What It's Like To Be A Registered Nurse In NYC

Veronica Pasha, 25, is a registered nurse in the women and children's health division at NewYork–Presbyterian. Here's a closer look at a typical day on the job.

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Veronica Pasha’s work day starts early: She’s up at 5 a.m. and leaves her apartment in Queens shortly after 6 a.m. That gives her enough time to make a 6:15 a.m. bus, which gets her to the subway station at 6:22 a.m.

By 7 a.m., she’s at NewYork–Presbyterian, where she’s been working as a registered nurse since 2015. It’s her first job. After graduating with a degree in nursing from Hunter College in 2015, Pasha was hired as a staff nurse in the women and children’s health division. Last fall, she was promoted to senior staff nurse.

The 25-year-old New York native is a float nurse, which means she works across all units of her division. She’s also one of the sexual assault forensic examiners in the ER, which means that “three shifts a month, I’m on call to come in for sexual assault and domestic violence victims that come in through the emergency room,” she says.

CNBC Make It stopped by the hospital to meet Pasha and get a feel for what it’s really like to be a registered nurse.

The hours

Pasha works 13 shifts a month, or about three to four per week. Each shift is 12.5 hours — 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. — “but sometimes you get stuck here if you have charting to do,” she adds. “Or, if the unit is short, we’ll offer to stay later. The maximum we could work [in one day] is 16 hours.”

There’s also a weekend requirement: Three of her 13 monthly shifts have to be on a Saturday or Sunday.

The nurses at NewYork–Presbyterian set their own schedules about 45 days in advance, “so in terms of life planning and things like that, you have to really plan ahead,” says Pasha.

The longer you’ve been at the hospital, the more say you have when it comes to your schedule, she says: “For staff nurses on the floor, seniority is definitely the biggest thing. You get your first pick of vacations and when you want your holidays and when you want to be off. When you’re new, you just kind of get whatever is left at the end.”

The shift

Pasha arrives at the hospital between 7 and 7:15 a.m. to change into her scrubs and pick a patient for the day. “If I want to be an OR nurse today, I’ll sign up for the OR. If I want to be in the recovery room, I’ll go there,” she says.

After clocking in at 7:30 a.m., “we do our change of shift sign-out,” says Pasha, which is when the residents, attendings, members of the anesthesia team and nurses meet to review the status of each patient. “We go over every patient that’s on the board that morning. We go through what part of the labor they’re in, what part of the postpartum phase that they’re in, if they’re recovering, if they’re a labor patient and going to the OR.”

Then, she checks in with her patients that day — she could have anywhere from one to five — and creates a plan with them.

Depending on the day, she might have time to take a lunch break or catch up with colleagues, she says, though, “other days are just so busy you don’t have time to sit down for two seconds.” Pasha, who meal preps and packs all of her food for the day, says that the goal is to eat all three meals at the hospital, but “on a busy day, I’ll come with all my food and leave with all my food.”

On those days, “you throw a grape in your mouth and you run back to your to your patient.”

It’s not until her shift is over when the fatigue hits her: “As soon as I sit on the subway to go back home, I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m tired.’” As exhausting as the days can be, “you have to really keep a strong face on, especially for a mom that’s laboring. Because when she’s tired, you need to be the energizer. ... By the time I get home, I shower and I’m in bed very, very quickly.”

Read more about being a registered nurse here

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A day in the life of a 25-year-old registered nurse who works 12.5-hour shifts at New York–Presbyterian | CNBC Make It.