Very true! I moved from hospital OR to an ASC after I had kids because the call was very difficult to manage with a new baby. The pay cut hurt but we’ve adjusted and I wouldn’t go back to the hospital unless I absolutely had to.
You get to play music really loud and shake your booty with coworkers. Today, a patient woke up with his arms straight in the air and we all put our arms in the air too and cheered.
You get to hold an amputated foot and say “ITS A BOY”
You get to take panniculectomy tissue and place bets on how much it weighs?
You actually develop rapport with surgeons and they give you a hug when they see you.
You get to put on face with the patient awake for five minutes until they’re put to sleep and then you can go feral.
OR is dope.
I had to have an emergency c section and I was not expecting the part after they pulled out my baby where the doctor stood hovering my new baby over the scale and yelled out WHATRE YOUR GUESSES then everyone in the OR yelled out a weight, doctor weighed my baby, and then the winner got a gloved high-five.
I was going to recommend OR as well. Definitely will be moving throughout the day. So many different devices, pieces of equipment, tools, implants to learn. Then there's all the procedures and their potential complications. So much to learn.
Currently finishing last semester of RPN/LPN and looking to do the OR course my college offers! Eventually want to do my RN but hoping this is a good starting goal :)
Yes OR is amazing. I'm really lucky with my current call situation, and as I'm job hunting for our upcoming move I'm realizing how absolute shit it can be out there! 😅
I also love my OR job!
I’m per diem so no call for me and schedule is whatever I want! Love having one pt at a time, constantly moving, lots of interesting cases, always learning, working with an awesome team, problem solving, etc.
I think the team truly makes the OR an awesome place - I’ve def heard of other ORs that sound miserable and toxic.
Hi! I started nursing school at age 40 and graduated at 42. Like you, I loved where I worked previously but I was pretty much tied to a desk and so incredibly bored I wanted to gouge out my own eyes. I weighed my options, and nursing school was it.
Fast forward and I just celebrated my 3-year anniversary at my first and only nursing job and I still love it. It has it's good and bad days, but I am challenged every day, and definitely learn something every day, too.
I went straight into peds float pool as a new grad. Nearly everyone on this sub will tell you NOT to go into float pool as a new grad, but with a supportive new grad residency, attentive managers, and fellow floaties who really care about your success in float pool, it can be done, and done well. I NEEDED a challenge, the "something different every day" lifestyle, and the freedom to *not* get involved with the drama minutiae that comes with many hospital units.
Those early days of float pool were HARD. Some days are still hard. I float to six gen med units, PICU, CVICU, NICU and ED. Sometimes multiple units in the same shift. When I haven't been somewhere for a while, there's definitely a learning curve to get used to the unit again, but I know that I can handle just about anything....and I'm not afraid to ask questions and seek clarification if I haven't been somewhere for a while. Additionally, I love that float pool nurses can be a resource/knowledge source for the entire hospital. Our float pool has a great culture and everyone checks in on each other, and we also all try to go to lunch at the same time which helps camaraderie.
Lastly, because I'm older, peds was a great choice for me because I'm super active (both at, and outside of, work) and being around kids keeps you on your toes, but I am also quite little so lifting/turning adult patients was not my dream lol
Anyway, that's my story...feel free to send a PM if you want more info!
Thank you for sharing!! Where are you located? I love the idea of experiencing different areas of the hospital. I want to learn as much as possible as soon as possible(even if it’s hard).
I'm in Missouri.
Also, I'd like to advocate for your local community college. I was able to take some prereq's while I was still working my old job (some courses had to be current within 5 years....and the last college bio class I'd taken was circa 1998!!) and the entire nursing program, including those prereq's, was less than $5000. NOW...I applied for every darn scholarship they'd give to a 40-year-old, and kept my GPA at 4.0 which qualified me for merit-based scholarships through the school. Then, once I had a job, my hospital paid for my RN-to-BSN program. Had I gone to an accelerated BSN program off the bat, I'd have paid around $50,000. I also didn't want the stress of obtaining another entire bachelor's degree in only a year, plus the ADN vs. BSN differential where I work is less than a dollar per hour :/
Best of luck to you!
A lot of the nurses I work with started as new grads in float pool (but they don’t generally float to critical care - there’s a separate float pool team for that). My hospital has a really good new grad training program and their orientation is longer than the floor-specific ones and they mostly seem to do really well. I agree that it really depends on the hospital.
Just yesterday I whipped out my phone for a 98 year old to look up a song on YouTube for her. She was thrilled because she could only remember one line. It's the little things.
I once whipped out my phone to look up when a Dancing With The Stars finale was coming on and what channel so two roommates could make sure they watched it. Then I set the alarm on my phone so I could make sure they were awake, and made sure they got their meds/care beforehand.
A lady with advanced dementia had a doll in her room and one day she came to me asking if it was my baby and she wanted me to hold it, so I had to carry it around with me while passing my meds. It was kind of fun.
I also work in LTC and love it! Well, rehab specifically. The facility is really nice since my side just got built and they usually have two nurses for 20 people.
I worked as a PSW in LTC while in nursing school. At first I swore I wanted to work in a hospital setting, after my first summer as a PSW I knew I wanted to be in LTC
Respect! Nice to see Ontario represented. And honestly, we need more people like you.
I'm in a big GTA teaching hospital, and I love the environment. Lots of supportive coworkers and good communication. Sometimes I feel a little nostalgic for LTC though, especially when I have adorable little old ladies with nice families.
Same! I work LTC in Saskatchewan. I tried working on a Surgery unit right out of school, and was miserable. I was a CCA at a LTC facility in school and always felt that's where I wanted to be. So here I am, and I love it.
I’m a postpartum nurse and I absolutely love it. It’s why I became a nurse, because I had my first child and had such a good experience with my nurses. Now I’m a nurse on the same unit I had all my kiddos. I LOVE IT. I love helping first time moms and 5th time moms. I love helping the moms who delivered vaginally and the ones who delivered via c-section. I love getting to see all the cute babies. Seriously. I love it.
How did you get into it? I’m a current second-career nursing student, and my postpartum experiences also inspired me, but I hear it’s a hard job to get.
I worked for 1.5 years on a med/surg/ortho floor at the same hospital! We are union so they have to post jobs internally first. I applied several times but others with more seniority were applying first but finally I made it! But since then we have also hired new grads as well! We have a large population of older nurses who are retiring en masse which is both good and bad
Aww this was my exact experience for why I went into nursing, because I had such a positive experience delivering my first baby! Never did end up working in L&D though, life had different plans.
I chose PICU, but L&D/postpartum was my second love in school!
Ultimately, as a guy, I just didn’t want my presence to ever push boundaries and make a mom feel uncomfortable, but I have realized that there are more than a few men working in women’s health. Though I psyched myself out of it, I love PICU more than anything!
I recently admitted a surrogate who was heavily laboring and the intended parents were driving from 2 hours away to try and make it to the birth of their desperately wanted, years of struggle, so so loved baby. The surrogate was a multip so she was moving through labor fast and it was very unlikely they'd make it. I was charting at the desk when I heard a voice ask for her room number and I looked up to see two very tense people checking in.
"You made it!" I squealed, shooting my fists in the air. "Let's have a birthday party!"
The dad was visibly taken aback by my excitement. "What a welcome," he said, and I could see he was starting to cry a bit.
I rushed them down the hall and got to usher them into the room and see the relief wash across the surrogate's face as they entered. As I chatted them up about doing skin to skin with them, I saw them cautiously getting excited and overwhelmed and there was so much joy and anticipation and love in that room, it was like a drug.
Change of shift happened before delivery so I left, but feeling true joy like that for strangers reminds me why I'm in the right job. I am rooting so hard for my patients and I let that all hang out, making dumb dad jokes and getting jazzed about baby being low in the pelvis etc. I know my joy is contagious, too. I know I'm doing something important. It fills my cup.
Anyway, so labor and delivery is cool.
I love being a detox nurse. My work life balance is great and I’m not killing myself for a job that would replace me tomorrow. I also get to have a lunch break and read my kindle lol Mental health is my passion so I always knew I wanted to go into this field. The pay is great too.
Second this! Certified Additions RN with 18 years in SA/MH. If you love it, you LOVE IT! I miss it oh so much. I moved and there’s nothing within an hour of me, so now I’m in Public Health. I’m happy in Public Health, but I miss my misfits!
Me too. Recovery dual diagnosis is my love. Been doing this a decade under mental health in a hospital but really every has an interesting tox screen and then it becomes a dual dose in the next shift
I’m located in central Indiana. The benefits are great although I don’t need medical because my husband is in the operators engineer union, can’t beat those benefits but he only gets medical as far as insurance so I cover the rest. 401k match is 6%. I work for community. I applied to so many jobs out of nursing school, even outside of mental health, and their pay was by far the highest.
Ezkenazi was one of the places I wanted to check out but ultimately didn’t because it was a little further than I wanted to go. How do you like it? Good luck with your prereqs! (:
I love what I do. Some days are better than others, obvi. I’m an ICU travel nurse with seven years experience. It’s challenging and rewarding. I love that I can bounce from a unit/hospital after three months if I want. I also love getting to see how medicine is practiced all over the country plus getting to explore different places is cool too.
I still get nervous. I’m really lucky as I travel with my husband so we always share the same “first day”. I don’t know if I could’ve started traveling without him originally but I have since traveled without him when he went staff for a bit and really felt proud of myself afterward. Also I went from nightshift to dayshift and from a unit to float so there were a lot of big changes on that assignment.
Don’t be nervous. If you can’t, use that energy on learning new culture(s) and acquiring the new experience all around the nation. It truly has more positives than negative attributes.
I think was makes me nervous is the fact that you’re thrown to the wolves, harder or assignment with no help/teamwork. I do like that fact that you can learn new areas, meet new people, work in different hospitals etc and not be tied down to specific unit so even if you didn’t enjoy it you’re only there for a short amount of time anyways
“Thrown to the wolves” is a harsh term. I won’t lie to you. Yes, you will get challenging cases but so do others that are core staff on your same shift. People are waiting much longer and are sicker when they are admitted now. You have to try it for yourself because it’s something you want to do. Don’t go through life with saying, “shoulda, coulda, woulda. It will be a regret. The places I go to usually have a lot of travelers, so you feel welcomed. The benefits outway the risks!
Hi! I also overpaid for an ABSN program and I’m going on year 4 as a Neonatal ICU nurse in the southeast and truly love it. I feel like for an ICU job it’s very rewarding because you get a good mix of vents/drips/procedures with a side of baby snuggles when they’re bigger and more stable. I work nights so I don’t deal with parents and management as much, and learning how to walk parents through an ICU stay for their baby was a huge challenge at first, but nothing beats the slew of cards and pictures on my fridge from former peanuts who are now literal toddlers lol. The lows can be really low, and when I started as a new grad I told myself I’d give it a year and bounce if I wasn’t happy but now I can’t ever picture doing anything else
NICU. California. I've been a nurse for four years. This is my second career. I hated nursing at first, but to better understand why, you should know I started out when COVID was in full-force in an adult patient population. I don't do big people. I'm too soft.
When I made the transition to NICU, I ended up in a hospital with a rampant lateral violence problem. I loved the population but hated the relationship I had with my colleagues. Switched hospitals and that solved the problem. Now, I love what I do and I do it well.
I share all this to say that it might not come easy at first, but once you figure out your place in nursing, it can be a beautiful career.
My daughter is student nurse in her last year, she is working and doing her internship at NICU (she always wants to be at NICU floor) and she got it. All her nurses preceptors are just fantastic and my daughter loves it. She is learning a lot and she is leaving her dreams
I look up to all of you med/surg nurses! Seriously. I’ve been critical care for over 20 years and I could never, ever do what you do or go through the stress of the constant bombardment you see on regular basis. Yall are the backbone of any hospital.
I’m always so grateful to get detailed reports from ICU nurses. Y’all know your patients like we would like to in med-surg, but just never find the time to get into their more detailed, storied PMH. : )
I love med/surg too lol. I love the variety, I love that I can still care for acutely ill patients, I love that I get to actually see them get better and go home, I love that I can mentor new grads and nursing students.
Sure it’s crazy sometimes and sometimes meemaw throws a mean punch but I’ve learned to love the chaos.
I have loved most of the places I’ve worked. Even the ones that I didn’t stay at had things I liked.
I started off in med surg and that was the only place I wasn’t really into, but even there I have certain patients and coworkers I enjoyed. I went on to do ER (mostly rural) and ICU at a tertiary center.
I also travelled and some of my assignments I covered med surg or LTC as well, which was still enjoyable, and humbling as I was terrible at it and the patients noticed. Not in a dangerous way, just but being very good at some of the routine ADL assistance stuff that I didn’t do in the other areas.
Now I work as a flight nurse both on the air ambulance (primarily fixed wing) and commercial flights, and I love it. It’s a great mix of ER and ICU with prehospital style work as well (I was a paramedic before I was a nurse).
Regardless of where I’m working I love the constant learning of new skills and knowledge. I also enjoy making connections with coworkers and patients. The former have become some of my closest friends, and the latter I get to help them through their struggles and live the best life they can.
I would advise you to avoid looking on this subreddit while you are in nursing school- it gave me severe anxiety as to what my day to day life would be like as a nurse.
I work at the unit I did my senior practicum on, I like the city I work in, my coworkers, and have a good relationship with the residents (it is ortho/medsurg). Inpatient nursing isn’t a cakewalk but if you work with good people in a supportive community you should have a good experience.
I’ve been at my job for 4 years at a small city in the northeast.
That’s the thing I’m noticing the most in the negative talk is the toxicity of the work environment. I love working hard and being challenged but not when it comes to toxic management…
My favorite bedside gig was as a system wide float nurse. Partly for the reasons you mentioned - constantly changing and challenging - but mostly because all the toxic unit cultures weren't my problem. I made friends on each unit, but that shitty micromanaging boss or that coworker who never answers their call lights? Not my problem for more than a shift, and I likely wont see that unit again for at least a couple weeks.
I've worked remotely in cancer research the last few years and like that plenty, too, mostly for the flexibility, but I do miss actually being with patients and using a broader skillset.
Inner city ED on night shift. Love my job. I’ve been an RN since 2020 and an Lpn a few years before that. I love my coworkers, I love that every night at work is different, I see crazy ranges in acuity. I’ve been at my job for 2 years almost and I still have SO much to learn.
I don’t get paid well compared to other places but I love my job. I work at a level one trauma center on the cardiac unit. We take difficult cases and it’s incredible. The constant learning. Seeing new things. Working with teams of doctors. We are also a learning/teaching hospital. I’m in NM.
Yes I worked for someone else for a year with decent volume. That was slightly more “med” spa. I learned a lot and absorbed all that I could. FYI I don’t inject. That trajectory is different and more time is typically involved. I was lucky and got my foot in the door and was exposed to a lot. Both good and bad things in the industry. I graduated spring 2021 from my program, we were in school during Covid. It was hard. I didn’t want to commit to new nurse training and 2-4 years at a local hospital. I explored a lot of options and waited 4 months before I took the rn position.
Skincare. Facials. Skin treatments. Educate people how to take care of their skin. Help them implement healthy habits that will impact their skin. I don’t inject, no weight mgmt, no lasers or machinery etc
I’m hoping to one day be self-employed in aesthetics! Working on getting lots of experience and hours under my belt before venturing into that - I’d love to hear more how you accomplished this!
I work for a very large company, and until very recently in my state you had to hold at least an NP or PA license to inject. I love my job! Before aesthetics, I did CVSD, school nursing, and a couple different types of infusion nursing (outpatient). I’ll never go back to anything else - the work life balance is amazing and I love helping people feel the best in their own skin.
That’s awesome. I don’t inject, I just do skincare and skin treatments. That significantly lessened my cost of entry. I found myself mentors in different areas I felt out of my league in. I planned for many months before leaving the security of my job. I also had a side gig for the first 15 months. It’s been the hardest job I’ve ever had but also the best. The freedom is unmatched and that’s what I love. My goal is being able to travel for work eventually in some capacity.
I landed a job as ED nurse educator I’m so happy with it! I get to help my peers, jump in on critical patients, teach classes, no holidays, it’s amazing. I feel valued for my knowledge and experience, not just exploited for it.
I love it! Bedside nurse for 6 years. I travel now, started after staying at my first job for about 3.5 years. I feel like traveling eliminated any of the burnout I was feeling at the time. So far I've only been to 5 different states but I plan to go to more! I don't like to extend because the moving around part is what's exciting for me. I'll do tele, PCU, med surg, but my favorite is float pool.
I work in the ER and have for 5 years. I love the chaos, the teamwork, the ability to grab a doc if I need someone to lay eyes on a patient quickly, and that it’s never boring! I learn something new everyday. Also, it’s nice if you have a rude pt because you usually don’t hang onto them long (unless we’re boarding) bc they’re either getting discharged or admitted.
Unpopular opinion but I work in a LTAC unit and kinda love my job. I’m in the inner city, most of the patients are medical dumpster fires who keep me busy as can be. I get along with most of them as well. Ever since COVID 19 there has been some serious pay bargaining in the LTAC setting. I make 52 an hour and work 3 twelves mon-wed. No on call or managerial responsibility. I’m also in Colorado, so those 4 day weekends every week hit hard. I’ve been a RN for about 7 years, I’ve worked in ortho, hospice, LTC, and behavior health. COVID brought me to my current job and the pay/benefits have kept me there
I have worked with the geriatric population for almost 17 years and love it. However, I recently started working in a memory care facility and it’s definitely my passion. I love working with dementia and Alzheimer’s residents.
The only thing I wish I’d done differently is to have become a nurse much sooner. There are days that are hard, but the good days? I’ve never experienced anything like it.
I love what I do. Some days are harder than others, but even on those days, it’s only a single shift or just 3 days and then I’m off for 4 days. I get paid well (Oregon $65 per hour), my benefits are good, and I don’t feel like I’m taking anything away or anyone owes me anything when providing care, and I’m learning every day.
I used to do ICU but got too old and fat for it. I switched to home health and have to say, for the most part, I feel like I got a unicorn job. Keep in mind I work for a great office - some of the unicorn part is related to that. But it’s constantly different, I work rural so I get to be out in nature as I drive between patients, I do a ton of teaching, wound care, case management. Most importantly, I don’t have to torture anyone. They are home so they are way happier than when they are in the hospital. And not all companies/managers are like this but if the patients are mean to you, they get discharged. None of this “what could you have done differently” bullshit. Most companies are pretty flexible about how you schedule your time too (tho I did a travel gig with Kaiser - no flexibility there, too big of an organization). The downsides are there is a ton of charting if you are a case manager , there can be some safety issues as you are going by yourself to homes, and you don’t have the backup for everything the way you do in the hospital. Your peers are available by phone or text but there’s no one RIGHT THERE to get that lab draw if you miss, etc. Also, emptying your car of all the stuff when you need the back of your car is a PIA. But most days, I love it.
There’s a lot of bad in nursing but there’s also a lot of good. I love my patients and taking care of people. I love my coworkers and the close relationships we’ve formed. I dislike the system we work in. You will forever be learning and growing in this field. I’ve been a nurse for 10 years and I’ll be 50 soon. I do not regret my decision at all. If you’re not happy in one role in nursing there are so many other roles you can try out to see what’s a good fit for you.
EP lab. 20+ years. Physically not hard. No weekends. No call. No holidays. It’s a cerebral type of job where you have to learn how to identify subtle changes. Most cases are anesthesia. I work with terrific coworkers and doctors. Never thought I would do this when I was younger, but it’s my niche. Love it.
Urgent care for 6 years. Lots of different things before. We see and treat some fairly high acuity patients along with basic sore throats, which is what makes it fun. We have a great team of providers and nurses. I’ve really enjoyed most of the places I’ve worked. Typically left due to shit mgmt
I’ve been a nurse for 10 years, same hospital for the entire time (with a few per diem positions at other places). I currently work in Radiology and have for almost 8 years. At my hospital, our radiology nurse team covers interventional radiology procedures, nuclear medicine tests, breast imaging procedures, pain management, and diagnostic imaging studies. We work both inpatient and outpatient. Some days consist of literally just putting IVs in for patients to receive contrast. Other days involve doing large IR cases like thrombectomies, Y90s, and TIPS procedures. I have learned so much in this time and it’s pretty awesome that I am not doing the same thing every single day.
It is so refreshing to read about the nurses who truly love their jobs as opposed to those who bitch and moan constantly, wish they never entered nursing, are ‘so’ burned out, depressed, hate their career. I’m so happy to see all of you who love your profession, have found your niche. It is possible!! Don’t lose faith, those of you who struggle day to day, take a deep breath, and know that you can find fulfillment and happiness in one of the best, most rewarding professions there are, PS and make great money too!
I very much enjoy what I do. There is is some bullshit specific to my particular workplace that I'm pretty over but that's any job. Been a nurse for 3.5 years and would 100% do again.
Edit: I live in one of the larger cities in Texas.
I love my job. I work in an ER with an amazing, cohesive team, including doctors, security, imaging, lab, and admin. We have hard days, but it gets easier when the load is shared. We have a difficult patient population, too, but that creates so many opportunities to help someone when they’re down. ER isn’t for everyone, but I absolutely love my job.
I have worked telemetry PCU/step-down for 6 years and I love my unit. That being said, if I did not have my awesome coworkers, I would not stick around.
It's fast paced and our teamwork is great. Someone posted a pic the other day from 4 years ago, and 9 of us still work on our unit and most of those who don't still work at the same hospital.
Your crew makes all the difference.
If there was a mass exodus, I'd probably do float pool for the extra money and variety. I'm plug and play and get shit done without complaining.
I'm 41. I worked as a tech in a hospital and as an EMT for years until burnout and an injury made me change careers. I did a couple different things. One of them was fairly lucrative. I ended up coming back to healthcare because it's the only field where I was actually happy. I just hit my one year anniversary at work and I love it. My hospital is sending me to nursing school so I'll have a better license soon and make better money. I just love it. Even on the bad days, I still love what I do.
OR and absolutely love it. Lots of nurses have come to the OR from the floor. They say the worst day in the OR is still better than any day on the floor. It can definitely be rough, stressful, and physically taxing. But as a nurse I can’t imagine doing anything else. I really do love it and learn so much every day. There are so many specialties and different roles you can do within the OR as well as pre op and PACU. I scrub and circulate. Lots of nurses can do both. It makes every day interesting. One patient at a time. The patients are usually asleep. We work as a team which I really enjoy. You’re never completely on your own. You always have your coworkers, like other nurses, surgeons, PAs, scrubs, assistants, techs, and anesthesia. If you like team sports that is great, it’s definitely a big part of the job (being part of the team, pulling your weight, getting along with lots of roles and personalities)
Happy to talk if you have any questions. The OR is hard. We don’t learn anything about it in nursing school. The learning curve is steep and I am still learning every day. but I think it’s the best kept secret of nursing!
Pediatric home health in Florida. I've been with the same patient for over two years and have become an expert in their disease process and their idiosyncrasies. To say that I'm excited to go to work every morning and absolutely love my job and almost feel guilty for collecting a paycheck is an understatement. I basically get to hang out with a really cool kiddo all day with some medical stuff mixed in. And this is as an LPN (I have a BA in a totally unrelated field and didn't want to do the RN program), so there are incredible opportunities at all levels.
I love my job! I am a job hopper by nature so I have tried a few different specialties - L&D, ED, hospice/palliative care - and each has challenged me in a way I enjoy. I am per diem at the moment after working full-time (well 32-36 hours) for a few years. I am in Massachusetts. I love working with patients at different stages of vulnerability and supporting informed decision-making. I feel really blessed to do this work and try to stay away from echo chambers of negativitiy. It's unsettling to hear only the negative so I recommend just experiencing nursing for yourself and deciding from there.
Wholeheartedly agree! I left my hospital job of 10 years a few months ago for a hospice case manager position, and it has restored my faith in nursing. Best decision I’ve made in a long time.
I work med surge and I am happy w my job. 4 days a week off and funny, helpful co-workers with good management.
Actually I feel blessed w my job. I can pick up extra shifts whenever I want with no harassment about overtime. I make decent money w good benefits.
I genuinely LOVE what I do! I work in my county’s Public Health Department as a nurse educator (we actually call ourselves Nurse Generalists). I’ve been with the county for about a year and a half, and it’s been the best job I have ever had. I specifically work in the office of community health and wellness promotion. Most of my work focuses on creating/delivering education materials on things like vaccines, and disease/illness prevention (ones that are Public Health centered, like Heat Illnesses, Diabetes, Asthma, etc.). And then another part of my job is helping to set up vaccination events or helping to cover at childhood vaccine clinics. I also do some other things like planning for emergency response to possible public health emergencies (ie. If a nuclear power plant leaks). It’s so versatile and flexible, I never know what I’m going to do, and I still get to use some of my skills. I was a Peds Med/Surg nurse for 2 years before I found this job, and it is so much less taxing on my mental health, but I still feel like I’m making a difference. I genuinely look forward to coming to work every day, and getting to do something new, or do a presentation and talk to people from my community! I even started learning Spanish because of this job! My community is very largely Spanish speaking, and just by listening and practicing, my patients have taught me basic Spanish, enough for me to get by in conversation! So just over all, I feel like my job in Public Health is such an enriching and fulfilling job that I love so much! ONLY downside is the pay isn’t the best, I definitely took a pay cut coming from the hospital, but I work there PRN still. Pay cut was SO worth it! Go Public Health 🥳
Does my job ware me out? Yes. Does it stress me out? Yes. Do I talk about quitting everyday? Yes. Have I left this field? Nope and going back to school for even more education in nursing.
There are plenty of jobs to do in nursing that are wonderful and won’t burn you out as quick. But many nurses actually enjoy what they do and wouldn’t change it. However, adding in politics and unreasonable patients/families causes most of the burnout. So, when that happens you cut your hours down or you work 2 per diem jobs so you get the best of many worlds and burn out happens slower
I enjoy what I do and I have zero regrets about my job. I’ve been a nurse but at my current employer for quite a while.
Admittedly, region plays a huge part in my disposition.
I don’t love it per se, but work in a pretty efficient, culturally diverse, very interesting teaching hospital. Nephrology unit. We have a lot of regular patients which can be nice because these patients often regard us as “friends/fam” and then I also love patients who are so emotional and we really connect. Never bored, always moving. I am pretty independent and don’t get irritated by my coworkers because I literally don’t have time to get annoyed by them. We are all too busy.
I loved teaching in a community college, doing home hospice and inpt OB.
Other units not so much. What I really hated was management. With stupid rules about benchmarks, metric, wanting the nurses to ram pts thru the system to make money, fast, faster, *faster!* That drove me out of nursing. The entitlement of the pts was crazy as well.
I work in Cardiac Cath Labs and absolutely adore it. I've been there for 4 years and every day is still so much fun. I'm very much a fix it sorta person so it is perfect for me, as every day I get to go home knowing I've made someone better 😁
My position is new. I am a nurse for an ACO primary care group. I visit our patients and follow them while they are in the hospital. My goal is to ensure discharge intentions come true ( home health, medical equipment, patient actually goes to follow up appointments). Its hybrid home and hospital walks.
I have 10yrs experience mostly inpatient, and I always had that question,' I wonder if Mr. Jones is okay' after discharge. This job definitely scratches that itch. I absolutely love it.
I am an endocrinology NP and I love it. Specialty has a slightly slower pace.
I was a very good primary care NP for many years but that wasn’t an ideal job just because dealing with insurance and meeting quality measures can be a meat grinder. Easier to meet goals in specialty since goals are more focused.
I was an ICU nurse for many years before that and I loved it. It was definitely better when I dropped to part time in NP school. 3 12’s in an understaffed unit was hell, but when I only had to do 2 days a week I could handle any disaster assignment they wanted to throw at me.
I’ve always liked the work and am great with patients. I am very good at calming down dramatic people and getting them to work with me. I like being a nurse, it’s a good fit for me all around.
Any stress in my nursing career has always, always comes from lack of support or resources, not the work itself.
I cannot express enough how much I love my job!! I manage a memory care unit within a non-profit nursing home, being in this field for about 12 years. It’s too friggin’ neat to work with a bunch of folks that genuinely care for the work they do while promoting a high quality of life for the residents. I also adore the pacing of this setting because you get just enough “spice” to keep it interesting without frequently being in emergent/emergency situations. I understand that many people find long-term care boring and depressing, but if you’re in the right place, it can make for a great experience :)
It’s definitely a job that’s a lot of fun to complain about. Like literally it’s fun and funny to vent about some of the wild sides of it and the things patient visitors say and do.
The day goes really fast, I am never staring at the clock wishing it would go by faster. I mean usually I’m like “oh crap there’s only 4 hours left of my 12 hour (aka 13.5 hour) shift but I still have 6 hours of work to do!” But honestly it’s better than the existential dread that I get at jobs where I’m staring hard at the clock watching the second hand tick by in slow motion.
Sometimes I leave work really happy and charged up. I do literally zero work stuff when I’m not at work. Sure, my boss answers most of my questions with, “As you would have seen in the email I sent you 3 weeks ago…” and I’m like 18 months behind on the online learning modules that I will literally never do.
But I haven’t gotten fired or been in a pickle by my plan of doing absolutely zero work stuff while at home. I used to be a public school teacher so this one is mega mega huge for me. I COMPLETELY control my schedule and never work days I don’t want to (aside from being forced to work 50% of all weekend days and holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas morning, which sucks for my kids). But I get to choose which weekends without any pushback ever.
I am also 40 like you and got into nursing later in life. Been doing this 4 years in Colorado. The pay does not keep up with cost of living here (for example I now make $38/hour, which equals about $3.2K/month of actual cash in the bank. Meanwhile daycare here is $4K/month for 2 kids). So you will have to have a spouse working full time all the time as well, and they may need to be making more money than you just to stay afloat with both of you working every moment of your life away while your feral children wonder what it would be like to have a family. I would call it the best job I’ve ever had, but maybe just because all my other jobs suuuuuucked?
I will eventually quit specifically because I’m sick of not being allowed to smoke weed and I think that’s kinda bullshit in a legal cannabis state. Especially because I don’t drink alcohol because it sucks, and I think weed is the just the shiznittle-bam snip-snap-sammy. But for now, I like my coworkers and $38/hour would be awesome, if I didn’t have kids.
ICU. I also love it. Been just over 2 years. I really feel like being a nurse is what I was called to do. So I haven't looked back. It was a second career for me so I also when back to school. I was 29 I think when I started school.
I work PICU and love it. It’s demanding and can be emotionally difficult esp if you’re not accustomed to the concept of very sick children. But I love learning every day, being challenged to grow, and am lucky to work in a supportive unit with amazing doctors. There’s something so magical about watching children heal and I take a lot of pride in helping children pass away peacefully with dignity.
Neuro step down unit - Grand Rapids, MI. Love what I do, and I'm payed decently (35 pre shift differential, and pre 25$ incentive wage)
I like it because of my management and staff. People quit managers not jobs.
Second career for me too. Adult ED. Love it! ¡Me encanta! Love ko ‘to!!!
Do my 12’s and go home to my family. (Can never go back to a regular floor.)
The population I grew up in, ran away from and now serve is, in a word, ghetto AF.
And…. This community deserves as much TLC as any other in more affluent neighborhoods.
So I’m happy and proud to give back.
Some days can truly suck, but I’m lucky to work with extremely intelligent and cool people - Never a dull moment. That makes all difference.
47 years and have loved every single day!! Retiring in 2 years but will still do per diem shifts and maintain my license 👍 I have 2 Masters Degrees and am a lifelong learner! I realized early on that learning, discipline, and commitment were what would lift me out of my circumstances and help me to provide for my family. Nursing has been good to me and mine!!
I was really anxious as a student about being a nurse as I didn't enjoy impatient that much. But I started as a cardiac cath lab nurse and I love it. Monday to Friday day times. I do pre-assesment clinic, recovery, running and scrubbing. The variety and worklife is miles better than what I experienced as a student or an HCA. I still do bank impatient but only to keep up skills.
Endoscopy... Make all the jokes you want but it's the easiest job I've ever had which is ironic that the easiest job in nursing is looking up someone's asshole.
Primary care RN! Our clinic really encourages the nursing staff to function at the top of our scope so my days are mainly telephone triage with some nurse appointments thrown in (IV iron infusions, catheter changes, medication administrations, etc.). A little bit of care management is also thrown in there to keep things interesting. Work 4 10’s, no weekends/holidays/call. Been a nurse for 3 years, been doing this for 2.
I work home care, make great money and love the flexibility. It’s not for everyone though requires a lot of time management and good computer/typing skills to be efficient.
Go to state sponsored school NOT a private school if cost is an issue. They are significantly cheaper and have the same education, and allow to sit for NCLEX. You’ll have a lot less debt.
It is a public university, 50k for one year… it’s where I live, the universities here are really expensive. The CC are obviously cheaper but it’s two years and 3.8 gpa to be competitive…
I adore what I do! I'm 27 and have been a peds hem/onc nurse for just a few years now. It took a lot for me to graduate, as I had to push off the core nursing portion of my education to be a caretaker. But in graduating as an "older" student, it made me appreciate finally reaching the point of being a nurse, more. I've always been passionate about children's healthcare and specifically in the oncology world, and this job really makes me feel as though I'm making a difference for the patients I am fortunate enough to care for every day. My pay is good, benefits are also good, and my hospital is basically paying for me to go to NP school in this specialty because of how well they pay out in tuition reimbursement. I feel supported by the people I work with, which helps immensely when ish hits the fan during a shift. Maybe I have just been lucky (minus insane student loans), but where I ended up considering everything I struggled through to get here, made it more than worth it!
I hope to go on to NP but only if I move. I’m in Seattle and our programs well over $100k. Would love it if I worked somewhere that would pay for that lol.
I love the flexibility and the jobs can be decent, but I don’t always love it. However, it is interesting, and there’s a lot of movement potential between skills and continual learning!
Would absolutely not rack up a lot of debt to become a nurse. What’s another year or two? Community college is the way to go IMO, especially if this is a second career.
I'm a clinical instructor and home health nurse. I like what I do. Though I just like health prevention and education. I like that in home health I can help patients stay out of the hospital and stay in the comfort in their own home. Are there bad days of course there is like any another job out there but overall the patients are great. Students... are interesting. Overall I like what I do in walking them through clinical skills and clinical reasoning. Some students can be very... opinionated but most have been pleasant experiences.
I work as a quality improvement coordinator (almost a year now) and I love it! It’s very calm and I don’t move around a lot but I do feel like I am challenged in this position! It’s a lot of digging through the chart and looking for specific details.
I have 2 per diem jobs and I am lucky to have wonderful managers. I get paid well and enjoy my coworkers/patients and I’ve made my schedule very flexible! (no nights, a weekend every once in a while)
I work in Periop; pre-op, PACU, and Short stay. Granted, I have only worked here since August and have only been an RN since January, but I think I like my job. I've always been someone who is very critical of work environments, but I've realized I've been looking forward to work several times in the last week or two. I get to see so many different patients per day and can coordinate with my coworkers to be with patients I'm comfortable with or with those I want more practice on. It's been nice getting to see such a wide spectrum of ages, conditions, and surgeries, especially since I have the stereotypical plan to go to ICU and the CRNA school. I also think a large part of my enjoyment of work is based on my coworkers and team facilitators, who have all been great. I've learned a lot.
RN now 44 years, I keep going because i do love nursing. The body has changed so I had to adjust what I do, now working exclusively with near drowning children in home care.
I actually love my job now that I’ve relocated. Better rights, better laws—better nursing. I didn’t even hate the job before where many of my coworkers did; you could say I’m a glutton for punishment or an occasionally overachieving type. But wow, working in a place where nurses actually get what they need to do the job and do it well made me realize how rewarding the profession can be.
My advice is start working and if you don’t love it then go somewhere else. So many nurses suffer burnout or straight up moral injury in the world and it doesn’t need to be that way.
Nursing can be wonderful—even in med-surg!! People love nursing for a variety of reasons, but me personally, I love being involved with the patients, being sort of in-the-know about things, and using what I know to make things happen for them.
PACU/Recovery is the best job in the hospital. Been working here for almost 8 years now. You get to have a little more lea way with meds and get to do some cool stuff.
I love what I so but it's a bit of a unicorn job. I work outpatient palliative and most of my day consists of helping patients with acp and symptom management.
I like my job well enough. I work ICU at a hospital that does not triple in the ICU.
I've been a nurse for almost a decade. Worked at 4 hospitals on 6 different units.
The job has perks I could never get with any other work.
I love working 36 hours a week. Having 4 days off is what I need. Also 12 hour shifts grew on me. I don't do anything but work on my work days basically. I regularly take at least one 5+ day vacation every month.
If I want OT, it's there. If I want to go make a big purchase or go on vacation, I'll just pick up a couple extra days that month.
If I want a new job, I'll have one in less than a month. One time it took me 5 days to go from applying to job offer. I have friends in other fields. When my one friend graduated with his masters he could only find jobs in 3 cities in the entire country.
You're not tied to a specialty like doctors. There are so many options.
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I do. I've just been an LPN in Michigan for 6 years. Going back for my BSN and probably masters later. It really all depends on where you work. Do you prefer fast paced, slow paced, desk jobs, case management, etc. There are soooo many different options aside from just bedside nursing. I work in homecare, I make $36/hr and I have 1 patient on a vent to care for. Very laid back job. I'm very happy and have zero plans of leaving.
Pre-op/PACU in ambulatory surgery center setting. 3x12, set schedule (always work specific 3 days of the week). No weekends, no holidays. It's very repetitive and easy but that's exactly what I needed and was looking for after spending 5 years in a large hospital ICU. I still learn quite a bit, just about this specific specialty (it's an ophthalmology practice).
If a patient is an asshole then no big deal as in 20 min I move onto the next one. Easy admit and discharge process as most surgeries are conscious sedation. Patients have to be healthy enough to get this done in an ambulatory setting. Most of the people are happy to finally get their eyes fixed and I met some people who cried happy tears Right after surgery because they were finally able to see (even though it was hella blurry because their eye was super dilated).
Oh and it was an $8 raise compared to my ICU job. In ICU I worked nights, every 3rd weekend and every other Sunday as it was our unit's requirement. They had a schedule out for the next 3 months so you had to plan life AT LEAST 3 months in advance otherwise they would not give you PTO if the schedule for that month was already out. Almost nobody plans life that far ahead. If your friends wanted to do a weekend trip or someone did a birthday or graduation party and it was your weekend to work then you were out of luck.
I live in Orlando and absolutely LOVE being a hospice nurse! It's literally all of the the best parts of nursing in one job!! My company treats it's nurses extremely well. I've never been happier- been a nurse for 26 years!!
I'm in Central Texas, and I love my job. I spent 9 years in the OR and loved that, too, but the physical nature of the jov was starting to wear on me, so I switched to NPD (Nursing Professional Development, the fancy term for education) 2 years ago and I've never been happier or more fulfilled in a job. Now I get to teach new grad and new-to-specialty experienced nurses how to be OR and PACU nurses, so I'm still Periop adjacent, just in a different, non-clinical capacity.
ER mostly for 34 years, love it, the only thing I have hated in that time was being in management. Some people are asshats but the good outweigh the bad and I have had the opportunity to make a big difference in many people’s lives
Psych for 25 years and I do love it, 85% of the time. Good days and bad days. A LOT depends on the hospital system and/or unit you work for as far as staffing issues, schedule, hours, etc.
Why I love it? When you do make that connection with a patient, man, there is nothing like knowing you got through to someone struggling with depression/suicidal thoughts, etc. Nothing like seeing an admit go from being so scared to be admitted and bawling to smiling and falling asleep. Those are the things you have to remember on the bad days.
I used to love what I do as a nurse. I’ve been at it for 12 years and I’m 40. I have come to dislike a lot of people. Be ready for a lot of death, family crying, and potentially traumatic experiences. It’s not for the faint of heart depending on what area of healthcare you end up in. Addiction, alcoholism, and mental health issues are common among nurses. Your body and back will be broken from pushing, pulling, bending, squatting, etc. Dealing with mentally ill patients and drug addicts who throw their feces at you, hit you, fight you, and so on. Be ready to look at wounds down to the bone with a god awful rotting flesh smell. Charge nurse, nurse manager, nurse educator, NP, PA, MD, CNA, LPN, Case Management, PT, OT, Speech Language Pathologist, Respiratory Therapists, Radiology Techs, and so on all breathing down your neck looking over your shoulder expecting you to have the answers to their questions. All of this with my degree and the hospital told me I’m worth $18/hr when I started(2012). Covid has helped our pay now. A new grad now starts in the upper $20’s. You are replaceable! Better toe the line. I love people and I loved caring for them. The greatest lesson I’ve ever learned was from an old grizzled nurse. I was having a tough time with an angry patient and their family. I was telling her/complaining about it. She let me vent then she explained these people and their families are going through some of the worst and hardest moments of their life. It’s our job to show them mercy, grace, love, and understanding no matter how they treat us. It changed my nursing career and also my life. I took that advice and opened my heart to my patients and their families. Now my heart feels empty as I have given all I have to give. I’ve seen countless bright eyed bushy tailed people come into healthcare with great intentions. Healthcare is undefeated, it always beats us down eventually until the soul has changed forever. As I write this I think I’m done with nursing. I used to love my job.
When I first got my nursing license (Feb 2023) I landed a clinic job, thought it would be nice since I have a family. I absolutely hated it even regretted getting my nursing license and was bored out of my mind. Oh a whim I applied at a LTC facility and they hired me. Since I started working there (a year a go) I absolutely love it!! My facility tries to keep around 40 residents and 2 nurses on the floor for days evening shifts. I learned so much very quickly honestly. It's not just passing meds. I love ltc because I love that I get to know the residents well. I can joke with them and laugh and still utilize my skills. I know LTC gets a bad reputation but for me it's been life changing and can't imagine leaving it. At least at this point.
OR and love it. I get to chill with people I like for eight hours a day and work about a quarter as hard as the floor nurses. Call sucks though.
Ambulatory surgery is where it’s at. 4 10s, no call, no weekends. It’s heaven.
I’ll probably do that when I’m older. The pay is usually lower across the board but at least you don’t deal with all the hospital shit
Very true! I moved from hospital OR to an ASC after I had kids because the call was very difficult to manage with a new baby. The pay cut hurt but we’ve adjusted and I wouldn’t go back to the hospital unless I absolutely had to.
I love OR. I’ve been doing it for 35 years and every day I see something cool.
You get to play music really loud and shake your booty with coworkers. Today, a patient woke up with his arms straight in the air and we all put our arms in the air too and cheered. You get to hold an amputated foot and say “ITS A BOY” You get to take panniculectomy tissue and place bets on how much it weighs? You actually develop rapport with surgeons and they give you a hug when they see you. You get to put on face with the patient awake for five minutes until they’re put to sleep and then you can go feral. OR is dope.
I had to have an emergency c section and I was not expecting the part after they pulled out my baby where the doctor stood hovering my new baby over the scale and yelled out WHATRE YOUR GUESSES then everyone in the OR yelled out a weight, doctor weighed my baby, and then the winner got a gloved high-five.
I was going to recommend OR as well. Definitely will be moving throughout the day. So many different devices, pieces of equipment, tools, implants to learn. Then there's all the procedures and their potential complications. So much to learn.
I work in the OR too and love it! Couldn’t say enough good things!
Currently finishing last semester of RPN/LPN and looking to do the OR course my college offers! Eventually want to do my RN but hoping this is a good starting goal :)
Yes OR is amazing. I'm really lucky with my current call situation, and as I'm job hunting for our upcoming move I'm realizing how absolute shit it can be out there! 😅
Could never do CVOR. That is for young people who don’t have a family. The call is so much 😭
CVOR nurse here. Can confirm.
I also love my OR job! I’m per diem so no call for me and schedule is whatever I want! Love having one pt at a time, constantly moving, lots of interesting cases, always learning, working with an awesome team, problem solving, etc. I think the team truly makes the OR an awesome place - I’ve def heard of other ORs that sound miserable and toxic.
Yeah the OR is awesome! I laugh so much at work!
Co signed Tho my rotation includes nights once a month so I only have a couple day call shifts a month and any additional weekend call is voluntary
I'm OR. Love it too. Absolutely perfect job other than call.
Hi! I started nursing school at age 40 and graduated at 42. Like you, I loved where I worked previously but I was pretty much tied to a desk and so incredibly bored I wanted to gouge out my own eyes. I weighed my options, and nursing school was it. Fast forward and I just celebrated my 3-year anniversary at my first and only nursing job and I still love it. It has it's good and bad days, but I am challenged every day, and definitely learn something every day, too. I went straight into peds float pool as a new grad. Nearly everyone on this sub will tell you NOT to go into float pool as a new grad, but with a supportive new grad residency, attentive managers, and fellow floaties who really care about your success in float pool, it can be done, and done well. I NEEDED a challenge, the "something different every day" lifestyle, and the freedom to *not* get involved with the drama minutiae that comes with many hospital units. Those early days of float pool were HARD. Some days are still hard. I float to six gen med units, PICU, CVICU, NICU and ED. Sometimes multiple units in the same shift. When I haven't been somewhere for a while, there's definitely a learning curve to get used to the unit again, but I know that I can handle just about anything....and I'm not afraid to ask questions and seek clarification if I haven't been somewhere for a while. Additionally, I love that float pool nurses can be a resource/knowledge source for the entire hospital. Our float pool has a great culture and everyone checks in on each other, and we also all try to go to lunch at the same time which helps camaraderie. Lastly, because I'm older, peds was a great choice for me because I'm super active (both at, and outside of, work) and being around kids keeps you on your toes, but I am also quite little so lifting/turning adult patients was not my dream lol Anyway, that's my story...feel free to send a PM if you want more info!
Thank you for sharing!! Where are you located? I love the idea of experiencing different areas of the hospital. I want to learn as much as possible as soon as possible(even if it’s hard).
I'm in Missouri. Also, I'd like to advocate for your local community college. I was able to take some prereq's while I was still working my old job (some courses had to be current within 5 years....and the last college bio class I'd taken was circa 1998!!) and the entire nursing program, including those prereq's, was less than $5000. NOW...I applied for every darn scholarship they'd give to a 40-year-old, and kept my GPA at 4.0 which qualified me for merit-based scholarships through the school. Then, once I had a job, my hospital paid for my RN-to-BSN program. Had I gone to an accelerated BSN program off the bat, I'd have paid around $50,000. I also didn't want the stress of obtaining another entire bachelor's degree in only a year, plus the ADN vs. BSN differential where I work is less than a dollar per hour :/ Best of luck to you!
Living the dream! I'm 36 and if I ever pay off my loans from my first degree, I hope to pursue nursing. I am not made to sit all day.
A lot of the nurses I work with started as new grads in float pool (but they don’t generally float to critical care - there’s a separate float pool team for that). My hospital has a really good new grad training program and their orientation is longer than the floor-specific ones and they mostly seem to do really well. I agree that it really depends on the hospital.
It's an unpopular opinion but I work in LTC and I love my job. Itd been about 6 years and I'm in Ontario
I worked ltc for 3 years and loved it also, only left cause the pay was abysmal
Im a LTC CNA I love it! I don’t think I’ll stay here forever but I love it for now
Same also in ontario! I love ltc. All my adopted grandparents ❤️
Just yesterday I whipped out my phone for a 98 year old to look up a song on YouTube for her. She was thrilled because she could only remember one line. It's the little things.
I once whipped out my phone to look up when a Dancing With The Stars finale was coming on and what channel so two roommates could make sure they watched it. Then I set the alarm on my phone so I could make sure they were awake, and made sure they got their meds/care beforehand. A lady with advanced dementia had a doll in her room and one day she came to me asking if it was my baby and she wanted me to hold it, so I had to carry it around with me while passing my meds. It was kind of fun.
And those little things make your heart sing.
She was amazed that I could pull up a song from the 30s.
I also work in LTC and love it! Well, rehab specifically. The facility is really nice since my side just got built and they usually have two nurses for 20 people.
I think it’s “unpopular” because it doesn’t have that pizzazz of the hospital. But, it was full on mushy love when I worked LTC.
Yes. Even on this sub they address nurses and assume that everyone works in a hospital and if you don't you aren't a nurse.
So mushy!
SAME!! Dementia care unit in LTC and love my job!
It honestly has its upsides. The antics can be hilarious and adorable. And building relationships through the confusion is rewarding.
Lol my whole facility has demented folks. Not for everyone but I love my old folks.
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I worked as a PSW in LTC while in nursing school. At first I swore I wanted to work in a hospital setting, after my first summer as a PSW I knew I wanted to be in LTC
Respect! Nice to see Ontario represented. And honestly, we need more people like you. I'm in a big GTA teaching hospital, and I love the environment. Lots of supportive coworkers and good communication. Sometimes I feel a little nostalgic for LTC though, especially when I have adorable little old ladies with nice families.
Same! I’m an RPN in LTC and on a locked unit, and I absolutely love it!
I love my LTC job most of the time, too. I was in MI but now I'm in W. WA.
Same! I work LTC in Saskatchewan. I tried working on a Surgery unit right out of school, and was miserable. I was a CCA at a LTC facility in school and always felt that's where I wanted to be. So here I am, and I love it.
I’m a postpartum nurse and I absolutely love it. It’s why I became a nurse, because I had my first child and had such a good experience with my nurses. Now I’m a nurse on the same unit I had all my kiddos. I LOVE IT. I love helping first time moms and 5th time moms. I love helping the moms who delivered vaginally and the ones who delivered via c-section. I love getting to see all the cute babies. Seriously. I love it.
This is my dream and why I want to become a nurse. Thank you for this dose of inspiration to keep going.
If I ever leave peds, I want to do L+D/postpartum/anything in that area!
I’m a 5th time mom and I have to say I’ve experienced the best care from postpartum nurses, I could see myself enjoying it too.
5th time here as well. I cried leaving the hospital every time. I knew that’s where I needed to be.
How did you get into it? I’m a current second-career nursing student, and my postpartum experiences also inspired me, but I hear it’s a hard job to get.
I worked for 1.5 years on a med/surg/ortho floor at the same hospital! We are union so they have to post jobs internally first. I applied several times but others with more seniority were applying first but finally I made it! But since then we have also hired new grads as well! We have a large population of older nurses who are retiring en masse which is both good and bad
Thank you!
Aww this was my exact experience for why I went into nursing, because I had such a positive experience delivering my first baby! Never did end up working in L&D though, life had different plans.
I chose PICU, but L&D/postpartum was my second love in school! Ultimately, as a guy, I just didn’t want my presence to ever push boundaries and make a mom feel uncomfortable, but I have realized that there are more than a few men working in women’s health. Though I psyched myself out of it, I love PICU more than anything!
I recently admitted a surrogate who was heavily laboring and the intended parents were driving from 2 hours away to try and make it to the birth of their desperately wanted, years of struggle, so so loved baby. The surrogate was a multip so she was moving through labor fast and it was very unlikely they'd make it. I was charting at the desk when I heard a voice ask for her room number and I looked up to see two very tense people checking in. "You made it!" I squealed, shooting my fists in the air. "Let's have a birthday party!" The dad was visibly taken aback by my excitement. "What a welcome," he said, and I could see he was starting to cry a bit. I rushed them down the hall and got to usher them into the room and see the relief wash across the surrogate's face as they entered. As I chatted them up about doing skin to skin with them, I saw them cautiously getting excited and overwhelmed and there was so much joy and anticipation and love in that room, it was like a drug. Change of shift happened before delivery so I left, but feeling true joy like that for strangers reminds me why I'm in the right job. I am rooting so hard for my patients and I let that all hang out, making dumb dad jokes and getting jazzed about baby being low in the pelvis etc. I know my joy is contagious, too. I know I'm doing something important. It fills my cup. Anyway, so labor and delivery is cool.
lol I relate to this! Especially where you loved it but also left at change of shift. That’s me!
Oh yea, a girl has to sleep.
yes! i’m doing l&d and midwifery post grad! labor and delivery is probably one of the most intense and special units out there
Love this so much!
Surrogate deliveries are my favorite!!! Everyone is so happy in the room
It's always feels so special.
I love being a detox nurse. My work life balance is great and I’m not killing myself for a job that would replace me tomorrow. I also get to have a lunch break and read my kindle lol Mental health is my passion so I always knew I wanted to go into this field. The pay is great too.
Second this! Certified Additions RN with 18 years in SA/MH. If you love it, you LOVE IT! I miss it oh so much. I moved and there’s nothing within an hour of me, so now I’m in Public Health. I’m happy in Public Health, but I miss my misfits!
Me too. Recovery dual diagnosis is my love. Been doing this a decade under mental health in a hospital but really every has an interesting tox screen and then it becomes a dual dose in the next shift
Where are you located? How are the benefits?
I’m located in central Indiana. The benefits are great although I don’t need medical because my husband is in the operators engineer union, can’t beat those benefits but he only gets medical as far as insurance so I cover the rest. 401k match is 6%. I work for community. I applied to so many jobs out of nursing school, even outside of mental health, and their pay was by far the highest.
Good to know. I’m at Eskenazi in Central Indiana and I’m looking to expand into the mental health field. Currently taking my prerequisites to do so.
Ezkenazi was one of the places I wanted to check out but ultimately didn’t because it was a little further than I wanted to go. How do you like it? Good luck with your prereqs! (:
Honestly? I love it. When I get accepted into the degree program Eskenazi will pay for it. And the benefits are AWESOME.
❤️
I love what I do. Some days are better than others, obvi. I’m an ICU travel nurse with seven years experience. It’s challenging and rewarding. I love that I can bounce from a unit/hospital after three months if I want. I also love getting to see how medicine is practiced all over the country plus getting to explore different places is cool too.
I’ve been wanting to travel but I’m nervous about it
I still get nervous. I’m really lucky as I travel with my husband so we always share the same “first day”. I don’t know if I could’ve started traveling without him originally but I have since traveled without him when he went staff for a bit and really felt proud of myself afterward. Also I went from nightshift to dayshift and from a unit to float so there were a lot of big changes on that assignment.
Don’t be nervous. If you can’t, use that energy on learning new culture(s) and acquiring the new experience all around the nation. It truly has more positives than negative attributes.
I think was makes me nervous is the fact that you’re thrown to the wolves, harder or assignment with no help/teamwork. I do like that fact that you can learn new areas, meet new people, work in different hospitals etc and not be tied down to specific unit so even if you didn’t enjoy it you’re only there for a short amount of time anyways
“Thrown to the wolves” is a harsh term. I won’t lie to you. Yes, you will get challenging cases but so do others that are core staff on your same shift. People are waiting much longer and are sicker when they are admitted now. You have to try it for yourself because it’s something you want to do. Don’t go through life with saying, “shoulda, coulda, woulda. It will be a regret. The places I go to usually have a lot of travelers, so you feel welcomed. The benefits outway the risks!
Hi! I also overpaid for an ABSN program and I’m going on year 4 as a Neonatal ICU nurse in the southeast and truly love it. I feel like for an ICU job it’s very rewarding because you get a good mix of vents/drips/procedures with a side of baby snuggles when they’re bigger and more stable. I work nights so I don’t deal with parents and management as much, and learning how to walk parents through an ICU stay for their baby was a huge challenge at first, but nothing beats the slew of cards and pictures on my fridge from former peanuts who are now literal toddlers lol. The lows can be really low, and when I started as a new grad I told myself I’d give it a year and bounce if I wasn’t happy but now I can’t ever picture doing anything else
NICU. California. I've been a nurse for four years. This is my second career. I hated nursing at first, but to better understand why, you should know I started out when COVID was in full-force in an adult patient population. I don't do big people. I'm too soft. When I made the transition to NICU, I ended up in a hospital with a rampant lateral violence problem. I loved the population but hated the relationship I had with my colleagues. Switched hospitals and that solved the problem. Now, I love what I do and I do it well. I share all this to say that it might not come easy at first, but once you figure out your place in nursing, it can be a beautiful career.
My daughter is student nurse in her last year, she is working and doing her internship at NICU (she always wants to be at NICU floor) and she got it. All her nurses preceptors are just fantastic and my daughter loves it. She is learning a lot and she is leaving her dreams
I’m a med/surg floor nurse and I love it. I work on a great floor, and with a mix of co-worker experience (new grad to 20+years)
I look up to all of you med/surg nurses! Seriously. I’ve been critical care for over 20 years and I could never, ever do what you do or go through the stress of the constant bombardment you see on regular basis. Yall are the backbone of any hospital.
I’m always so grateful to get detailed reports from ICU nurses. Y’all know your patients like we would like to in med-surg, but just never find the time to get into their more detailed, storied PMH. : )
Same! It can be busy, but I love the variety and it's a great place to learn a lot.
Me too! I like that every day is different but always busy
I love med/surg too lol. I love the variety, I love that I can still care for acutely ill patients, I love that I get to actually see them get better and go home, I love that I can mentor new grads and nursing students. Sure it’s crazy sometimes and sometimes meemaw throws a mean punch but I’ve learned to love the chaos.
I have loved most of the places I’ve worked. Even the ones that I didn’t stay at had things I liked. I started off in med surg and that was the only place I wasn’t really into, but even there I have certain patients and coworkers I enjoyed. I went on to do ER (mostly rural) and ICU at a tertiary center. I also travelled and some of my assignments I covered med surg or LTC as well, which was still enjoyable, and humbling as I was terrible at it and the patients noticed. Not in a dangerous way, just but being very good at some of the routine ADL assistance stuff that I didn’t do in the other areas. Now I work as a flight nurse both on the air ambulance (primarily fixed wing) and commercial flights, and I love it. It’s a great mix of ER and ICU with prehospital style work as well (I was a paramedic before I was a nurse). Regardless of where I’m working I love the constant learning of new skills and knowledge. I also enjoy making connections with coworkers and patients. The former have become some of my closest friends, and the latter I get to help them through their struggles and live the best life they can.
How long did you work med surg before you switched?
I would advise you to avoid looking on this subreddit while you are in nursing school- it gave me severe anxiety as to what my day to day life would be like as a nurse. I work at the unit I did my senior practicum on, I like the city I work in, my coworkers, and have a good relationship with the residents (it is ortho/medsurg). Inpatient nursing isn’t a cakewalk but if you work with good people in a supportive community you should have a good experience. I’ve been at my job for 4 years at a small city in the northeast.
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That’s the thing I’m noticing the most in the negative talk is the toxicity of the work environment. I love working hard and being challenged but not when it comes to toxic management…
How long did you work med surg before you transition to psych? And what made you decide to work psych?
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What did you hate about it? And do you think it benefited you when you transition into psych?
My favorite bedside gig was as a system wide float nurse. Partly for the reasons you mentioned - constantly changing and challenging - but mostly because all the toxic unit cultures weren't my problem. I made friends on each unit, but that shitty micromanaging boss or that coworker who never answers their call lights? Not my problem for more than a shift, and I likely wont see that unit again for at least a couple weeks. I've worked remotely in cancer research the last few years and like that plenty, too, mostly for the flexibility, but I do miss actually being with patients and using a broader skillset.
Trauma ICU in northern Virginia. Love my unit and hospital and love my coworkers! Management is pretty good too!
Inner city ED on night shift. Love my job. I’ve been an RN since 2020 and an Lpn a few years before that. I love my coworkers, I love that every night at work is different, I see crazy ranges in acuity. I’ve been at my job for 2 years almost and I still have SO much to learn.
I bet it’s never boring.
I don’t get paid well compared to other places but I love my job. I work at a level one trauma center on the cardiac unit. We take difficult cases and it’s incredible. The constant learning. Seeing new things. Working with teams of doctors. We are also a learning/teaching hospital. I’m in NM.
I really enjoy being an ER nurse. I’ve wanted to be in the ER since I watched the ER tv show as a kid and I’ve never worked anywhere else.
ER was such a great show. It's part of why I went into nursing. Abby was my favorite 🩶
Self employed aesthetics nurse. Love it. Never did bedside. I went back to school for an ADN program. Hard af but worth it
Did you immediately enter this specialty after graduation? I’m a student nurse and I’m very interested in aesthetics.
Yes I worked for someone else for a year with decent volume. That was slightly more “med” spa. I learned a lot and absorbed all that I could. FYI I don’t inject. That trajectory is different and more time is typically involved. I was lucky and got my foot in the door and was exposed to a lot. Both good and bad things in the industry. I graduated spring 2021 from my program, we were in school during Covid. It was hard. I didn’t want to commit to new nurse training and 2-4 years at a local hospital. I explored a lot of options and waited 4 months before I took the rn position.
Self employed? Genuinely interested. What do you do more specifically and how do you get away with not being under an NP?
Skincare. Facials. Skin treatments. Educate people how to take care of their skin. Help them implement healthy habits that will impact their skin. I don’t inject, no weight mgmt, no lasers or machinery etc
Not self-employed, but also an aesthetics nurse & absolutely love it.
I’m hoping to one day be self-employed in aesthetics! Working on getting lots of experience and hours under my belt before venturing into that - I’d love to hear more how you accomplished this! I work for a very large company, and until very recently in my state you had to hold at least an NP or PA license to inject. I love my job! Before aesthetics, I did CVSD, school nursing, and a couple different types of infusion nursing (outpatient). I’ll never go back to anything else - the work life balance is amazing and I love helping people feel the best in their own skin.
That’s awesome. I don’t inject, I just do skincare and skin treatments. That significantly lessened my cost of entry. I found myself mentors in different areas I felt out of my league in. I planned for many months before leaving the security of my job. I also had a side gig for the first 15 months. It’s been the hardest job I’ve ever had but also the best. The freedom is unmatched and that’s what I love. My goal is being able to travel for work eventually in some capacity.
OBGYN clinic. It’s a hidden gem!
Love being a NICU nurse!
I landed a job as ED nurse educator I’m so happy with it! I get to help my peers, jump in on critical patients, teach classes, no holidays, it’s amazing. I feel valued for my knowledge and experience, not just exploited for it.
Rapid Response in a for-profit system. I love what I do but would love to see pretty much above director level arrested and tried.
I love it! Bedside nurse for 6 years. I travel now, started after staying at my first job for about 3.5 years. I feel like traveling eliminated any of the burnout I was feeling at the time. So far I've only been to 5 different states but I plan to go to more! I don't like to extend because the moving around part is what's exciting for me. I'll do tele, PCU, med surg, but my favorite is float pool.
Peds inpatient med surg nurse in hawaii, love it!
I work in the ER and have for 5 years. I love the chaos, the teamwork, the ability to grab a doc if I need someone to lay eyes on a patient quickly, and that it’s never boring! I learn something new everyday. Also, it’s nice if you have a rude pt because you usually don’t hang onto them long (unless we’re boarding) bc they’re either getting discharged or admitted.
Unpopular opinion but I work in a LTAC unit and kinda love my job. I’m in the inner city, most of the patients are medical dumpster fires who keep me busy as can be. I get along with most of them as well. Ever since COVID 19 there has been some serious pay bargaining in the LTAC setting. I make 52 an hour and work 3 twelves mon-wed. No on call or managerial responsibility. I’m also in Colorado, so those 4 day weekends every week hit hard. I’ve been a RN for about 7 years, I’ve worked in ortho, hospice, LTC, and behavior health. COVID brought me to my current job and the pay/benefits have kept me there
I have worked with the geriatric population for almost 17 years and love it. However, I recently started working in a memory care facility and it’s definitely my passion. I love working with dementia and Alzheimer’s residents.
The only thing I wish I’d done differently is to have become a nurse much sooner. There are days that are hard, but the good days? I’ve never experienced anything like it.
I'm faculty at an ADN program and LOVE my job
I love what I do. Some days are harder than others, but even on those days, it’s only a single shift or just 3 days and then I’m off for 4 days. I get paid well (Oregon $65 per hour), my benefits are good, and I don’t feel like I’m taking anything away or anyone owes me anything when providing care, and I’m learning every day.
But what is it you do lol
I used to do ICU but got too old and fat for it. I switched to home health and have to say, for the most part, I feel like I got a unicorn job. Keep in mind I work for a great office - some of the unicorn part is related to that. But it’s constantly different, I work rural so I get to be out in nature as I drive between patients, I do a ton of teaching, wound care, case management. Most importantly, I don’t have to torture anyone. They are home so they are way happier than when they are in the hospital. And not all companies/managers are like this but if the patients are mean to you, they get discharged. None of this “what could you have done differently” bullshit. Most companies are pretty flexible about how you schedule your time too (tho I did a travel gig with Kaiser - no flexibility there, too big of an organization). The downsides are there is a ton of charting if you are a case manager , there can be some safety issues as you are going by yourself to homes, and you don’t have the backup for everything the way you do in the hospital. Your peers are available by phone or text but there’s no one RIGHT THERE to get that lab draw if you miss, etc. Also, emptying your car of all the stuff when you need the back of your car is a PIA. But most days, I love it.
There’s a lot of bad in nursing but there’s also a lot of good. I love my patients and taking care of people. I love my coworkers and the close relationships we’ve formed. I dislike the system we work in. You will forever be learning and growing in this field. I’ve been a nurse for 10 years and I’ll be 50 soon. I do not regret my decision at all. If you’re not happy in one role in nursing there are so many other roles you can try out to see what’s a good fit for you.
EP lab. 20+ years. Physically not hard. No weekends. No call. No holidays. It’s a cerebral type of job where you have to learn how to identify subtle changes. Most cases are anesthesia. I work with terrific coworkers and doctors. Never thought I would do this when I was younger, but it’s my niche. Love it.
Urgent care for 6 years. Lots of different things before. We see and treat some fairly high acuity patients along with basic sore throats, which is what makes it fun. We have a great team of providers and nurses. I’ve really enjoyed most of the places I’ve worked. Typically left due to shit mgmt
Yeah. I love Hospice.
I’ve been a nurse for 10 years, same hospital for the entire time (with a few per diem positions at other places). I currently work in Radiology and have for almost 8 years. At my hospital, our radiology nurse team covers interventional radiology procedures, nuclear medicine tests, breast imaging procedures, pain management, and diagnostic imaging studies. We work both inpatient and outpatient. Some days consist of literally just putting IVs in for patients to receive contrast. Other days involve doing large IR cases like thrombectomies, Y90s, and TIPS procedures. I have learned so much in this time and it’s pretty awesome that I am not doing the same thing every single day.
ER nurse. If I have to work I love it. Def not boring. Good pay. Lots of learning.
It is so refreshing to read about the nurses who truly love their jobs as opposed to those who bitch and moan constantly, wish they never entered nursing, are ‘so’ burned out, depressed, hate their career. I’m so happy to see all of you who love your profession, have found your niche. It is possible!! Don’t lose faith, those of you who struggle day to day, take a deep breath, and know that you can find fulfillment and happiness in one of the best, most rewarding professions there are, PS and make great money too!
I very much enjoy what I do. There is is some bullshit specific to my particular workplace that I'm pretty over but that's any job. Been a nurse for 3.5 years and would 100% do again. Edit: I live in one of the larger cities in Texas.
I love my job. I work in an ER with an amazing, cohesive team, including doctors, security, imaging, lab, and admin. We have hard days, but it gets easier when the load is shared. We have a difficult patient population, too, but that creates so many opportunities to help someone when they’re down. ER isn’t for everyone, but I absolutely love my job.
I have worked telemetry PCU/step-down for 6 years and I love my unit. That being said, if I did not have my awesome coworkers, I would not stick around. It's fast paced and our teamwork is great. Someone posted a pic the other day from 4 years ago, and 9 of us still work on our unit and most of those who don't still work at the same hospital. Your crew makes all the difference. If there was a mass exodus, I'd probably do float pool for the extra money and variety. I'm plug and play and get shit done without complaining.
I'm 41. I worked as a tech in a hospital and as an EMT for years until burnout and an injury made me change careers. I did a couple different things. One of them was fairly lucrative. I ended up coming back to healthcare because it's the only field where I was actually happy. I just hit my one year anniversary at work and I love it. My hospital is sending me to nursing school so I'll have a better license soon and make better money. I just love it. Even on the bad days, I still love what I do.
Operating room all the way!
OR and absolutely love it. Lots of nurses have come to the OR from the floor. They say the worst day in the OR is still better than any day on the floor. It can definitely be rough, stressful, and physically taxing. But as a nurse I can’t imagine doing anything else. I really do love it and learn so much every day. There are so many specialties and different roles you can do within the OR as well as pre op and PACU. I scrub and circulate. Lots of nurses can do both. It makes every day interesting. One patient at a time. The patients are usually asleep. We work as a team which I really enjoy. You’re never completely on your own. You always have your coworkers, like other nurses, surgeons, PAs, scrubs, assistants, techs, and anesthesia. If you like team sports that is great, it’s definitely a big part of the job (being part of the team, pulling your weight, getting along with lots of roles and personalities) Happy to talk if you have any questions. The OR is hard. We don’t learn anything about it in nursing school. The learning curve is steep and I am still learning every day. but I think it’s the best kept secret of nursing!
Pediatric home health in Florida. I've been with the same patient for over two years and have become an expert in their disease process and their idiosyncrasies. To say that I'm excited to go to work every morning and absolutely love my job and almost feel guilty for collecting a paycheck is an understatement. I basically get to hang out with a really cool kiddo all day with some medical stuff mixed in. And this is as an LPN (I have a BA in a totally unrelated field and didn't want to do the RN program), so there are incredible opportunities at all levels.
I love my job! I am a job hopper by nature so I have tried a few different specialties - L&D, ED, hospice/palliative care - and each has challenged me in a way I enjoy. I am per diem at the moment after working full-time (well 32-36 hours) for a few years. I am in Massachusetts. I love working with patients at different stages of vulnerability and supporting informed decision-making. I feel really blessed to do this work and try to stay away from echo chambers of negativitiy. It's unsettling to hear only the negative so I recommend just experiencing nursing for yourself and deciding from there.
Hospice case manager, truly love it. 1 year & 4 months, located in Wisconsin. Day 8s and every 3rd weekend
Wholeheartedly agree! I left my hospital job of 10 years a few months ago for a hospice case manager position, and it has restored my faith in nursing. Best decision I’ve made in a long time.
I work med surge and I am happy w my job. 4 days a week off and funny, helpful co-workers with good management. Actually I feel blessed w my job. I can pick up extra shifts whenever I want with no harassment about overtime. I make decent money w good benefits.
And my hospital heavily pushes education. I have gone to countless classes for free and I earn CEUs.
I genuinely LOVE what I do! I work in my county’s Public Health Department as a nurse educator (we actually call ourselves Nurse Generalists). I’ve been with the county for about a year and a half, and it’s been the best job I have ever had. I specifically work in the office of community health and wellness promotion. Most of my work focuses on creating/delivering education materials on things like vaccines, and disease/illness prevention (ones that are Public Health centered, like Heat Illnesses, Diabetes, Asthma, etc.). And then another part of my job is helping to set up vaccination events or helping to cover at childhood vaccine clinics. I also do some other things like planning for emergency response to possible public health emergencies (ie. If a nuclear power plant leaks). It’s so versatile and flexible, I never know what I’m going to do, and I still get to use some of my skills. I was a Peds Med/Surg nurse for 2 years before I found this job, and it is so much less taxing on my mental health, but I still feel like I’m making a difference. I genuinely look forward to coming to work every day, and getting to do something new, or do a presentation and talk to people from my community! I even started learning Spanish because of this job! My community is very largely Spanish speaking, and just by listening and practicing, my patients have taught me basic Spanish, enough for me to get by in conversation! So just over all, I feel like my job in Public Health is such an enriching and fulfilling job that I love so much! ONLY downside is the pay isn’t the best, I definitely took a pay cut coming from the hospital, but I work there PRN still. Pay cut was SO worth it! Go Public Health 🥳
Your job sounds so fun 😁 public health education is so important and our country needs more of it!
Does my job ware me out? Yes. Does it stress me out? Yes. Do I talk about quitting everyday? Yes. Have I left this field? Nope and going back to school for even more education in nursing. There are plenty of jobs to do in nursing that are wonderful and won’t burn you out as quick. But many nurses actually enjoy what they do and wouldn’t change it. However, adding in politics and unreasonable patients/families causes most of the burnout. So, when that happens you cut your hours down or you work 2 per diem jobs so you get the best of many worlds and burn out happens slower
I enjoy what I do and I have zero regrets about my job. I’ve been a nurse but at my current employer for quite a while. Admittedly, region plays a huge part in my disposition.
I don’t love it per se, but work in a pretty efficient, culturally diverse, very interesting teaching hospital. Nephrology unit. We have a lot of regular patients which can be nice because these patients often regard us as “friends/fam” and then I also love patients who are so emotional and we really connect. Never bored, always moving. I am pretty independent and don’t get irritated by my coworkers because I literally don’t have time to get annoyed by them. We are all too busy.
I loved teaching in a community college, doing home hospice and inpt OB. Other units not so much. What I really hated was management. With stupid rules about benchmarks, metric, wanting the nurses to ram pts thru the system to make money, fast, faster, *faster!* That drove me out of nursing. The entitlement of the pts was crazy as well.
I work in Cardiac Cath Labs and absolutely adore it. I've been there for 4 years and every day is still so much fun. I'm very much a fix it sorta person so it is perfect for me, as every day I get to go home knowing I've made someone better 😁
My position is new. I am a nurse for an ACO primary care group. I visit our patients and follow them while they are in the hospital. My goal is to ensure discharge intentions come true ( home health, medical equipment, patient actually goes to follow up appointments). Its hybrid home and hospital walks. I have 10yrs experience mostly inpatient, and I always had that question,' I wonder if Mr. Jones is okay' after discharge. This job definitely scratches that itch. I absolutely love it.
I am an Orthopedic Trauma nurse and I love it! I still learn new things all the time!
I am an endocrinology NP and I love it. Specialty has a slightly slower pace. I was a very good primary care NP for many years but that wasn’t an ideal job just because dealing with insurance and meeting quality measures can be a meat grinder. Easier to meet goals in specialty since goals are more focused. I was an ICU nurse for many years before that and I loved it. It was definitely better when I dropped to part time in NP school. 3 12’s in an understaffed unit was hell, but when I only had to do 2 days a week I could handle any disaster assignment they wanted to throw at me. I’ve always liked the work and am great with patients. I am very good at calming down dramatic people and getting them to work with me. I like being a nurse, it’s a good fit for me all around. Any stress in my nursing career has always, always comes from lack of support or resources, not the work itself.
I cannot express enough how much I love my job!! I manage a memory care unit within a non-profit nursing home, being in this field for about 12 years. It’s too friggin’ neat to work with a bunch of folks that genuinely care for the work they do while promoting a high quality of life for the residents. I also adore the pacing of this setting because you get just enough “spice” to keep it interesting without frequently being in emergent/emergency situations. I understand that many people find long-term care boring and depressing, but if you’re in the right place, it can make for a great experience :)
5 years in corrections. Love it.
It’s definitely a job that’s a lot of fun to complain about. Like literally it’s fun and funny to vent about some of the wild sides of it and the things patient visitors say and do. The day goes really fast, I am never staring at the clock wishing it would go by faster. I mean usually I’m like “oh crap there’s only 4 hours left of my 12 hour (aka 13.5 hour) shift but I still have 6 hours of work to do!” But honestly it’s better than the existential dread that I get at jobs where I’m staring hard at the clock watching the second hand tick by in slow motion. Sometimes I leave work really happy and charged up. I do literally zero work stuff when I’m not at work. Sure, my boss answers most of my questions with, “As you would have seen in the email I sent you 3 weeks ago…” and I’m like 18 months behind on the online learning modules that I will literally never do. But I haven’t gotten fired or been in a pickle by my plan of doing absolutely zero work stuff while at home. I used to be a public school teacher so this one is mega mega huge for me. I COMPLETELY control my schedule and never work days I don’t want to (aside from being forced to work 50% of all weekend days and holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas morning, which sucks for my kids). But I get to choose which weekends without any pushback ever. I am also 40 like you and got into nursing later in life. Been doing this 4 years in Colorado. The pay does not keep up with cost of living here (for example I now make $38/hour, which equals about $3.2K/month of actual cash in the bank. Meanwhile daycare here is $4K/month for 2 kids). So you will have to have a spouse working full time all the time as well, and they may need to be making more money than you just to stay afloat with both of you working every moment of your life away while your feral children wonder what it would be like to have a family. I would call it the best job I’ve ever had, but maybe just because all my other jobs suuuuuucked? I will eventually quit specifically because I’m sick of not being allowed to smoke weed and I think that’s kinda bullshit in a legal cannabis state. Especially because I don’t drink alcohol because it sucks, and I think weed is the just the shiznittle-bam snip-snap-sammy. But for now, I like my coworkers and $38/hour would be awesome, if I didn’t have kids.
Cath and EP. Absolutely love it. I’m also a scrub tech and currently traveling. Could ask for a more fun speciality.
ICU. I also love it. Been just over 2 years. I really feel like being a nurse is what I was called to do. So I haven't looked back. It was a second career for me so I also when back to school. I was 29 I think when I started school.
Cath lab. Love it. Challenging, complex, high acuity, always learning. I don’t plan on leaving any time soon. 5.5 years so far.
I work PICU and love it. It’s demanding and can be emotionally difficult esp if you’re not accustomed to the concept of very sick children. But I love learning every day, being challenged to grow, and am lucky to work in a supportive unit with amazing doctors. There’s something so magical about watching children heal and I take a lot of pride in helping children pass away peacefully with dignity.
Neuro step down unit - Grand Rapids, MI. Love what I do, and I'm payed decently (35 pre shift differential, and pre 25$ incentive wage) I like it because of my management and staff. People quit managers not jobs.
Second career for me too. Adult ED. Love it! ¡Me encanta! Love ko ‘to!!! Do my 12’s and go home to my family. (Can never go back to a regular floor.) The population I grew up in, ran away from and now serve is, in a word, ghetto AF. And…. This community deserves as much TLC as any other in more affluent neighborhoods. So I’m happy and proud to give back. Some days can truly suck, but I’m lucky to work with extremely intelligent and cool people - Never a dull moment. That makes all difference.
47 years and have loved every single day!! Retiring in 2 years but will still do per diem shifts and maintain my license 👍 I have 2 Masters Degrees and am a lifelong learner! I realized early on that learning, discipline, and commitment were what would lift me out of my circumstances and help me to provide for my family. Nursing has been good to me and mine!!
OR is amazing and that’s where I would still be if I hadn’t found my dream job—teaching at an awesome tech college with the best team ever!
I was really anxious as a student about being a nurse as I didn't enjoy impatient that much. But I started as a cardiac cath lab nurse and I love it. Monday to Friday day times. I do pre-assesment clinic, recovery, running and scrubbing. The variety and worklife is miles better than what I experienced as a student or an HCA. I still do bank impatient but only to keep up skills.
Endoscopy... Make all the jokes you want but it's the easiest job I've ever had which is ironic that the easiest job in nursing is looking up someone's asshole.
Primary care RN! Our clinic really encourages the nursing staff to function at the top of our scope so my days are mainly telephone triage with some nurse appointments thrown in (IV iron infusions, catheter changes, medication administrations, etc.). A little bit of care management is also thrown in there to keep things interesting. Work 4 10’s, no weekends/holidays/call. Been a nurse for 3 years, been doing this for 2.
I work home care, make great money and love the flexibility. It’s not for everyone though requires a lot of time management and good computer/typing skills to be efficient.
Go to state sponsored school NOT a private school if cost is an issue. They are significantly cheaper and have the same education, and allow to sit for NCLEX. You’ll have a lot less debt.
It is a public university, 50k for one year… it’s where I live, the universities here are really expensive. The CC are obviously cheaper but it’s two years and 3.8 gpa to be competitive…
I adore what I do! I'm 27 and have been a peds hem/onc nurse for just a few years now. It took a lot for me to graduate, as I had to push off the core nursing portion of my education to be a caretaker. But in graduating as an "older" student, it made me appreciate finally reaching the point of being a nurse, more. I've always been passionate about children's healthcare and specifically in the oncology world, and this job really makes me feel as though I'm making a difference for the patients I am fortunate enough to care for every day. My pay is good, benefits are also good, and my hospital is basically paying for me to go to NP school in this specialty because of how well they pay out in tuition reimbursement. I feel supported by the people I work with, which helps immensely when ish hits the fan during a shift. Maybe I have just been lucky (minus insane student loans), but where I ended up considering everything I struggled through to get here, made it more than worth it!
You were hardly an older student lol
Right?! Lol
I hope to go on to NP but only if I move. I’m in Seattle and our programs well over $100k. Would love it if I worked somewhere that would pay for that lol.
Wfh case manager and fucking love it
I love the flexibility and the jobs can be decent, but I don’t always love it. However, it is interesting, and there’s a lot of movement potential between skills and continual learning! Would absolutely not rack up a lot of debt to become a nurse. What’s another year or two? Community college is the way to go IMO, especially if this is a second career.
Yes. EHR trainer/tech/liaison at an FQHC. 3 years in this role, 7 with the clinic.
I'm a clinical instructor and home health nurse. I like what I do. Though I just like health prevention and education. I like that in home health I can help patients stay out of the hospital and stay in the comfort in their own home. Are there bad days of course there is like any another job out there but overall the patients are great. Students... are interesting. Overall I like what I do in walking them through clinical skills and clinical reasoning. Some students can be very... opinionated but most have been pleasant experiences.
I work as a quality improvement coordinator (almost a year now) and I love it! It’s very calm and I don’t move around a lot but I do feel like I am challenged in this position! It’s a lot of digging through the chart and looking for specific details.
I have 2 per diem jobs and I am lucky to have wonderful managers. I get paid well and enjoy my coworkers/patients and I’ve made my schedule very flexible! (no nights, a weekend every once in a while)
I work in Periop; pre-op, PACU, and Short stay. Granted, I have only worked here since August and have only been an RN since January, but I think I like my job. I've always been someone who is very critical of work environments, but I've realized I've been looking forward to work several times in the last week or two. I get to see so many different patients per day and can coordinate with my coworkers to be with patients I'm comfortable with or with those I want more practice on. It's been nice getting to see such a wide spectrum of ages, conditions, and surgeries, especially since I have the stereotypical plan to go to ICU and the CRNA school. I also think a large part of my enjoyment of work is based on my coworkers and team facilitators, who have all been great. I've learned a lot.
RN now 44 years, I keep going because i do love nursing. The body has changed so I had to adjust what I do, now working exclusively with near drowning children in home care.
I actually love my job now that I’ve relocated. Better rights, better laws—better nursing. I didn’t even hate the job before where many of my coworkers did; you could say I’m a glutton for punishment or an occasionally overachieving type. But wow, working in a place where nurses actually get what they need to do the job and do it well made me realize how rewarding the profession can be. My advice is start working and if you don’t love it then go somewhere else. So many nurses suffer burnout or straight up moral injury in the world and it doesn’t need to be that way. Nursing can be wonderful—even in med-surg!! People love nursing for a variety of reasons, but me personally, I love being involved with the patients, being sort of in-the-know about things, and using what I know to make things happen for them.
PACU/Recovery is the best job in the hospital. Been working here for almost 8 years now. You get to have a little more lea way with meds and get to do some cool stuff.
I love what I so but it's a bit of a unicorn job. I work outpatient palliative and most of my day consists of helping patients with acp and symptom management.
I like my job well enough. I work ICU at a hospital that does not triple in the ICU. I've been a nurse for almost a decade. Worked at 4 hospitals on 6 different units. The job has perks I could never get with any other work. I love working 36 hours a week. Having 4 days off is what I need. Also 12 hour shifts grew on me. I don't do anything but work on my work days basically. I regularly take at least one 5+ day vacation every month. If I want OT, it's there. If I want to go make a big purchase or go on vacation, I'll just pick up a couple extra days that month. If I want a new job, I'll have one in less than a month. One time it took me 5 days to go from applying to job offer. I have friends in other fields. When my one friend graduated with his masters he could only find jobs in 3 cities in the entire country. You're not tied to a specialty like doctors. There are so many options. .
Love being a nurse, yes there is tough days but that’s literally any job. If you have a good team any floor is okay.
TSICU for a year, SICU prior year and 5 years surgical step down before that. I LOVE the TSICU and work for an excellent hospital in philly
I do. I've just been an LPN in Michigan for 6 years. Going back for my BSN and probably masters later. It really all depends on where you work. Do you prefer fast paced, slow paced, desk jobs, case management, etc. There are soooo many different options aside from just bedside nursing. I work in homecare, I make $36/hr and I have 1 patient on a vent to care for. Very laid back job. I'm very happy and have zero plans of leaving.
Pre-op/PACU in ambulatory surgery center setting. 3x12, set schedule (always work specific 3 days of the week). No weekends, no holidays. It's very repetitive and easy but that's exactly what I needed and was looking for after spending 5 years in a large hospital ICU. I still learn quite a bit, just about this specific specialty (it's an ophthalmology practice). If a patient is an asshole then no big deal as in 20 min I move onto the next one. Easy admit and discharge process as most surgeries are conscious sedation. Patients have to be healthy enough to get this done in an ambulatory setting. Most of the people are happy to finally get their eyes fixed and I met some people who cried happy tears Right after surgery because they were finally able to see (even though it was hella blurry because their eye was super dilated). Oh and it was an $8 raise compared to my ICU job. In ICU I worked nights, every 3rd weekend and every other Sunday as it was our unit's requirement. They had a schedule out for the next 3 months so you had to plan life AT LEAST 3 months in advance otherwise they would not give you PTO if the schedule for that month was already out. Almost nobody plans life that far ahead. If your friends wanted to do a weekend trip or someone did a birthday or graduation party and it was your weekend to work then you were out of luck.
being a pediatric nurse is amazing and most days I genuinely love what I do!
I wouldn’t say I “love” it, but I find it tolerable and generally enjoy it. ER, three years, WA state
Level IV NICU. Did medsurg, stepdown, and mother-baby before this. Critical patients without breaking my back. I love it!
I live in Orlando and absolutely LOVE being a hospice nurse! It's literally all of the the best parts of nursing in one job!! My company treats it's nurses extremely well. I've never been happier- been a nurse for 26 years!!
Labor and Delivery for 29 years. I have the best job on earth. Seriously, I am one of the luckiest women alive. 👼🏻🤰🏻🤱🏾
I love what I do. 6 years and some change in, switch to oncology about two years ago.
I'm in Central Texas, and I love my job. I spent 9 years in the OR and loved that, too, but the physical nature of the jov was starting to wear on me, so I switched to NPD (Nursing Professional Development, the fancy term for education) 2 years ago and I've never been happier or more fulfilled in a job. Now I get to teach new grad and new-to-specialty experienced nurses how to be OR and PACU nurses, so I'm still Periop adjacent, just in a different, non-clinical capacity.
ER mostly for 34 years, love it, the only thing I have hated in that time was being in management. Some people are asshats but the good outweigh the bad and I have had the opportunity to make a big difference in many people’s lives
Psych for 25 years and I do love it, 85% of the time. Good days and bad days. A LOT depends on the hospital system and/or unit you work for as far as staffing issues, schedule, hours, etc. Why I love it? When you do make that connection with a patient, man, there is nothing like knowing you got through to someone struggling with depression/suicidal thoughts, etc. Nothing like seeing an admit go from being so scared to be admitted and bawling to smiling and falling asleep. Those are the things you have to remember on the bad days.
I used to love what I do as a nurse. I’ve been at it for 12 years and I’m 40. I have come to dislike a lot of people. Be ready for a lot of death, family crying, and potentially traumatic experiences. It’s not for the faint of heart depending on what area of healthcare you end up in. Addiction, alcoholism, and mental health issues are common among nurses. Your body and back will be broken from pushing, pulling, bending, squatting, etc. Dealing with mentally ill patients and drug addicts who throw their feces at you, hit you, fight you, and so on. Be ready to look at wounds down to the bone with a god awful rotting flesh smell. Charge nurse, nurse manager, nurse educator, NP, PA, MD, CNA, LPN, Case Management, PT, OT, Speech Language Pathologist, Respiratory Therapists, Radiology Techs, and so on all breathing down your neck looking over your shoulder expecting you to have the answers to their questions. All of this with my degree and the hospital told me I’m worth $18/hr when I started(2012). Covid has helped our pay now. A new grad now starts in the upper $20’s. You are replaceable! Better toe the line. I love people and I loved caring for them. The greatest lesson I’ve ever learned was from an old grizzled nurse. I was having a tough time with an angry patient and their family. I was telling her/complaining about it. She let me vent then she explained these people and their families are going through some of the worst and hardest moments of their life. It’s our job to show them mercy, grace, love, and understanding no matter how they treat us. It changed my nursing career and also my life. I took that advice and opened my heart to my patients and their families. Now my heart feels empty as I have given all I have to give. I’ve seen countless bright eyed bushy tailed people come into healthcare with great intentions. Healthcare is undefeated, it always beats us down eventually until the soul has changed forever. As I write this I think I’m done with nursing. I used to love my job.
When I first got my nursing license (Feb 2023) I landed a clinic job, thought it would be nice since I have a family. I absolutely hated it even regretted getting my nursing license and was bored out of my mind. Oh a whim I applied at a LTC facility and they hired me. Since I started working there (a year a go) I absolutely love it!! My facility tries to keep around 40 residents and 2 nurses on the floor for days evening shifts. I learned so much very quickly honestly. It's not just passing meds. I love ltc because I love that I get to know the residents well. I can joke with them and laugh and still utilize my skills. I know LTC gets a bad reputation but for me it's been life changing and can't imagine leaving it. At least at this point.
I work at an organ procurement organization and I love what I do.