You are probably going to hate bedside nursing. To the Pre Nurse with no experience as a CNA that has seen firsthand what nurses do, you probably do think that nursing "assessment" is a big part of nursing. Assessment takes up very little of my time, and performing all the tasks that need to be done takes up the lion's share of my 12 hour shift. Depending on where I'm working in the hospital, the rest of my day consists of charting nonstop, running errands, answering phones, navigating through distractions, detours, and basically not being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Your work will be a lot like being a waiter or waitress, with none of their freedom. You will walk down a hall with supplies to do a task for a patient that needs to be comoleted before the patient can go to a CT durring a very narrow window (or else they won't be able to get it for 5 more hours) and another nurse or aid will come out and ask you to help them move a 400 lb patient that just fell, and nobody else is around. You will know that helping them will take up to 20 minutes, but it can't wait. Your task with the patient going to CT will take 20 minutes on its own, but it's less critical than lifting the fluffy patient off the floor surrounded by their own feces. You also know that you'll be getting a patient back from surgery that is having trouble dealing with coming out of anesthesia, and will need vital signs every 15 minutes and possibly a blood transfusion. Since you have 3 patients at that moment, everyone thinks you have it easy, so even if you complain, it won't get anywhere because they all have 5 of their own, and they are all nowhere to be found because they are running their own patients to the bathroom or passing meds. And it's lunch time, and one of your patients needs you to take their blood sugar and give them insulin, but they also want to pee before they eat, and need help to do so because they use a walker. And no, they tell you that they absolutely can't wait to pee, they need to go now, because you "promised" them 20 minutes ago that you would get them up. And their family members are in the room, and also heard you tell them that 20 minutes ago before you had to leave the room to take a phone call where the rad tech told you to hurry and get the patient ready to go to CT. While you were on the phone to CT, the post surgical nurse called to give you report on the patient you are getting. That is the cliffs notes version of a typical day shift on a medical floor. ER, ICU, and the other units have their own sets of scenarios just like this one. And, yes, everything has to be done right, or you get an email at the very least, and a sit down conversation with a supervisor at the more extreme end if it's not. So in that scenario, everyone is going to be dissapointed at you, and several will probably tell you about it. The patient that needs to pee, the patient that will miss their window to get to CT, the doctor that wants to see that CT ASAP, the nurse that is waiting for you to come take their post operative patient from them because the patient is tanking and they want you to have them before it gets more serious and their own flow gets messed up. Even the patient on the floor is mad because you seem like you don't have time to help them up, and sound impatient when you were helping the aid. And in the middle of this, a doctor slipped an order for a medication in and wanted it given right then.
That's not an exaggeration, that's a typical scenario that is close to what I live every day I work. In the ER, it can be a patient's family member that is asking why you aren't waking up their sleeping 95 year old mother to give her pain medicine (you gave her some already and that's why she is asleep). They were at a hospital across town once and were treated faster so they know you can do better, and tell you exactly that. Meanwhile you were helping with a code in another room where the patient is dying (since the doctor is in there and many of the other nurses, you opt to stay out and make sure the rest of the floor is covered), and you have a new patient that is a baby with an allergy, and another patient that is a drug addict that keeps hitting the call light for sandwiches for her and her friends, and pain medicine for her 10/10 stomach pain (she tells you that it's stupid that you won't give her anything to eat, not even Sprite, which helps her stomach). She also has been to another hospital in town where she was treated much faster and given more of the pain medicine she says she needs. But don't worry, she tells you they know you are busy, and they wouldn't mind it if you needed 5 more minutes to go fetch pain medicine (and don't forget the sandwiches for her friends!). But they also tell you they really want to leave as soon as possible so they can go do some stupid BS that they tell you is really important. AANNDD.... Your coworker is at lunch and had asked you to watch her patients. There are 4 of them, and they are all asking for pain meds, and to see the busy Doctor that is in the code, and ask how long Til their results get back so they can go, and how do they use the tv remote, and "when can I have a snack, I'm starving?". Oh man... And a provider comes along and says "i know you aren't this persons nurse, but will you grab something for me?" Of course the answer to the last one is no, but you actually feel bad about that one because the doctor is one of your favorites, and you hate to not help out. And X-ray is here to pick up your patient with the stomach ache, but they are puking now and need some nausea medicine before they can go to get scanned. And the baby with the allergy has a brother that just crapped his pants literally, and they would like some help. So just like on the medical floor, you have a lot of things to do, and you can't really do everything the way you'd like to. It's almost as if you are set up to come up short, no matter what you do. And again, that's the cliffs notes version. And that can go on for an entire shift.... 12 and a half hours.
As a nurse, you run errands. You assess for brief moments, and then you move on to documenting that data and then dealing with tasks. And you have to do that while doing the same thing in several other rooms at the same time. A nurse where I'm at has up to 6 patients depending on time of day, level of acuity, and staffing. Frankly, it can be brutal. If you are more of a "thinker" and less of a "tasker", you may want to think really hard about making a career out of nursing. But at this phase, it might be worthwhile to finish out nursing and then move on. It sets you apart, gives you some options. It's a good tool to have in the bag. But the job really doesn't change much as you go, you just become more efficient and polish your delivery.
