From One Nurse to Another: Advice To Aspiring Nurses

Well if the past few years have given us nothing else, they have given us a higher respect and appreciation for nurses. They are literally on the frontline of everything and have the most demanding jobs we can think of. We couldn’t let this day go by without acknowledging their contribution to society and thanking them for all their hard work.

In honor of National Nurses Day, we decided to interview two nurses and ask them to give advice to the next generation of nurses. We talked with Ronnie, a licensed vocational nurse (LVN) of 15 years, and Barbara who retired from nursing after 45 years. Here’s what they had to say:

So what advice would you give somebody who's entering nursing school?

“Always remember why you started because you're going to need to pull from that in tough times. If you fail, don't give up. Learn from the rationales. If you do questions and answers and get them wrong, keep going over the rationales because they will always explain why you got the question wrong. And don’t forget to make friends and have fun while learning. Take breaks when studying because if you just always try to cram, cram, cram, you're not going to hold on to the information, so it's just better to take 15-minute breaks between studying to retain more information.” —Ronnie

“I think the first thing you need to do is realize it's a lifelong career, and it takes a lot out of you. But then you have the opportunity to put a lot in and contribute to society and to people. But my advice is that you have to love people. And you really have to care about people and their well-being. If you're entering in because nursing pays, you're in the wrong profession, and then it's gonna take a lot out of you because it demands a lot. You've got to love people, and it can't be about the money.” —Barbara

What advice would you give someone who is about to start working?

“It's okay not to know everything. It's okay to stop and ask a question. And that doesn't mean that you're dumb or ignorant or that you didn't learn enough in school. It just means that you care more about the life you're taking care of than your ego or pride. Also, understand that a lot of nurses are not nice, mostly because they are experiencing or they have experienced burnout. But they mean well, so try to heed their warnings. 

It's okay to cry because I cried a lot when I first started. A lot. I cried when my first patient died. I cried when my first patient got diagnosed with a chronic illness. It's okay to cry. I know they teach you in nursing school that you know not to cry for the patient but just have empathy or whatever. Put that out the window. You are dealing with a person, and if you feel a connection or you feel like you have something that you can offer to the patient, whether it's holding their hand, or praying for them, do it. I know that that's not always professional, but that's what's needed.” —Ronnie

“Go in with an open mind. They tell you to keep yourself detached from the patient, but how can you do that when you take care of people? You really have to make sure you have compassion because I think when you go with compassion, it takes you a long way. You're going to meet a whole bunch of people, and they're not going to always be nice, so throw a lot of your preconceived ideas out the window. So you have to have an open mind when you start.” —Barbara

How do you prevent nurses' burnout, or can you even prevent that burnout?

“I don't think it's possible to prevent it because it always happens at some point. Whether you realize it or not, it's going to happen. I think the best thing is to always prepare for it, and the way I've learned to prepare for it is a lot of self-care. Realize what your boundaries are and continue to have open therapy sessions. Keep therapy on the table because you're gonna need it at some point. You're not crazy just because you have therapy. Therapy is a part of self-care. And that's why you get burnt out because you're constantly caring for someone, but there's no one there to care for you.” —Ronnie

“As I stated before, I think compassion also helps you not to burn out as quickly. If you're just going in as a job, you'll quickly get tired of it. You will quickly burn out if it's just a job because you’ll be like, “I don't have to put up with that,’ or ‘I feel this is too much. I can't do this.’ Treat nursing as a ministry because that’s what it is, you're caring for people. You're serving the people. So you have to have a mindset that you know you're going to use compassion.

You also have to take vacations and reset. You’ve got to pull away and regroup sometimes. I can honestly say that the times that I regrouped, I actually missed it. You do have to pull yourself away and reset. That means self-care, vacations, whatever it is that helps you reset. Burnout is inevitable. It will happen because of what you're doing. The type of job that you're doing is on a continual basis, but you do have to reset. That's a must.” —Barbara

What can people do to show their appreciation for what you all do?

“I think that they should give us the same respect and appreciation that they would give a medical doctor. We do more for you. We are the clerk. We are the doctor sometimes because a lot of times, the doctors are residents, and we have to protect the patient. We have to catch when they prescribe the wrong medication or when they order something the patient may be allergic to or may have a counter interaction with something they've already given the patient. It's so many different things that we have to catch and that we will lose our license for, but the doctors will only get a slap on the wrist. So I think that the nursing profession should be appreciated just as much as the medical doctor.” —Ronnie

“I've never looked for things, but I think when a patient tells me thank you or you've been such a good nurse, that's enough for me.” —Barbara