I worked as an ICU RN for 25 years. I LOVED it most of the time, but there's always things that will be less desireable about any job. The great thing about nursing is, that even if you want to do something else, you can still go back and get a job almost anywhere. And there's such a diverse range of specialties. The jobs I had while I was still working were : ICU staff nurse, charge nurse, working in a combination ICU/CCU, a staff nurse and senior staff nurse, relief charge nurse in a cardiac surgery ICU, working with transplants, pediatric heart surgery and general heart surgery, Critical Care Instructor for a medical ICU, surgical ICU, CCU, and cardiac surgical ICU; Clinical Nurse Specialist in Cardiac Electrophysiology, and director of a Cardiac Rehab. I also worked part time in a hospital based weight and lifestyle change program, and taught aerobics and got my personal fitness certification; which having my RN, goes a long way toward my credibility. I also worked as a medical-legal nurse consultant for an expert witness in injury causation and death. And I was asked to work for the Datascope company as a regional trainer for their intra-aortic balloon pumps.
So, you can see that even specializing in cardiac related fields, there was a lot of different things to do. There's just so many different types of nursing and thank goodness, some nurses hate ICU, some would rather work with cancer patients....to each his/her own!
Working with the doctors is really one of the best parts of being a nurse. You can learn so much from a lot of them. Sure, there are jerks; but if you take the time to learn from them and do the very best you can to really know what you're doing and why you're doing it, you will have the respect and admiration of people who went to school for much longer than you will. That's a good feeling I think. I can't say enough about nursing. It's not exactly the way it used to be, but it's still a good feeling to help people who need it.
And one other thing is the camaraderie of working as a team wherever you work. When I look back on it now, it's like the people you work with and the MD's you work with on a day to day basis are all in the trenches together, trying to achieve the same goal, and that's to improve each patient's life in whatever way they can. It's the best job in the world, I think
