Have you ever considered becoming a nurse or wondered what working as a nurse is really like?
Now is your opportunity to get the inside scoop from a medical surgical nurse! This is just one area of nursing but it will give you a general perspective on nursing in general.
1. What area of nursing are you currently working in? For those not familiar, what types of patients do you help?
I work in an outpatient setting so we get people ready and discharge them after surgery and other procedures. It’s mostly starting IVs on people, asking questions, doing lab work and getting the patients ready for their procedure. After their procedures, it’s education on follow- up, lifestyle modifications, dressing changes, etc. to help patients with recovery process
2. What does a typical day look like for you?
We have our schedule of patients ahead of time. A lot of the time we know when people are coming. We can plan and prep the day before and then once people come, it’s getting them in the room, talking to family and setting expectations
We make sure they are healthy enough to have the procedure. It’s honestly mostly talking to people, asking questions, making sure they understand that we have the right procedure. Communicating issues to physicians or anyone else involved in caring for that patient.
3. What do you like about your job?
This specific job I like the flexible hours. My boss is flexible on the hours we work, but I know that is really specific to my boss.
The thing I like about nursing in general is how many things you can do. You just need a general nursing degree to do the job. My husband who is also a nurse has done so many different things and if you want to move around, you can. I feel like with many other jobs outside of nursing, you can’t easily move around and try new things like you can in nursing. For example, if I wanted to be a doctor, I can’t go from cardiology to another area of medicine. Within nursing, I have worked in transplant, ICU and respiratory. If you get tired of a specialty, you can always try something else
I also like the stability of the profession. Once you are an established nurse, you can always find a job. I can move anywhere in the country and get a job.
I also like the autonomy in this role. Some managers are micromanagers, but your general tasks are your own or decisions that you make as a unit without consulting with your boss.
4. What are the typical challenges you face in this role?
The main thing in this job is the scheduling of all the procedures. Surgeries are scheduled by someone else and a lot of the time there are inconsistencies in scheduling. There aren’t uniform guidelines always around scheduling. Some days we have a bunch of patients and other days we are slow. This could be better balanced.
With any job, there are personality challenges. Doctors who think they are better than you are sometimes. Not all of them are like that but sometimes the communication between physician and nurses can be challenging.
5. What does it take to be successful/what type of person is successful in nursing?
Communication is a big part of nursing in general. You must be someone who can communicate clearly and succinctly. We take care of patients. If we see something concerning, we have to communicate that to the doctor as a lot of the time we are limited in what we can do, and the doctor is the one that needs to take the action.
Motivated and self-starter- If you aren’t good with autonomy, it creates challenges for the team and people will get frustrated with you if you aren’t doing your part.
You must be able to handle bodily fluids at least to get through nursing school. There are jobs where you don’t have to do it but during nursing school you have to bathe people, do wound care and if you decide you don’t want to do it, there are other opportunities that are available.
One of the wonderful things about nursing and healthcare is that we take care of people and help to making their life better. It makes it easier to like your job because of this. Most patients are appreciative of what we do, which makes the job fulfilling.
6. What do you wish you knew before getting into nursing?
The longer I am in nursing, I see the business side of it. I was naïve to the business side of it. There are things we would like to do as nurses that management doesn’t want to do because of the money. I have had to learn to accept it and make the best of it.
The management team doesn’t understand the nursing side. I have a different priorities than they do as I am focused on patient care and sometimes our agendas don’t coincide.
The hours can be a challenge for some, but I don’t mind the off hours. I never had to work nights, but I like doing the off days and hours because it gives me the opportunity to do doctors appointments for the kids and go places when it’s not crowded. I like not having a 9-5 and don’t think I would like a typical office role like that.
In the Bay Area, we make good money, but I know in other places, it’s not always the case. It offers good work like balance which is important if you want that.
7. I have heard a lot about burnout in the healthcare field, what are your thoughts around that?
There are certain departments such as the ER that have a lot of burnout. The good thing about nursing is that there are always people to hand off to. I can’t get everything done in my 8 hours and I can pass it off to someone else. Sometimes in other jobs, there is only one person available to do the job. I have always appreciated the shift work of nursing. We do our best to get done today what we can and we leave it for the next person. This is where communication is important. If there is something I need the morning charge nurse to do before I come in, I need to leave her a note or text her.
I think there are areas of nursing, like hospice care, which can be hard to leave your work behind as it’s emotional.
As a standard, most nurses don’t work 40 hours a week (a 36 hour week is more typical). I think this is how nursing has adapted to entice people in. There is flexibility. At my organization, they recently rolled out work life balance asking people what shifts they want to work and they have been trying to work with people to get their requests met.
Post COVID, a lot of people left healthcare and now they are trying to offer a better work life balance. The things we deal with at work can be intense. There are emotionally heavy things.
People aren’t at their best when they come to see you. You are already starting off with people not in their ideal state of mind. The people coming in have to deal with a lot. We are the front line. Sometimes people yell at you. Sometimes people die or something happens in their procedure and there is a complication. With in-patient nursing, those nurses burn out more because there is more of a disconnect between admin and nursing. Nurses feel they need more resources and management won’t provide them because of the costs.
For people who get burnt out of patient care, a lot of people go into education because they don’t want to do the bedside so that is another option as well.
8. If someone were to pivot into nursing, what steps would you recommend and what kind of training or education is needed?
I would say if someone was thinking about nursing, try and get into an entry level role in healthcare first before going back to school.
There are multiple options. You can become a nursing assistant after 6-12 weeks and you are taking care of patients. You could also consider phlebotomy, which doesn’t require a degree. There are positions where you can be a secretary and schedule appointments, do paperwork in the hospital and you don’t need a degree for that.
Medical assisting could also be an option but it might depend on what type of nursing you want to do. If you want to work in a medical office, they use medical assistants. Doing something like that could be worth it rather than investing time and money in classes to become a nurse.
I would suggest working around a hospital and seeing if you like it first before going back to school. Talk to people and ask them questions. When my husband worked in the hospital, one of the doctors he spoke with told him not to become a doctor because of the debt and lack of work life balance. It’s better to get an insider view first.
If you are considering nursing as a second career in your 40’s. Don’t get a Bachelor’s. Get your Associates first, it’s more affordable and is flexible. As it is right now, the people with Associates can get the same jobs. The only difference is if you want to go into management, then you would need the degree. Once you have an Associates, you can get your Bachelor’s down the line once you determine you like it.
If someone is in their 20’s and has time to get their Bachelor’s, go for the Bachelor’s. I had a co-worker who graduated nursing school in late 40s, worked 10 years solely as a nurse. I don’t think in that situation, it’s worth it to get a degree.
Another path is a Nurse manager. They work 9-5, are off on weekends and holidays unlike nurses. Their role involves sitting in meetings and doing emails. You must be working as a nurse first. When I worked in Portland, there was a nurse who got a manager role after only a few years as a nurse so it’s possible to move out from patient care quickly at times.
9. Is there a pay difference between someone with a Bachelor’s and Associates?
Some hospitals used to have a pay difference, but I think it has gone away. If you want to be a manager or in administration, you can’t do that without a Bachelor’s. They make more but they work more when you look at the hours. They are on call, and they have to deal with a lot more. They are doing 5 times the work as me with maybe 2 times the pay.
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