Positive And The Most Negative Aspects Of Nursing

The Most Positive and the Most Negative Aspect of Nursing While many nurses will report that the desire to help others is the driving force behind the decision to enter the nursing field, flexibility is one the most positive aspects of a nurse’s career. There are many options to nurses at any stage of their career. The choice to move up or down a career ladder depends on the personal preference of the nurse. A nurse may even choose to take a break and have little fear of not being able to return to a nursing career. There is flexibility in nursing schedules as well. A nurse may choose to be part-time, full-time, weekend, work on an as needed basis, flex to other jobs, work in a float pool, or even travel for short or long contracts. The most common work hours for a nurse is a twelve-hour shift but there are shifts ranging from four to sixteen hours to be chosen from. Also, the nurse has flexibility in the field. A nurse may choose to do bedside nursing in an acute care setting, research, prisons, courtroom, classroom, military, home health…and the list go on. There is 61% of nurses working in a hospital setting as reported by the Occupation Outlook

The stress of working 12 hour or more shifts is the primary cause of job dissatisfaction and intention to leave nursing jobs as noted by Dall’Ora, Griffiths, Ball, Aiken (2015). The long working hours can lead to fatigue and nurses being afraid of being sued or committing a medical error contributing to the level of stress a nurse may have. This fatigue and burnout from stress is contributing to the nursing shortage as nurses leave their profession explains Gupta (2016). The desire to help others is the driving force behind nurses which increases the burnout rate as found by the American Sociological Association (2014). This desire also contributes to nurses taking the day’s work home with them once their shift has ended as found by Gupta