Would you go into Nursing if you had your time again?

[indiepins]

I can't decide if it's what I really want. For me being a carer, nursing would take a lot more juggling to get into so I'm just wondering why you love the job?

Or if you hate it? I know most of you are incredibly short staffed and stressed - what worries me is a mistake out of my control, and my pin being put at risk

Personally no i was a mental health nurse ,if i had my time again i would train as am OT ,their hours are better ,it seems easier to progress career wise and they can be more autonomous

i would absolutely train as a theatre / recovery nurse or ODP

You could work as a HCA in a hospital to get some real insight to nursing.

I'm a HCA and I would not do my training, I pretty much knew this from day dot despite loving my job don't get me wrong.

I second OT or physio of you want that type of field. I have a couple of friends that earn similar or more and they are not stressed the way nurses are and if you have a family with small children the hours are brutal!

I left mental health nursing a few years ago now. It made me miserable. It's a desk job with targets that you'll never ever meet, and get told off everyday for not meeting those targets. National and local funding and rules mean you never get to actually help people, the reason I'm sure lost people go into nursing. Poor pay, anti social hours, never leaving on time, never having time for a drink let alone a lunch break...
And the point you make about losing your PIN because of someone else - a constant fear. Often from medics prescribing bizarrely/dangerously, or from being forced into bad choices by management, who would never put their name to the decision they made you take.

Ha I came on here to say I wasn't a nurse, I'm an ODP, but if I could go back I wouldn't do it again.

No way, I did 20 years of nursing and they abused me by wrecking my health and making me go without any breaks/do long long shifts way over 12 hours.
By the time I left I was physically and mentally burnt out.
I am an NHS podiatrist now, I do 9-5, all bank holidays off, and the career progression is much much faster. You can also do private podiatry if you want or a mix of both.
I wish I'd gone straight into podiatry when I left school.

Grass is always greener isn’t it?!

I am currently a HCA and I love it. I've only had two areas so far but thoroughly enjoy A&E, and adored Gynae

I'm worried about getting into nursing and regretting it but so far so good...

The nurses I'm working with on gynae seem to really enjoy their jobs? Maybe they're the minority. And I did a week on a outpatients clinic shadowing a nurse, who was taking patients heights and weight etc, then handing them over to the consultant and sitting in to chaperone. That seemed really slow paced so maybe there are quieter areas of nursing?

I didn't get to ask any A&E nurses what their job was like they were so busy it was crazy

I couldn't work in A&E I've never even attempted a bank shift its not my thing not would ICU be.

I've done 8 years on a ward and now I work in outpatients. You are right it's much slower pace but you learn to imbrace it, I feel quite lucky that I've managed to bag school hours and when I do bank shifts on the ward I'm grateful to go back to the slower pace. You definitely adjust to working in different areas.

I imagine Gynae not to be overly heavy due to the nature of the work... I've only had a tiny insight at a smear appointment for myself but it seemed to work a bit more like an outpatients too.

Nursing wise I would look at the money too, is the extra money you earn worth it to you?

Absolutely not. The public are positively feral now and you're living on your nerves lest you make a mistake and the fkrs stick the boot in, not to mention the constant threat of the NMC.

Absolutely, I love my job. I've specialised in emergency medicine and I'm currently in ICU but I have been in A&E, Major Trauma and on a Burns unit. However, I do think Nursing is something you really want to do because it's more than just a job and there are aspects of it that really are unacceptable; the hours you work, not having anywhere to park and never having time to eat. I've worked a 12 hour shift with nothing more than coffee.

I have been qualified for 17 years, and I think I would still choose nursing. I am a children’s nurse, and it’s tough but I love it most of the time. It’s the only job I have ever wanted to do, so I have no idea what I would do instead.

Absolutely not.

I'm an auxiliary nurse on a hospital ward and I thank my lucky stars I'm not the registered nurse when I'm on shift.

I love my job. I get to leave on time and can go home without worrying if I've signed for this medication or that medication, did I do that dressing? I didn't get time to complete xyz paperwork etc.

On our ward, we are chronically short staffed, we rely heavily on agency nurses, and the registered nurses rarely leave on time.

With key enhancements, I don't earn a lot less than some of the registered nurses. It's so much more responsibility for not much more pay.

Yes. I’m a community nurse but work for the out of hours team, I work nights. So it’s a bit shit that I work nights but I’m home more for the kids. Swings and roundabouts.
But I love the patient contact, it’s a lot of palliative care and that’s something I find incredibly rewarding. Yes we’re short staffed but the pressure is much, much less than the wards. I could never work on the acute wards again. Once the kids are older I hope to move into hospice nursing.

Definitely not. I've been a mental health nurse for over 20 years, and the job is now unrecognisable to what it was when I first started. Back then, we had plenty of staff, and most of us actually felt like we were able to do our job, and make a difference. Now we are so short staffed, we barely cover patients basic needs, and are tied to a desk and computer for the majority of our shifts. A desk job is not why I came into nursing, and neither is working on dangerously low staff numbers, sometimes with agency staff who have no clue what they are doing, and managers who are completely unsupportive.

Yeah I don't know tbh, I've been qualified 20 years and love nursing but the job just seems to get harder!

No. I would not do it again. Absolutely not.

My daughter is a grade 5 nurse and seems to love it! She is a very caring person, anyway. She did the old training i.e. 3 months on the wards and 3 months in school.

Honestly don't do it. I was a nurse for 17 yrs, started off loving it but ended up absolutely hating it and I would never go back.
The job (for me anyway) has just changed so much and I wasn't doing what I went into nursing to do.

No, absolutely not. It's the shittiest job I can ever imagine. They have broken me mentally, physically and emotionally. I would not condone any child of mine studying to do nursing. Such a crying shame because most nurses love the actual work with the patients, if only we got the chance to do it properly.

I would. I'm a paeds nurse and work on nicu and I enjoy it. I wouldn't go back on the paeds ward because of the attitude and behaviour of a lot of parents.

I both love and hate my job. Love the people, hate the politics.

Another SODP here... same here, if I could go back I'd have trained in something else.

Nope nope nope. My biggest regret and waste of time

Nope so many frustrations. I was ICU for ten years and now in an office job earning the same. No beds, the surgeons would ring in the morning to see if they could do their big cancer ops and all would have to be cancelled as no post op beds. You’d know these young (50/60 year olds) were being cancelled and we’d be full of wardable patients with no wards to go to. The frustration was immense and is what got me rather than the stress/long shifts. It could be such a good service and we had such good staff but nope.

The public have got so much worse with the rudeness, the entitlement, the complete self centredness and conviction that they are always the most unwell. I remember one patient refusing to be transferred to the ward at midnight (we really do try to avoid but head injury was coming in.) I even pointed out that 3 nights earlier we’d had to move someone to get him in late at night and wasn’t be glad we did. Still refused. Tosser.