So you want to be a Nurse? Beware!

So you want to be a nurse? Beware!

Image by Barack Obama via Flickr

Are you willing to put in the years of education and sacrifice that is required to study to be a nurse? Do your spouse and family understand the amount of support that will be required of them in order for you to keep up with your studies?


After graduation, will you be willing and able to work evenings, nights, weekends, and most holidays until you can work your way up to the much sought after day shift?

Once you have received your dream job, will you be able to handle stressful situations that will arise? These situations will require you to be courteous and understanding while handling the special attention to the patient’s immediate needs. This may prove especially difficult if the patient, the family members, or both are “screaming” at you demanding care “NOW”?

Will you be able to be proficient and confident enough with yourself when questioned and/or challenged by your staff or your peers? At the same time, expect to be micromanaged by your superiors who also need to consider the “business” aspect of patient care verses time and cost required to keep the hospitals within budget.

If you have answered “yes” to the above questions then let’s take a look at a typical day for an RN on a Medical floor. The Medical floor is where a majority of newly graduated RNs will begin their careers IF hired into a hospital.

Nurse Beware:
First, you will obtain the “report” from the nurse whose shift is ending. It is preferred and idealistic that you and the off-going nurse both do rounds on the patients in your care, checking for the following criteria.

1. Are all the patients still around?
Some serious and confused patients get up and leave.
2. Are all the patients in stable condition?
3. Are all the Intravenous (IV) fluids accurate and running as per the doctor’s orders?
This will include checking to see if the correct fluid is being given, if the rate of
infusing is accurate, and if the insertion site is all right.
4. If a foley is being used on a patient, is it in place and draining properly?
5. Is all the equipment being used for each patient running correctly?
6. Are there any patents in pain that require attention?
7. Are there any patients that have any unmet needs that need attending to?

Following rounds, the charts are checked for new orders and the diagnostic studies are reviewed. The vital signs are obtained for each person, the medications are dispersed, and treatments assigned are delivered. The patients scheduled for further diagnostics tests are prepared and readied for the transport team. Then the patient’s grooming needs are met such as bathing and oral care. The meals are served and then the Physicians are called for each patient to obtain new written orders that are transferred to treatment and/or medication sheets.

In addition, let’s not forget to document and sign in each resident’s chart what was done the individual patients. Then it is required that the upcoming medication orders, the treatment supplies, and needed equipment be in order and arranged for the next shift.

As if the above scenario is not enough to accomplish in one shift, you must not forget to be courteous, respectful, and patient to each individual resident and his or her family members’ psychological well-being.

Although it may be tough, and even harder on stressful and /or bad days, the rewards of being an excellent nurse are truly wonderful and rewarding. For example, nursing allows you the possibility to become an advocate for patients that cannot advocate for themselves. The reward is simple and true: that hug from a frail gray-headed lady that thinks that you are HER angel sent from above just to take care of her. You are her special nurse!

IF you answered, “YES, I CAN” to the above questions and if you think you can handle the typical day of a Registered staff nurse, then you will without a doubt be an EXCELLENT nurse।