#philosophizefear

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hey tanya, ive been following you on twitter for a while now (my username there is @granteire!) and im always so interested in your tweets about your job! i was wondering if you could maybe tell me a bit more about what you do/what you studied at uni? im currently doing biomedical science and i'd really love to work in a hospital one day, and i'd love to know what your experience in that career type is! thank you, and all the best!!

Hey! Oh, man. Gosh. Thanks for the interest, my tweets are like, not a good picture of my job since I only tweet the funnier things (or the stressful stuff).  It’s really a grabbag, depending on the seasons. But!! 

Quick summary: I’m a medical-surgical nurse registered in California (important to note, most states are different), though I studied and got my Bachelors of Science in Nursing (BSN) in Arizona. Took my NCLEX in California as well.

Also: it took me 6 years.  I’ve failed/retaken classes, I’ve gotten rejected from, like, 7 schools. But here I am! Intact! I graduated and got a job immediately. So. Anyway.

There’s a lot of pathways to becoming a nurse. Most people I’ve seen get their LVN/Associates degree first (two years of school), work for a bit, and then an additional year or two to get their BSN, which you can do mostly online. This way is good if you’re looking to get a job quick, or if your financial means don’t quite cover up to 4-5 years of straight schooling.

Uh, uh, my college experience was kinda convoluted. I hopped around three universities and one community college over the span of 5 years.  I messed up a lot!!!! But I got through it, ahah.  Nightmare.  I can talk a lot about the nursing school application processes (if they haven’t changed too drastically from 5 years ago) and nursing school itself?? But I see that you’re in biomedical science so I’m not very familiar with that part, but I have friends who started there and focused their classes towards nursing!  What hospital work are you looking into? There’s so much!

But, in case you are sort of eyeing nursing as a career pathway..

Good reasons to become a nurse:

Good money. At some Kaiser hospitals in California, a new grad nurse can make up to 70$/hr starting salary.  I am not, in fact, a kaiser nurse. But more on that later.

JOB. AVAILABILITY. Job availability.

LOTS of different types of nursing. Love bedside care? Go to med-surg. Hate talking to patients? Go to surgery.  Love teaching? Go into nursing education.  Love sitting around counting? Operating room.  You can go into so many areas with a BSN.

Straight pathway to the BSN. It’s basically a tradesman job? If that makes sense? All your classes are set up once you get into a nursing program and you got have to stress much about class availability.

Cons:

Constant education.  I have to get re-certified every two years and pay a fee to renew my license. I’m always going to seminars about what’s the new hot thing in the medical field. It’s not… much of a con, really, but it does take away your free time.

Nursing School Is Hard. But that goes for, like, college in general. But Cs don’t get the degrees, friend. Most programs need you to keep your exams, assignments, clinicals above a B average.

Uhhhhh, fun factoid: I did not want to become a nurse.  My mom’s a nurse so I kinda knew what was up.  I wanted to be a pharmacist!! Straight out of high school!!! Got rejected!!! So on a whim-ish, I applied to pre-nursing, which is just a university course pathway to the Real Nursing Program.  Pre-nursing usually takes two years to complete, and that’s if the classes are impacted… which.. They usually are. (It took three years for me!)  

OKAY, AND, UH, READING ALL THIS I REALIZE I HAVE GOTTEN AWAY FROM YOUR QUESTION. WHICH IS. MY ACTUAL JOB.

So!!!!! I’m a medical-surgical nurse, which is what makes up the bulk of hospital nursing.  It’s a REALLY great starting position as a nurse because it allows you to see all types of patients and teaches you how to manage your time.  At the hospital I work at, I’m usually looking over 5 patients, which is the ideal MAX. During busy seasons like winter, sometimes the hospital gets a high census and I get six patients, which really, really, really sucks, and risks patient safety (and… quality of service… *eyeroll*).  I work in 12 hour shifts at night, 7pm to 7am, ON PAPER. Usually I come in 30 minutes early to get my assignment and look up my patients’ medical condition, their labs, and medical history, and after my shift it’s usually 30 more minutes to give report to the oncoming day nurse. So, really, it’s 13 hours, but I don’t get paid for that extra hour.

Some stuff I do as a med-surg nurse:

Doctors oversee hundreds of patients.  I get five for the night, and those five patients are my focus. I monitor their labs, their vital signs, heart rhythms, and basically their overall condition.  I have a set of orders I follow in case something is not quite right. For example, if a patient has a high blood pressure, I’ve got orders to give them a specific medication.  If a patient can’t breathe, I’ve got orders to slap some oxygen on them or give them a breathing treatment.  I troubleshoot, basically, using what I know as a nurse and what the standing orders are from the doctor.  When nothing works, THAT’S when I page for the doctor OR call for a rapid response team (medical emergency team).

Give medications, oral, IV, IM… I do it all…

Depending on the hospital: draw labs sometimes. I poke a lot of people with needles.

Blood transfusions.

Make sure they stay alive for my shift which, surprisingly, can be hard. But this is what I went to school for, and it’s what I’ve been trained to do.  I hate emergencies, but I’m a dang professional and 75% of the time know what I’m doing. The other 25% of the time is Out Of My Scope and that’s what the doctor is there for. My coworkers, too.

*Patients do die. They do, no matter how hard you try or how much you monitor them. I see patients die maybe once every two months. Sometimes more. How people cope is up to them! I don’t want to say you “get used to it” but.. like... idk. /shrug. I find dealing with the families more stressful than any medical emergency I’ve been in so far.

I also: give out food, feed patients, clean patients, get yelled at by patients, get hit by patients, get hit ON by patients. You know. Customer service stuff. A lot of nights remind me of working in retail, except.. You’re with the white suburban mom wanting to speak to your manager for 12 hours. 12 miserable hours.

The overtime pay is great, by the way.

Anyway, being a medical-surgical nurse is not the area I want to stay in, but I’m under a two-year contract to work in the unit before I can apply to other positions (within the hospital). It has been a GREAT learning experience but med-surg involves a lot of talking and interacting with conscious patients, which is not my thing. I’d rather have them unconscious or knocked out, so for that I’m looking into a more critical care position like ICU or surgery where I don’t have to talk much, lmao.

But also my coworkers have been saying I would be a good ER nurse so I’m keeping that option open too.

AHHH ok. Sorry this got SUPER long, but I hope that kinda.. Generates an idea. Best of luck with your school stuff!!!