6 unexpected things you didn't know about nursing

In this video, nursing student Lottie shares some unexpected facts you didn't know about nursing!

Today I'm gonna be filming a really interesting video and that's gonna be a top six unexpected facts about nursing!

If you want to subscribe to my channel subscribe down below and of course subscribe to Nurses.co.uk for more videos from people like me and other student nurses as well.

Nurses get a lot of exercise in by doing a 12 hour shift...

So the first one is a fact that actually I didn't know until today and that is that nurses actually do a 5k every time they do a 12-hour shift and that's equivalent to 4 miles, compared to the average person which does like 2.5 miles and that is crazy.

I really hope that I do do four miles every shift that I do because at the moment I started my placement this week and my feet have been absolutely killing!

The place that I'm doing my placement on, they don't have anywhere to sit like it’s literally designed like that so you need really good (and expensive!) shoes.

If you want to know how I get through a 12 hour shift, then watch my video linked here. You can also watch Louisa's video where she shares her top 10 tips to get through a 12 hour shift.

Nursing is so hard to get into

A lot of people think that it's really not that difficult and it's not that hard to get into and everything but it's actually a really really hard degree and a lot of people drop out because they just simply can't handle it anymore or they just didn't think that it was what they thought it would be.

It's really hard lately; one day you could be learning about the anatomy and physiology of the body and then the next day you could be like teaching yourself how to communicate with every professional person like doctors and physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians; all these really intimidating people that you never even met before, especially like before I had never been in a hospital before my placement in first year and honestly as soon as I've got to the hospital I was like ‘oh my god this is so scary’.

It's so hard as well like if you don't know the environment it's gonna take you like so much longer to get used to it and actually learn things as well.

A lot of different professionals have so many different expectations from you.

Some will think that you literally know everything in the world and then other people will think that you literally don't know anything so it's really difficult to kind of grasp that and you could literally be dealing with like a really difficult family or a really lovely family or really difficult patient etc.

There's so many things you learn and it's just so difficult to all get used to and there's so many things you need to know.

Like I said different people have different expectations from you and it's crazy. I find it to be like a constant like whirlwind of like ups and downs and doubts.

Read our blog on how to prepare for life as a student nurse, just so you know what to expect out of life as a student and advice on the degree.

Not everyone you work with will be nice...

The third unexpected fact is that actually some people that you meet are just really not nice, even people that you would expect to be really nice like other nurses or like doctors can sometimes be like the most hostile people ever for no reason whatsoever either.

I'm sure that in every profession there's always somebody that is not very nice and I say to myself every placement I will experience someone that is just difficult for no reason whatsoever and I'll never know why or you know anything like that and it's just really hard to get used to those kind of people and know what it's like.

Sometimes mentors can be really useless.

I haven't actually had any horrible mentors yet - fingers crossed, I don't want to jinx it - but some people like other mentors on the ward and other nurses some people can just be like really horrible and just really useless, like not everyone wants a student nurse following them around all day that they have to sit there and constantly keep an eye on and answer questions too.

Sometimes it can be really hard to learn and kind of know your place, especially in hospitals and wards.

You don't have to work in a hospital 

Number 4 is that only three in five nurses actually work in hospitals, so that means that two in five nurses actually work in the community, such as district nurses or like nurses in care homes or nurses in hospices.

It would be really surprising if you were to tell me that before I started the degree because before I started the degree I had such an image kind of of like nursing jobs and I always used to think that they would work in hospitals, but actually they don't and it's quite common for nurses to not work in hospital.

Medical dramas really don't highlight what nursing is about!

Number five is that it's nothing like TV, not one bit!

The TV is so filtered out, they will usually show the most dramatic thing that's going on and they probably won't always show the hard work that somebody will actually go to looking after a patient. It's very nursing based, when in the hospital it is very nursing based.

Doctors are the ones that obviously do all the prescribing and they do like the rounds and everything but the care is predominantly from the nurse.

Sometimes I feel like on TV they kind of portray it like the nurse is just kind of like the assistant and they just you know run around after the doctors and run around after doing like everything that the patient's saying, and on the other hand it makes it so that the nursing job seemed really really easy and happy all the time and just like you do this to the patient and then they're all better, they're going home and they'll show like all of the good things that happen or just all of the drastic things that happen really.

It's just completely different and usually on TV they'll show hospitals so that kind of gives everyone the idea that all nurses working in hospitals which the last fact obviously stated is not true, and it just gives a very specific persona to nurses.

In my course a lot of people have actually quit because they just didn't think that it was going to be this way.

Leading on from this... it can be positive yet also negative

Sometimes it can be negative and sometimes it could be positive.

For me I kind of think it's positive thing because I feel like nurses have so much more responsibility and they make much more of an impact than I expected they did so actually it's a positive for me.

Sometimes as well they can just do things they just show like small of what the nurses actually do and they don't show everything else that goes on like all the intricate stuff and the paperwork analysing with professionals just all the knowledge behind it, like it just it just looks completely different really!

So yeah I think I've said everything that I want to for this video those were my most interesting facts that I have witnessed and some of them I didn't know myself!

I hope you liked the video and I hoped it was interesting.

If you like the video give it a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe for more videos soon.

I'll see you in my next video!

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