What it's really like to be a nurse (stroppy patients and all)

For anyone not put off by NHS strikes over pay and hours, nursing is a secret world of high drama and quiet care that gives its practitioners satisfaction, according to some in the profession.

Registered nurses have answered "What is it like to be a nurse?" with warnings of not getting to wee for hours at a time and remembering the faces of those they've had to break terrible news to.

Trainees, emergency specialists and nursing bloggers shared what you need to know on Quora.

Studying medicine is about treating the human body as an arrangement of chemicals, nurses have said.

Being a nurse is focussed on taking care of a patient's experience, knowing their family and community as well as possible, and not just moving on to the next bed.

Bethan Siviter, a UK then US nurse, said: "I went to medical school - I hated it. You are not caring for a person, the body is a combination of molecules. Not to a nurse. I could have been a doctor. I love being a nurse."

According to several replies, a nurse's office can look very different. There will be a nurse in an insurance agency, a legal department, a care home, a doctor's surgey and a large hospital.

Cindy Samborski, a registered nurse, said boredom was rare: "If you don't thrive in one field, you can try another."

Danielle Smith was blunt in her answer about how relentless the job can be.

"You are required to be a waitress, a secretary, a CNA (certified nursing assistant), a boss, a psychologist, while caring for a dying patient in one room, a patient in pain in another [...] and a patient who all of a sudden displays the signs and symptoms of a heart attack."

Sitting down for a square meal is a challenge when things are happening all the time.

Another writer said: "Get ready not to eat for 12 hours and sometimes not even be able to use the restroom yourself for hours at a time."

"You learn to hold it eventually."

Nurses give up days off, sleep and sanity on occasion to keep the show on the road for their patients.

"Hardest job you'll ever love!" said Claudia Whittington Williams. "If you want a job where you know you're appreciated, but hardly ever told so, then nursing is the greatest job on earth."

As they get to know people, many nurses say they feel genuine fear and worry over their well-being.

An emergency nurse said: "Sometimes I still see the faces of some of them and remember their names."

The entire goal of nursing is care. One user explained that the focus is not the disease itself, but rather what happens to the person who has the disease.

And so all your patient's worries are your worries instead. Another writer said to do the job "with gentleness, patience and a manner that says "it's ok, leave it to me, I don't mind and as soon as you're ready I'll help you do it for yourself."

The level of responsibility towards patients is only really comparable to having your own child, said several Quora writers.

"The term patient is a term with the highest and utmost significant accountability attached, a relationship whose obligation is second only to motherhood," one nurse explained.