3. Multitasking is essential.
You need to think fast on your feet, because you never know what’s you’re going to be asked to do next. One minute, you might be drawing blood or starting IVs; next, you’ll be checking on someone’s vital signs; then you might have to perform CPR on someone. Fortunately, there are many safety mechanisms in place to catch potential errors. For example, before we give a patient medication, we scan both the patient’s ID band and the medications to make sure it’s the correct one, [and] we’ll do a targeted medical history, and review current medications and allergies to make sure there are no problems.
4. It’s way more work than it looks like on paper.
Traditionally, nurses work 12-hour shifts, three shifts a week. It’s less than a 40-hour workweek, but it’s still exhausting: There’s virtually no downtime and you’re physically on your feet, running around during the entire shift. I wear a FitBit and I can easily put on 5 miles in a single day. In my institution, we also have on-call times, so you have to sign up for so many hours of on-call every six weeks — beyond your regular shifts — and be prepared to go into work at a moment’s notice.