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them before and begin asking them (assessing them) how their head feels, they're chest, their heart, their stomach. You ask more detailed questions to obtain a snapshot of how they are doing that morning and whether they have any complaints such as pain, or issues with going to the bathroom or anything else that the doctor should know about. You're also checking the room to see if their O2 is hooked up, or any IV fluids going, If they do you have to document on their flowsheet everything as it appears. Even where they have the IV on their body. This means you have to fill out the flowsheet for each patient that you have. With any luck you can get all this done by 10am.

With that done you now check the order bins again to see what new orders the doctors have written since "they" checked on a patient. If so, you now have to revisit some of your patients and give them additional medications not normally found on their med schedules. And finally when that is done you "might" want to slip in an early lunch since it is now about 12:30 or 1pm. And don't waste time doing it because you may have another round of meds to give at 12, 1 or 2pm.

Now that midday has arrived you need to write up notes in the charts for each patient detailing what has gone on with them since the early am. You'll want to especially note any changes in their IV's, their mental status, any problems you encountered with their behaviors (yep some patients will misbehave and be non compliant with the care they are receiving). AND while you're writing up the chart work you also want to maintain your own notes on what you did for the patient and what the doctor sees as the main problems they face and their related treatments so that you can pass this information along to the next shift nurse. And of course you may also want to update the patients care summary which details the things nurses will be focusing on for the care of a particular patient.

At our hospital some nurses work 12 hrs and some work 8 hrs so those who work 8 hrs will leave at 3pm. Then you need to be prepared to pick up either one or two of their patients or a new admission or transfer. This will certainly cut into your time to care for the patients you already have, so make sure you're on top of everything going on during the day so you can squeeze these new ones in later.

The last 4 hours of work are usually the time when last minute orders come, when patients have big or little problems that need attending, when patients will need dressings changed and be cleaned up or turned. You'll need to do your best to get all the work you can done so the nite nurse won't have any left over work to be behind on.

Then you give report at the end of the day to he next shift nurse and hope you didn't forget anything, miss anything, or do something wrong.

So now you've got a little better idea of what nurses do. You're running a race on an obstacle course and you're doing it while trying to care for your patients the best you can. It takes a lot of organizational skills, a lot of focus. You are multitasking a lot of the time and all the while hoping that nothing gets lost in the shuffle. After you graduate nursing school some of you will take a year or more to get your legs at doing all this in stride. I'm still learning after my first year. So do you think you should become a nurse? Think long and hard! Shadow a nurse for a day at a local hospital. Get the feel of what its like. Then make a decision.

Learn more about this author, Bryan Greifinger.
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