A Day in the Life of a Pain Treatment Center Nurse

So last week I worked in a pain treatment center. Here is a typical patient encounter:

  • Bring the patient back for her procedure.
  • Ask and record her pain level.
  • Take her vital signs.
  • Ask when the last time she took her aspirin or coumadin was.
  • Ask her if their current med list is up to date.
  • Shuffle around her paperwork around a bit. (Actually I was bringing some sort of organization to it, but it felt like I was just sort of shuffling it around)

Then the docs come and get her for the procedure.

  • 20 – 40 minutes later she returns from the procedure.
  • I take her vital signs once again.
  • I shuffle around her paperwork once again.
  • I send her on her way.

If you repeat this whole process about 7-10 times, you can conjure up a pretty good picture of what my day was like. I took an hour and a half lunch and I was out of there by 3:45 PM.

One time I received a patient who had gotten Fentanyl and Versed before the procedure. I had to recover her from sedation – how exciting! That meant that I had to take her vital signs every five minutes until she was back to baseline. I braced myself for the impending task. Perhaps she would have trouble breathing, or waking up – but, no. She woke right up and sat up at the side of the bed. I took a few vital signs, pulled her IV and she walked right outta there.

To summarize, I will say this:

This would be a good job for:
Nurses suffering from burnout
Pregnant nurses who are looking for a low-stress situation without heavy lifting
Nurses who are just really, really tired but still want to continue nursing

This would be a bad job for:
New grads (It’s not really heavy on learning experiences)
Trauma junkies, code jockies or anyone else that thrives on adrenaline rushes

To end on a positive note, the entire staff was really really friendly and super-nice to work with, probably because they all work in such a cushy place. For me, it was a nice place to visit but I don’t think I would want to live there.


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