?
oaklore
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm 32 and mowing fairways for a golf course for 'almost' minimum wage. I'm looking into different courses at school and Nurse caught my eye.
So my question is "Is that even good?" I mean, monetarily, benefits, retirement and all of that jazz.
What's the nurse total package like?
So my question is "Is that even good?" I mean, monetarily, benefits, retirement and all of that jazz.
What's the nurse total package like?
oaklore on
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It's easier than medical school, as far as crazy tests go, and you have more options for moving or being hired, but yeah, it's harder than mowing grass (which is probably why you're interested).
Anyone know salary ranges?
I recommend it as a good job. By all means if you have the chance and are sick of minimum wage jobs then do it. Medicine is an interesting field and can be fun.
edit: I can answer most specific questions if you got any. Grandma is a nurse Mother is a nurse, sister is in the nursing program, I am an EMT.
I started laughing so hard at this. Are you a nurse or is one of your parents?
So, for the record, I am a registered nurse at a medical ICU in one of the largest hospitals in the country (check my location).
Being a nurse, overall, is great. You get all of the really cool stuff of working in medicine. Saving lives, improving lives, helping families, and learning a lot about yourself, right? You, usually, make good money.
Of course, there is some shitty parts too. Yeah, you run into angry patients. Patients who are mad at their own situations and take it out on the staff. Also, yes, there are abusive supervisors. However, you can run into a shitty customer population or shitty supervisors in any job, so your mileage may vary. Hell, I get pretty negative after a twelve hour shift when I lost two of my patients in cardiac arrest.
Okay, about the hours. I see a lot of people quote friends as thinking they are long. Well, yes, they can be. I work three, 12 hour shifts a week. Yes - when I first started a year and a half ago they were long. You kind of get in the habit of doing them, though, and they become much easier. Also, think of it this way. I work three days a week. That's 12 days a month. When I work a weekend, I'll work three straight 12 hour shifts then have four days off. That's a vacation every weekend I work.
Money. It can be great or it can suck. Typically, at smaller places (rural institutions) you make less money. It varies a lot, but typically about $20.00 an hour. At larger hospitals (such as the one I work at) I started at $28.00 and now I make $31.00 an hour a year and a half later. We get a raise every 6 months. There is usually overtime available for as much as you want to work. I worked roughly $2,000 of straight overtime over four weeks to purchase this fine Sager 8662 I am posting on.
Location. Where you work and who you work with will make your break your nursing career. If you work at a shitty, country, regional hospital with a shitty supervisor and borderline dangerous coworkers, yeah, that's going to be a shitty work-life. If you find a solid crew of people you get along with in a hospital that puts the patient first (yes, they are out there) and treats the nursing staff with respect and dignity - it's great.
In the end, I'd tell you that nursing is like any job where what you do and how you do it could legitmately either end someone's life or improve it - it's challenging. Like any job, the hours could be long and the coworkers / supervisors could suck. The one big thing nursing does have for it, is that you can do it just about anywhere and the master's degree programs are bad ass.
Let me know if you have any more questions and would like them to be answered by an actual experienced RN rather than 'what my buddy said last night after he had a shitty assignment'.
There's a lot of single nurses around here, and the two nurses that I do know (my uncle, who's gay, and my friend, who's husband is a PhD and therefore equally busy at odd times) have schedules that tend to make their waking/working life very structured, due to the on/off and holiday working. For instance my friend here always works Xmas, although she says it's not bad because it's usually only the day after Xmas or Jan 1 where all the attempted suicides come into her ward. I know my uncle has similar trouble getting time off for holidays because, well, a hospital can't stop for a holiday.
I mostly mention this because I get the impression that the OP is single, or not married or with offspring, which may make it a good career choice for him right now anyway.
What my nurse friend here also tells me is that the best nurses are the ones who are fresh to a ward, because they're not jaded, and that hospitals tend to encourage school/training so it's possible to move into different divisions or specialties. I'm not sure how applicable that is to the nursing world overall, though?
Having said that my sister has been stabbed by no less than 4 needles which of course results in many disease scares.
As with anything else in nursing (or medicine for that matter) it depends on the hospital you work at. Most hospitals, not all, have some measure of tuition reimbursement and continuing education on top of solid benefits and health insurance.
For example, my hospital offers up to $7,200 a year in undergraduate tuition / fee reimbursement and $5,400 in graduate level courses. So you could easily finish a graduate degree for free.
Sign on bonuses are rapidly becoming the norm as well. A lot of my friends got hired in Chicago area hospitals (albeit, total shit holes) and got anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 in a sign on bonus alone.
Due to your age, OP, I really recommend against doing a tech job. You'll make less money, with poor benefits, and have almost zero upward mobility. Nursing gives you more money, the ability to go into a master's degree program, and is ultimately more rewarding.
As far as disease scares. Well, SatanIsMyMotor, I can't speak for your sister - but four needle sicks in how long? There are so many safety mechanisms to prevent that from happening I am not sure if she's just had horrible luck or what. Yeah, there are some threats - I've had a few OD meth heads come at me a few times, but far and wide it's pretty safe.
I hated having a bunch of patients and their whiny families so I went to the OR and am having a pretty sweet time in wood shop.
Nursing is way more physically demanding than I ever imagined it would be. Beyond 12 hour shifts, its lots of lifting and footwork.
New Nursing Grads in my area are in a kinda crummy situation in that hospitals still need nurses but are way less willing to hire new grads with zip experience. However, Tech positions like scrubs and xray are in an even worse spot that the market has been saturated with new graduates since we have 6 community colleges pumping them out all in a 60 mile radius.
I got into it for the money and the job security and I have to admit that those reasons won't get you through the day most times.
However, there are a thousand different jobs you can do as a nurse that surely one of them will feel like a perfect fit.
Good luck to you
Step 2: Make 60$/hr
Step 3: Read a chart, move a patient
Step 4: Do sudoku puzzles for 40-60 hours a week.
I'm not exaggerating. Surgical Nurses are the most spoiled lazy employees in the entire medical field.
It is good to keep in mind that becoming a nurse lets you join the club. No administrator or case manager employed by a hospital will be anything other than a nurse most of the time, they see to it that no matter how awesome an employee you are, or what kind of degree you have... if you're not a member of the club, you can't be a boss or move up any ladders more than a rung or two.
I really wish I were joking. Though my experience is largely in California, and CNA is fucking insane.
Edit: It's not to say all surgical nurses are lazy and useless, some are very good at their job and put in the effort. It's just not really a prerequisite of staying employed or making ridiculous money so after 5-6 years most stop trying so hard.
edit2: Find me another job that involves sitting on your ass for several hours doing crossword puzzles at the age of 67 and being paid 70$+/hr with perhaps the best medical benefits of any profession and 6 weeks of paid vacation a year. Also, a week of education leave and a 300$ bonus for coming to work if they ask you to.
This is also a load of crap when it comes to surgical techs, most scrub techs have to know more about the procedure and assisting the surgeon than a nurse who does not scrub ever will. They also make around 50% the pay and work longer hours with smaller bonuses.
S'all about whether you're in the club.
Not talking CRNAs, just OR Nurses. The ones who prep, put in a foley, do some billing and then sit around. I'm in the bay area and CNA basically protests everything and demands lift teams and stuff for essentially everything. Also, I see you mention between every case. If you do cardiac that's two cases in a shift. Not everyone has to work hard, and he should be prepared to be shit on heavily getting nothing cushy until the old fuckers die at their charting terminals.
Also, starting nurse pay here is low 50$s.
Edit: Forum has gone crazy, will clarify later. I do not hate nurses, I just think that CNA is crazy and nurses out here don't know how well they have it.
I don't think you really want to go down this path. ;-)
Why wouldn't you?
I spent the better part of my life around nurses. And especially so the past 6 years with my girlfriend. I've gotten to know them on a personal level and I know the situations around here.
It's rewarding work, but not without a huge list of problems. And yes, you can have grumpy customers no matter where you are, but there are positions that don't deal with customers (almost non existent in the medical world) and if you ignore your customer or don't deal with them, they don't die or get really sick because you didn't want to get yelled at when draining a JP or Foley. Plus, old sick people tend to be real big assholes, even more so than old people with nothing better to do than heckle people at best buy.
But some of the most upbeat people tend to make the best nurses. And I've seen lots of upbeat people in the medical field. It really does take a special person to work in that field, and the people who are the worst nurses tend to be the ones that want to make more money because they're mowing lawns.
I'm just seeing if he's ready to be that person, and not the dick nurse who treats the good patients like garbage because they were soured by all the bad patients 10 minutes into the shift. (There's enough of those kinds of nurses)
Because I can name probably a dozen just off the top of my head.
You're a long way off if you think that someone who's looking into a nursing career is just in it for a more lucrative job. How much sense does that make? Did you forget what the job will likely entail? Who thinks washing down old people is easy money?
It's just me looking over long term options. What I'd be able to accell at, enjoy, and things I'd be well compensated for for the work. I've looked at civil service tests and nothing really stood out as something I'd want to spend the rest of my life doing. I've done retail, management even so the pay was decent, and I slowly got turned off by that. Restuarant work, being a chef, seems like it would be rewarding, but it would be hard finding a good place to work with all of the benefits that a medical position would offer.
I am upbeat. I love being a positive influence on people's day. I don't mind hard work, I just want to be compensated fairly for it. That's the reason the original post mentions pay/benefits/etc.
Thanks for making the effort of seeing if I'm the right person. I think I could be.
Thanks. Thats alot of stuff I wanted to know. Things like working 7 on 7 off, or just making longer shifts toward my 40 seems like real perks to me. I have a 2 year old son now and having days off to spend with him will be great. Also, the ability to put in overtime when I really need it sounds amazing. I work six days a week now.
I haven't considered what field yet. It's good to know there are choices. Like I mentioned, we have an Army Base close by. I think it would be great working with GI's. My Mom mentioned being a male nurse is good too, since thats something that hospitals look for sometimes. So much to think about.
Oh yeah. I don't know if its just my college here, but they're offering tuiton incentives right now for jobs in demand. So that's quite a help too.
I have the chance to do this. It's going to be hard but it's the best thing I could do right now.
Should I contact someone at the base's hospital, even before I begin? Ask about tuiton imbursements, mentoring, whatever?
It's always a good idea to ask if they're hiring and if you were to be hired would there be any of that stuff. Tell them you're interested in becoming a nurse and are just looking around for information.