So, to start on a positive note (heh)

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I thought I’d do up a quick list on some of the things I do like about nursing (to be honest, there have been many, many times where I have questioned my sanity for entering the profession!)

There definitely are some good things about nursing though, here are some of them:

• You can chose what area you like to work in - Oncology, Paediatrics, Emergency, High Dependency, Intensive care, Orthopaedics, Med/Surg, Day or Short Stay Units, Theatre etc - do what you like!
• You are part of a strange world where crazy people, vomit all over the place and foreign bodies in all sorts of places are part of every day work (also, discussing the viscocity of pus over lunch doesn’t really phase anyone)
• Even though I hate to get up for an early shift, it’s nice to be done in time to pick the kids up from school (ugh - did I just agree that there are some benefits to shift work!?)
• Penalty rates help make your income bearable (without them however…. grrr don’t get me started!)
• Sometimes you can actually leave work feeling like you contributed something that actually mattered (I said sometimes!)
• Most places allow you to be fairly flexible with days you want to work etc.
• You see some things that people on the outside world would hardly believe (eg. massive degloving injuries, amputations, operations, highs and lows of births & deaths, psychotic schizophrenics off their meds, drug addicts and overdoses, attempts at suicide gone wrong, intensive care and high dependency patients, fungating rectal tumours (actually, scratch that last one, that’s not a good thing about nursing at all!)  Anyway, you get the gist…
• Procedures - some things are interesting… reinfusing constavac drains, pathology related stuff: taking blood, cannula’s etc, rapid infusers, ventilators, naso gastric tubes, irrigations etc…
• Being part of a trauma team - working on a team that interacts & communicates well with a critically ill patient is part of the job I really like.
• Triage - If you can handle triage on a saturday night without cracking or losing your sanity, seriously - you can take most things in this world!

credit: move-at-light-speed

Anyway, I’m sure there are many more things that are good about nursing, it’s really quite a subjective thing… What do you like about nursing?