THINK TWICE-THINK HARD-GET A SENSE OF HUMOR PART 2
Written: Nov 12 '01 (Updated Nov 13 '01)
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Pros: After about fifteen years you can make as much as a factory worker
Cons: You have to work impossible hours to do it
The Bottom Line: Nursing is the best career you can imagine, if you learn to absorb the punches and learn from your mistakes. The KEY is learning.
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| artbyjude's Full Review: Nursing Profession |
Don't you just hate to read something that starts off," Oh I could tell you stories? Me too. That's why I'm just going to TELL you the stories, and you let you judge for yourself. The overall plan is to tell you as much as I can of the positive and negative aspects of the career you may be considering, or may be considering leaving. Because there ARE two sides to every story.
OVERVIEW
FIRST JOBS: How to talk to Doctors, and How to Irritate people without really trying. The former is an acquired skill. The second is a natural talent, which tends to create the need to develop the first skill.
There are two bonus sections in this PART II of the series. “ How to Survive the phase of Nursing Consuming its’ Young,” and the “role of the male nurse in Professional Nursing. “
Let’s assume for the nonce that by now, you have graduated. You CAN find a job. It may not be what you want, or where you want it, and it may not offer the hours you want, and it certainly won’t offer you the pay you think you deserve, but there is a job out there, because nurses are once again needed all over the country.
FIRST JOBS
My first job was a different role in the Psychiatric Inpatient Hospital I had worked in for two years. I was the one “chosen” to work in the metabolic research unit, and I was thrilled. It was NOT my first job ever, nor was it my first job in healthcare delivery. So I had the advantage of already knowing the rules of the institution, and a double advantage of already being familiar with most of the routines and the people I would be working with.
But here are some guidelines that might help:
BASIC RULES
1. Learn the rules of your institution. This is critical. In addition to the pay scale and differential rates, benefits and insurance, sick days, holidays and when you are allowed to take them, know when your probationary period is up. Learn when job performance assessments are to be performed, and insist that the schedule be maintained. YOUR RAISES DEPEND ON THIS.
2. Get a written job description, and if it does not specify your duties, be sure you have a clear understanding by asking questions. Most descriptions are deliberately vague. Find a copy of the licensing parameters for your state. Some procedures are “legal;” for nurses to perform in some states, and not in others.
3. Be sure you understand and adhere to the dress code. Don’t overdress. If you are to be working in an acute medical floor, take a formal or informal tour of the floor before you start to work, just to see what the other nurses are wearing. This sounds stupid, but may save you embarrassment later, when you show up in your best spandex exercise attire. DON’T mess with the dress code until you have established your worth as a valuable employee.
4. Know exactly when you are expected to be there, (not when your shift starts.) If you drink coffee and someone collects for a coffee fund, impress everyone by putting a dollar in on your first day, but make sure someone sees you do it.
5. Be precise in your break time, and lunch hours, even if you notice that everyone else seems lax. Because, even though they feel it’s OK for them to stretch their breaks, it won’t be OK for you. As a new employee, trust me, someone with a stopwatch and acute perception is watching.
6. Know EXACTLY what the procedure is for calling in sick and who to call. THIS IS CRITICAL especially if you have small children. In my experience, you need to call anywhere from 3 to 4 hours before your shift starts to allow scramble time for someone to replace you.
7. Find the location of everything you will need (especially supplies, medication, instruments, procedure and policy books, Pharmacy, General Stores, Sterile Processing, your immediate supervisor’s office, and the bathroom) as soon as possible.
8. Learn the usual routine. The scheduled hours for labs, medication administration, doctor’s rounds, and acuity checks.
9. Bring home baked cookies once every two weeks, or donuts. If you do this, you can break most of the other rules. Hint: Only bring them out when the previous shift leaves or they will be gone before your peers can express their heart-felt thanks for your thoughtfulness.
10. Discover the sub groups and leaders within the health care team. This includes nursing assistants, charge nurses, unit secretaries, management staff, case managers, interns, residents, “private” physicians, or anyone that you see two days in a row.
That should cover the first day.
ANCILLARY STAFF RELATIONS
My new role as RN was interesting because my little microcosm changed. I did not feel that my role had changed, although it did, drastically. And I wasn’t prepared for it. As a tech, I was quite used to the charge nurses directing my efforts. This part didn’t change. What changed first was the way my former friends viewed my new position. Overnight I had stopped being one of “us” and I turned into one of “them”.
First of all, they now saw me as one empowered to tell them what to do.
The trust was gone. Were they jealous of my new status? Not consciously. I only started carrying a bullwhip as a fashion accessory! Really!
Where before, there was joking and friendship, now I was seen as the enemy.
Even if you are meeting these folks for the first time, here are some rules that will help you be respected, not distrused by the people whose help you will need.
1. Maintain courtesy at all times. Even if it isn’t your nature to be friendly, you should always be polite. If you are under twenty-five, address your elders as Ms., Mrs., Mr. Until you are given permission to use their first names. It is a sign of respect, and may be appreciated by people who learned to live in a different world. When they give you permission to use their first name, allow them to use yours.
2. Always ASK for help. Do NOT demand unless you have to. Most of us like to feel appreciated and this is one way of helping them accept YOU.
3. Never make someone do something that you could do yourself, because it is his or her “job” to do it. If they have a routine daily responsibility, then remind them it needs to be done. Do not sit at the desk and dictate. If the job requires two people, help them with it. Always explain the need for their help, and anticipate tasks down the road. Thank them sincerely for their help. It is better to have someone want to help you than to have him or her help you reluctantly.
4. Even if the other nurses think you are crazy (and they will) allow the nursing assistants to teach you. LISTEN to their experience. It may be the one thing that will save you somewhere down the road.
5. Do not allow separate groups to form at the nursing desk, and then withdraw to whisper about this one or that one, and do not be a party to it, if the pattern is already established.
6. If a conflict develops between you and nursing assistants, techs or other assist team members, deal with it quickly, directly and honestly, and do it privately. Do NOT complain to anyone but the offending party (there are other measures to take if that doesn’t work). Show them the respect that you would want if the situation were reversed.
7. Never let them see you sweat. This appears as a weakness and may trigger a feeding frenzy
8. If you have a sense of humor, learn to be amused internally. Laughing at your co-workers merely makes them angrier.
That being said, my experience in the bi-polar disorder research wing was a good example of how roles change. Richard was a tech that I had known for two years. He was reasonably well educated, but a little sullen and hard to motivate. As a peer, I could usually nudge him with a quick comeback or just asking him to help me. As a nurse, though when I needed him to help do the same things, he would simply disappear, usually in the lounge in front of the television.
We had one patient who had poor impulse control and could easily escalate into violence. One my second day in my new role, Richard decided to “show me” how inadequate I was, by NOT attending in a take down of a patient who was becoming more and more unstable. We had done this many times before, as a team. It was routine. One of the basic rules of “dealing” with a violent patient is never go without backup. Another is never allowing them to get between you and the door. If they attack, you need to have an escape route. Another rule is to stay calm yourself. The goal is to get them to an area or situation with decreased stimulation and prevent injury to patient (and staff)
Mary (not real name) was starting to escalate. This meant she went from being mildly belligerent to abusive, and the process would be rapid and explosive if any element of a team takedown was missing. She was no bigger than a minute, but became very strong and very quick when she was at her peak. I went to Mary as she was muttering in the hall, and quietly started directing her to her room. Richard was in the doorway. I took Mary to her dresser when she started twitching, and exploded into violence. I looked toward the door, expecting Richard. When he knew what I was doing, he had gone back to the lounge, waiting for me to holler. Mary was between the door and me.
She quickly saw her advantage, and slammed the door, spun around and yelling, started in my direction. Reasoning with her was out of the question and would have been a waste of time. I was trying to edge toward the door, when she pushed a heavy chest of drawers at me, pinning me to the wall. At least she couldn’t scratch me. So I stayed as quiet as I could until the noise brought the other nurse and Richard, grinning widely, to the rescue. I did not share this with the other nurse, but definitely had words with Richard. Since he thought it was so funny, the word ‘payback’ came to mind.
A week later, my opportunity came. Mary, on the way to her violent episodes sometimes had an hour or two where she wanted to become shall we say, amorous. When I came to give her med she asked me where that “good-lookin Ritchie” was. (Mary, in previous episodes, would strip naked in the hallway, and pursue the object of her affections. -vigorously) Richard was in the lounge. Mary had a gleam in her eye.
I went to the lounge and told Richard I would help him do fifteen minute checks on all our residents, so instead of doing them all himself, we could do them together faster. That seemed to be a good deal, so I took the end farthest away from Mary’s room, leaving Richard to start in Mary’s room. I was on my second check, when I heard Richard yelp. When I came to the hallway, there was Mary, naked as a Jaybird, one hand clutching Richard’s hair, as he tried to escape her amorous advances. “But Richard, honey”…echoed down the quiet hallway. With my help and a mild tranquilizer, we had no trouble getting Mary to her room and finally asleep. I never had a problem with Richard after that. Not ever.
II How to talk to Doctors
Now this can be a big problem for some people. When I started in nursing so many years ago the rules were different. Most nurses were women, and most doctors were men. Being at the forefront of the bra-burning generation, though, those rules never did sit well with me. But it is important to differentiate between your role as a nurse, and your position on ERA. When I started as a registered nurse, the convention was if a doctor was standing and you were sitting, you got up, and gave him your seat. It didn’t matter why you just did it. I never could do it in the manner that was expected. If they stood over my shoulder while I was working and cleared their throats, I offered them cough drops. If they said they needed to use the phone, I would hand them a phone. There are usually places that are specifically set up for physicians to dictate notes, or with a computer designated for their use. I stayed out of those places. But I defended my seat at the desk when I was in it. In a teaching hospital especially with residents, their insecurity allowed us to change some of the” rules”.
Working in different hospitals over the years, I can tell you this and listen up: This is important! The rules change depending on where you work.
I work best in an environment where I feel free to ask questions and give answers. I like to be included in treatment decisions. Mutual respect is critical for me in any work environment, but you have to give it to receive it.
MY SECOND JOB
I went from the psych unit in New York City to an isolated cancer research facility at the end of the big linear accelerator in Los Alamos New Mexico. Talk about a culture shock! I went from being a research psyche nurse to being a Chief Research Nurse, caring for terminal cancer patients. My work in Sloan Kettering Institute of Cancer Research and my Cornell BSN got me the job from a man who liked to think he could walk on water. He was a brilliant MD, directing a clinical trial of Pion Therapy (these are heavy electrons which can be directed to precise and varying tissue depths without causing massive damage of surrounding tissue in reducing tumor size). I was hired because I could respond intelligently, and I didn’t back down. If this unique, difficult and very interesting doctor could have intimidated me, he wouldn’t have hired me.
My responsibilities included traveling with patients for treatment planning (Los Robles California, since New Mexico had no CT scanners at the time), being present when they were treated, monitoring their care, being on call 24 hours a day every day when patients were in residence, supervising 4 other apart time staff, supervising 15 techs assisting in treatment, organizing and dispatching many cancer volunteers, and occasionally programming the treatment modalities in the computer, among other things. I absolutely loved this job, although I sometimes worked 90 hours a week.
Fortunately, this doctor was a New York boy transplanted to New Mexico, and understood my acerbic wit. But within my first two weeks, I very nearly lost my edge.
The second day of our first treatment cycle, we had been working for ten hours without a break. I had a little indigestion that morning, so when fast food came for lunch, it didn’t appeal to me. I should have eaten something.
This day went so well, that the boss, in a rare display of generosity, offered to take the treatment team out for a drink. It had for me, been 19 hours since I had eaten anything. Let me tell you right now, I am not much of a drinker. But having a mixed drink with friends was something I used to do in the Big Apple, with no problem. It sounded good to me this time. I ordered my favorite drink (at the time) a Tequila Sunrise. It tasted great. It was fun, chatting with this group of Physicists and physicians. I was starting to like these guys better and better. I got up to call my husband and tell him I was running late and why, and well, all I can say is I should have eaten something.
The room was spinning, and I could not make it to the phone. The nausea returned, (it was the first of the flu season) and I took one step, grabbing a chair. My boss jumped up from his chair, took one arm and had a physicist take the other, and took me to his room at the motel. He helped me call my husband to come and get me. I was not available to go to dinner, so he left me in the room, waiting for my husband to pick me up. He must have been worried, because 20 minutes later he came back to the room. After hugging the toilet like a dear friend, I had staggered to his bed and passed out. In my pocket, now spilled on the bed cover, were the calipers and rulers we used to measure lesions. I left these on the bed.
The next day, I felt fine, but dreaded facing him at work. He said not a word, and to my knowledge never talked about me to any of my peers. He did pull out the calipers, handing them to me, whispering” I had a hard time explaining what THESE were doing on the bed. My wife just didn’t understand”. Only his eyes smiled.
After this we developed a mildly adversarial relationship that only those of like mind could appreciate for its value. We did maintain mutual respect. I won him over completely when he recognized how I was able to relate to patients. He was one of the most demanding people I have ever met, but also one of my truest friends. But he never again asked me to join them in a drink after work.
BASIC RULES of NURSE- DOCTOR COMMUNICATION
1. Never go out for a drink with a doctor, especially if he is the director of the program, on an empty stomach.
2. Always start your relationship with mutual respect. I rarely call a doctor by their first name, and I never call them by their first name in front of patients. And this has nothing to do with being deferential to doctors as a group. It has to do with the trust of the patient. A casual atmosphere may be friendlier at times, but can be misinterpreted by the patient as being too casual. And calling Dr. Martin “ Bubba” may give them distinctly the wrong impression. Notice that when a doctor meets a patient he doesn’t say, “Hi my name is Fred.” He tells him he is DOCTOR (Fred)
3. Rules will change depending on where you work. In smaller private institutions, some of the customs are archaic. Some doctors require deference, but watch how the other nurses communicate before you jump in.
4. Never argue with a doctor in front of a patient. This breeds lawsuits. It also creates conflict in a patient, who shouldn’t be required to take sides.
5. If there is a disagreement between you and a physician, handle it somewhere privately. Some doctors like to scream at the nurse’s station. Although you will need the help of your peers to stop this habit, it can be terminated.
6. If you think a doctor is making a mistake. find a way to correct him/her that doesn’t bruise their ego. Some doctors, like the rest of humanity, are a little stupid. If they still don’t see the light, initiate chain of command. One particularly effective way of teaching a physician is to pretend you don’t understand the problem and make him /her teach you. That way, he can take credit for your suggestion without acknowledging it came from you. If the patient benefits, it is not for nothing.
7. Never assume that the doctor you think is your friend will stand at your side if you do something wrong that results in a lawsuit. I have never in 30 years of working with a physician, ever see this happen.
8. Never and I mean NEVER do as the doctor orders if it is illegal for you to carry out the order, dangerous to the patient, or you don’t have a clue why it’s being ordered. (It won’t protect you later). Make them explain the rationale. Doctors are human. They make mistakes. It really is up to the nursing staff to catch them before any damage is done.
9. Do not allow doctors to berate your peers to you or a group of you. Again doctors are human. But conflict needs to be dealt with either directly, or through chain of command. Bottom line, if he or she talks about your peers to you, they will also talk to your peers about you.
10. When calling a doctor at 2 AM, be very specific about what you want him or her to do. Do NOT merely state the problem and wait expectantly on the line for his/her brain to wake up. DO be sure to have all the data you may need to justify your call in the middle of the only hour he or she has slept in days.
11. If you work in a teaching hospital, all bets are off. Aim for the same respectful communication, but don’t be surprised if you have to take away their lollipop. This last year when the first year residents hit the floor, I had two of them in tears, in less than 2 hours. Although it must be some kind of record, I am not proud of it. It was probably a goof to tell the doctors that I saw my job as protecting the patient from their mistakes.
12. If you are male nurse all rules are moot. The doctor will single you out as confidante, and trust you above all the rest. The doctor will see only you as a kindred spirit, even if you are a complete moron. He may say it’s “them or us”, Never forget that you too, are “just a nurse”
13. Don’t joke or kid around with any doctor (or anyone else) until you know them well enough to detect a sense of humor, or lack of it. If a sense of humor is detected, you can feel free to taunt them all you want, although screams of laughter can be very distracting to patients at 3 AM.
A particularly GOOD practical joke, is taking the glasses off a sleeping doctor, covering the lenses with Vaseline, and replacing them on his head. Then go to the nurse’s station and page him. Be prepared to run away or have an alibi.
14. If no one but you has a sense of humor, learn to be internally amused. Doctors do not like to be laughed at, even if they are funny or funny looking.
15. DO NOT allow the doctor to treat you like he is your employer unless he/or she actually signs your paycheck. Many of your peers forget this. If you are a hospital nurse, your obligation is to your patients, and it is the nursing department that pays your wages.
16. Do not expect trust to happen overnight. It takes time on both ends. Whenever you start a new job, no matter how many years of experience you may have, you will have to start over, from the beginning, to establish communication.
17. The WALK ON WATER PHENOMENON . When faced with this personality, who is a legend in his/her own mind, and seems to have convinced everyone but you that they are indeed the best thing since white bread, remember one important thing. They may indeed "walk on water". Sh*t floats, doesn't it?
HOW TO PREVENT BEING CONSUMED BY OTHER NURSES (The Nurses Consuming their Young Phenomenon)
MY THIRD JOB
In the midst of all this brouhaha I had been divorced for a year, when I met my second husband, and moved away from New Mexico to live in Durango, Colorado. I was at home for exactly three weeks when I realized I was listening to my hair grow. I thought I would try working in a hospital for the first time ever, taking care of real sick people. So, in a lot of ways in spite of 8 years in Health Care, and three years as a registered nurse, my lack of acute in patient care left me vulnerable to peer predators.
I had two problems. First, I was used to giving the orders, and all of a sudden I was at the mercy of three particular types of predators. 1) The thirty-year veteran hospital hack who had been doing the same thing the same way since Christ was a child, 2) the far more dangerous “younger nurse” who had recent survival experience running the new nurse gauntlet and the 3) deadly passive aggressive borderline personality who will take you down just for the fun of it, or because you somehow threaten their security.
The thirty-year veteran can be a pain, with selective hearing loss, but most of the time, they seem happier that you are there to share the work in spite of your stupidity. The newly survived “experienced” nurse, though, is out for revenge. And the passive aggressive nurse sees your downfall as victory, or some sort of excitement in their otherwise miserable existence. Every insult, every trial every hard time he or she had experienced in their first year will be visited on YOU. Instead of sympathy, you will find distrust. Instead of helping you, they will ignore you. They will give you the hardest patients, usually accompanied with “well you gotta learn this sooner or later”. They will complain loudly to doctors and other nurses of your incompetence. They will laugh at you if you show compassion and will tear you to shreds if you weaken. You may not survive the first year. If you do go down, they will justify this with
“She wasn’t cut out for it”
Or “She’s better off”
Or “See? I told you so!”
The boderline personality will just put another tick on the score for "their side".
The thirty year veteran will say “Don’t they teach you anything in Nursing school? When I was your age…”
Why does this happen? I couldn’t tell you. The job is tough enough. It is a lot tougher when you have no support from your peers.
The profession as a group will put the newest nurse (you) on the most dangerous shifts (nights) when there is the least amount of support available if something should go wrong. And then they will act surprised when you fail. This, too, I have never understood. It doesn’t really even make sense.
MED SURG
I worked evening (3-11PM) by choice, but the small hospital where I worked had a problem with the night shift. In a word, the RN often failed to show, leaving me to work a double shift or abandon my patients. For the record. Durango is a resort community, so many nurses were available to work part time. Nursing staff were viewed as expendable. After I had been there a month, they made a sound business decision and cut everyone’s hours to 32 a week, to justify NOT paying benefits.
If I were scheduled for nights, the evening charge nurse would leave all the stacked admissions in the ER so I could work them up when I came on. So I would have 4 full head to toe assessments, plus H and Ps to do and 23 other med-surg patients to care for, with the help of one LPN who couldn’t do IV’s, and couldn’t chart, and one nursing assistant who never did anything at all that I remember.
If I complained to the source, nothing happened. No one would answer what now appear to be stupid questions. I was given 2 days of orientation, and then I was on my own. I did survive, but I was not a happy camper.
One thing started to really get to me. I would tape report on all my patients, and the report was never more than 20 minutes. If they went into report at 7, they never came out before 8 AM They made assignments, and then would come out and ask questions, although it was all in the taped report. One day, I sent the nursing assistant (who was awake by then) in to their report to spy.
No one was listening for report. They were gossiping, drinking coffee, and complaining about me. After that, I would find a day shift nurse to watch the patients while I gave them oral report. (I had to lose the tape recorder twice to do this) I did get out before 8 AM, and I made sure they heard me the first time. This episode of my nursing career ended after my 6th double shift, in as many days. I was exhausted. I found out that no one had even tried to find a replacement for the missing night nurse. You are expected to give 2 weeks notice. They got two days.
Suggestions to avoid being eaten
1.IF YOU ARE A BSN NURSE do NOT brag about it. Some of the predators are going to be AD degree nurses, and this will peg you from the start as someone who needs to be taken down a notch.
2. If you are a “diploma” RN, don’t advertise this either. BSN nurses already think they are smarter than you are. Prove they are wrong. You probably already have more clinical experience than the average BSN prepared RN.
3 Never let them see you sweat. Nothing makes a predator happier than watching you lose your cool. Even if you are tearing your hair out, try to endure, because it usually gets better eventually.
4. Try to find one sympathetic friend to use as a reference. This is critical. If you don’t have at least one person who will answer your questions and help you when you need it, you probably won’t survive.
5. Never perform any nursing procedure without knowing how to do it. If you asked for help and they refused you, document the incident and pass it to your head nurse. This is something that competency based in servicing is supposed to cover, so find the nurse educator and make them do the job they were hired to do.
6. If someone asks YOU for help, do it willingly with a glad heart. This will build trust in your peers faster than anything else you can do.
7. If you find a particularly negative predator, confront them one-to one with their behavior. Find a WITNESS to this encounter. If that doesn’t work, follow the chain of command up.
8 Orient as long as they will let you. If some of the skills are beyond your experience or ability, state this in WRITTEN form to the nurse educator with a copy to your manager. Providing education is their responsibility, legally.
9 Try not to correct your preying peers with your vastly more comprehensive knowledge based on recent textbook perusal. This just incites them to greater anger.
10 The policy and procedure book is your BIBLE of nursing practice. If you have questions about a skill, or the theory, it should be in the book. Good luck finding it.
11 You can probably avoid being eaten for a while if you ask to see everyone’s recent photographs of their kids or their dogs. If you are single, and cute, tell them you are married. This will soften up even some of the toughest old birds. If that doesn’t work, ask their advice on your hair, your dating habits or your shoes. They may not have a clue, but they will feel more important if you ask them.
12 The easiest way to avoid being eaten is to bring in home-baked cookies or donuts every two weeks, remembering again, to hide them from the previous shift. If you can find a way to sprinkle Prozac into the batter, your chances will improve even more.
HOW TO IRRITATE PEOPLE WITHOUT EVEN TRYING
That’s easy. Just be me.
MEN IN PROFESSIONAL NURSING
Of course you guys know that none of this applies to you. Well some does.Your presence is welcome in this field.
Let me dispel some myths for the general public, or at least try to make some things more clear
1. Male nurses are NOT all gay. In fact, I have only known one who was in all the years I worked.
2. Men make excellent professional nurses, if they come with the same qualities that are found in excellent female nurses. Compassion, intelligence, and stamina are key ingredients. The profession is dominated by females, but that is because of their choice and ‘convention’, not because they are the only ones who have nurturing capabilities
3. All men do not enter nursing to become managers, or to work the specialty higher paying jobs, although most of them seem to go that way. They are also hired preferentially for jobs in ICU PACU and ER, although no hiring authority will ever admit this publicly.
4. Men reach management level positions at 3-4 times the rate of women with the same level of experience, and ladies, they DO get paid more. This is the hospital administration and the miserable nature of a decayed work ethic that still pervades the work place, even though we try to deny it.
I didn’t come her to bash male nurses. I know many wonderful male nurses, and I am always happy to work with them. I rarely see them engage in the same level of predatory behavior as many female nurses, and almost always find them easier to talk to.
From a management standpoint, I loved having male staff nurses in my department. The level of courtesy and professionalism really did seem to increase, for everyone. I don’t know if the women were better behaved, or the presence of the guy inhibited them from their usual passive aggressive behavior or they were acting in a more normal capacity as human beings, with both sides of the male/female personality complementing each other, I only know there seemed to be less tension.
Of course, many OB departments refuse to “have” male staff nurses. I have worked at a teaching hospital that refused to hire a fully qualified experienced and nightly recommended male midwife. Many nurses are jealous of the fast-line to management that seems more likely for a male nurse. There are arguments on both sides of the line. I have rarely seen the predator phenomenon visited on a male nurse, although I know of at least one case where it was tried, but failed.
Lately, it seems to be that a lot of people are entering the nursing profession just to find a job. I have to say that is a legitimate reason. But I hope it isn’t the only one.
It isn’t an easy job, and it requires a lot of endurance. You have to develop a thick skin to endure your first year. You have to develop communication skills. You have to be able to learn from EVERYONE, and every experience. You have to be able to laugh at yourself. You might as well join those who are laughing at you. Try it. It takes the sting out. Humor in the nursing profession is like Bactine spray on a burn. It stings for a second, and then it brings soothing relief.
If you get through the gauntlet of your “first year” working, other options will become available. But do THINK TWICE,and definitely THINK HARD and if you still aren't sure GET A SENSE OF HUMOR but Develop it internally. Stick it out if you can. We need you.
NOTE, HTTP://WWW.EPINIONS.COM/CONTENT_46105792131 was published October 18, 2001. Part I dealt with motivation and getting into nursing school
It may help make sense of Part II, offered here.
(The third and final part of this series will detail some of THE FOLLIES OF NURSING MANAGEMENT.)
Thanks for reading this. It could not have been easy.
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