You’re about to finish nursing school and are beginning to consider your career options. It might seem easy enough to decide where you want to work, but the thought of a regular nursing schedule and life might scare you. Do you even know what a typical day in the life of a registered nurse looks like? While there is obviously no “typical day” for a nurse, because they encounter so many scenarios, here is what your day will generally look like.
5:00 AM – This is the time that your alarm clock will begin ringing. That’s if you don’t snooze it at all and set your work clothes out the night before. You’ll scramble into your scrub clothes and then head to the kitchen and grab a cold bagel and your ever-important coffee before heading out the door.
7:30 AM – After sitting in morning rush-hour traffic, fighting for parking spots and walking several blocks from your parking spot to the hospital, you report to your nursing station. You’ll run down the morning report and then walk about to your patients to say hello and introduce yourself to any new patients. Then you’ll sign into your computer and review doctor’s notes and orders, and check to see if anyone needs their 8AM morning medications.
8:00 AM – You begin making your morning rounds to assess patients. This takes a little over an hour, so you’ll get back to your desk just in time to document everything before heading back out to give 10am meds. Then you begin your AM labs for patients, hoping that they have plump veins for you to stick. The rest of the morning is spent hanging saline bags, checking in on patients and documenting everything.
3:00 PM – After returning from lunch, you begin checking for patients that can be released. You’ll get their paperwork together and get them out the door, just in time for another patient to be admitted. This continues with different patients until a little after 6pm.
6:30 PM – After almost 12 hours on the clock, you’re in the final stretch. You go through your assessments and complete follow up notes for patients that you worked with throughout the day. The night nurses begin streaming in and you take a few minutes to fill them in.
7:30PM – After leaving the hospital, you head home, shower, eat a quick dinner and pass out in bed. 5:00 AM is going to come around again very quickly!
Does this sound like the life that you want to live? If so, that’s great! Nurses are the backbones of hospitals and truly make a different in their patient’s lives. If not, it’s okay. There’s another option!
Join Chart Review Nurses!
Chart Review Nurses is always looking for quality nurses to join our network of qualified chart abstractors for HEDIS projects. We match our nurses with Health Plans that need assistance with various HEDIS tasks. The great news is that you can work from home! To apply is free, and you can just submit your resume here. We look forward to hearing from you!
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