Helping people is all i have ever wanted to do with my life, I always wanted to work with people (specifically children) and help them, i wanted to be a teacher or a doctor or a nurse...and when the time finally came at the young age of 16 to make my life career decision, i chose to become a nurse, along with a number of my friends, choosing the right subjects for my senior years of high school, electing nursing as a degree in university and low and behold at 18 years old i began my bachelors degree in nursing.
3 years later, countless assignments, hours of sleepness nights, placements, tutorials, exams, lectures and interviews, I arrived at my first full time nursing position in a large private hospital in melbourne. I am now 7 months into my nursing career, and i am not questioning not only my choices but my future in nursing, and i am not the only one, a number of my friends are feeling the same, and it made me wonder....what was so different now as to when i was a student, thus getting to the point of this post...5 things they didn't prepare you for in nursing school.
1. You will cop the grunt of any blame;
Now this may seem like a generalisation, and to an extent it is, but overall i have found that anything and everything that goes wrong is always the nurses fault. I have found that patients, families, doctors, cleaning staff, surgeons, ward clerks, other nurses etc will find a way to blame you. frustrations, anger, mistakes, anxiety, laziness, misunderstandings, impatience....all of these things will come out of people, aimed at you in verbally aggressive and sometimes traumatising ways that you have to stand there and take because its your job...right?
2. Shift work sucks;
Now this may be something we all assume right, we all think of shift work and know that it sounds sucky but it is necessary, but in all honesty, you dont know the exhaustion of shift work until you have lived it, working shifts that finish at 10pm and starting 7am the following day for a number of days in a row, sometimes no weekends off, sometimes days without seeing your loved ones, only communicating by notes left on kitchen benches and food left in fridges. It makes you feel very drained and exhausted...but its all part of the job right?
3. People will expect you to catch them;
Now this may seem like a strange one, but it is very true, people will always assume that you will catch them if they fall, and the truth is, you shouldn't! People will also always want you to pul them up, or grab for you if they need something to anchor them, and will expect it of you...because its your job! but unfortunately they don't think of your back, only their own, or of your safety, only their comfort. Often this is not a intent-fully selfish act but remembers, its our back on the line.
4. Nursing work is hard to come by:
When i first started nursing I was told it was a job that will always be around, thats its in high demand, and that nursings will always be needed. what they don't tell you is that the government likes to cut nursing jobs in the budget, that 60% of my class wouldn't get a job straight out of uni, that the demand is high but the prevalences is low. no money, no jobs, no nurses.....
5. Emotional baggage:
I remember my first code, i remember it very clearly, i remember sitting in my car and needing to pull over because after i left the hospital i broke down into sobs, not knowing if my patient would survive and if it was my fault. i remember thinking about it for days, and chasing up the details of the patient who did eventually pass away a few days later to nobodies fault but the illness. However the drainage of having that life behind me caused me to be very traumatised for weeks afterwards and i may never forget the feeling. They don't prepare you for death, or the emotional instability of nursing at school, they don't explain how it feels to know you are responsible for the lives of these people, and how that affects your mind and conscience.....
Nursing school taught me how to save a life, how to keep someone living, how to shower, dress, feed, medicate and manage people, but it all sounds a lot easier on paper than in practice and although nursing is a worthwhile career, it may be one some people are not cut out for....your thrown in the deep end in nursing and its a daily effort to keep afloat.
