Hello, I need some more outside views on my decision to pursue nursing as a career. Are there any current or former nurses who can enlighten me on their experience and lifestyle as a nurse? Thank you.
Try reposting here too: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/nursing-major/
I know many nurses. And adults who have gone into nursing after other careers. The money is good. There can be very high job satisfaction. There can be very poor job satisfaction. It depends.
My good friend left the automotive field to be a stay at home dad (his wife is a public defender). As kiddies were getting older, he got his nursing degree – really had a knack for the very rigorous classwork. Had some good fortune and got some very good placements. Now works as a lead operating theatre nurse at a local hosp. Works about 35 hrs/week . With overtime, earns +$100K – and he and his wife have lots of time w/family. He really loves his work.
You’ll never be for want of a job, that’s for sure. There’s a huge nursing shortage, not helped by the few #s of nursing grads that our education system is able to produce.
if you become a BSN you can always get a job and excellent pay.
Nursing was my 2nd degree. I went back to school for something more lucrative and practical than first degree and found out that I LOVE it. Pay and flexibility are great (yes!) But there are so many different areas within nursing, both bedside and non-patient care, that anyone can find his or her niche. Lots of opportunity for leadership and advancement if that is what you want. I love love love what I do.
And you can do it in any part of the country – which is a wonderful thing in a two-career family, especially if the other person’s career requires a lot of moving around or can only be pursued in a specific part of the country.
Yes you can always get a job but like everything else there are good and bad nursing jobs. There are high stress low autonomy jobs with bad or uncertain hours. As more things move to outpatient or home care bedside nursing jobs are disappearing. RNs are being substituted with lower skilled levels. “Good” nursing jobs are just as hard to get as any other profession and lifestyles are just as varied.
I’m not an expert but I would say this is a profession that will be in high demand for at least a generation, and it pays well.
Woman physician here. Different personalities and types of jobs for nursing and medicine. Also, within nursing different types like different kinds of nursing. Some stresses can come with lack of autonomy- having responsibility but not being tops in charge (physicians write the orders). I saw good times and bad for nursing jobs depending on the local economy over the years. Like any profession if you are passionate about it the pros outweigh the cons. Nurses seem able to change areas and return after years away with on the job training (unlike physicians, but those who want to be one do not usually want to be the other- interests and personalities differ).
Definitions told to me by an LPN once: RN means real nurse, LPN means low paid nurse. In today’s world RNs should also get a bachelors degree (a BSN if starting college) for flexibility later when management positions may be desired.
Like any career it is great for those who like it as a way of helping people and can handle the messiness that comes with any form of medical care. You need to figure out why you want to be a nurse instead of other helping professions. You know yourself, what you are good at, find interesting et al. Some prefer teaching, physical therapy, occupational therapy, social work or other careers. Some of the best nurses I have known retain intellectual curiosity about the human body and diseases- they use their ability to think along with learned protocols. There are not only good and bad jobs but ones that suit/do not suit you. Psych/ER/outpatient/pediatric/OB//surgical nursing… all require slightly different people (just as various medical specialties do)
I disagree about the money being all that good. Yes, if you want to work the least desirable shifts and put in lots of overtime, one might make north of 100K. But that is highly dependent on in which geographical region one is working, and one must consider that the markets where salaries are the highest usually turn out to have the highest cost of living.
As to the “huge nursing shortage,” that is again, market dependent. New grads in desirable locations are not finding jobs in hospitals and in the desired units like they once could. Many are looking for jobs for many months and must start at nursing homes and rehab facilities in order to get their foot in the door.
Nursing is physically very hard work, unless one gets a job consulting, in management, or other “desk” type jobs, but those jobs almost always require a good deal of experience for the applicant to be even considered. Nurse to patient ratios have climbed, and this creates a very very stressful environment. I’m even reading that ICU ratios, ALWAYS firm at 2:1 in my experience, are being increased to downright dangerous ratios of even 4:1, which is INSANE.
In my immediate circle of friends with the same educational level (BS degree), I am by far the lowest paid.
All that said, I like the flexibility I have with nursing. When I worked full time, I enjoyed working less days (three 12 hour shifts vs. five 8s) and getting paid as if full time. I like helping people.
I would encourage the OP to visit the nursing forum All nurses dot com. He will see that nursing is not a rosy profession, there is a fair amount of unhappiness in the field, and a lot of burnout and turnover.
I personally don’t regret my career choice, but I say that as a second income in a marriage where my DH makes many many times over my salary, so it’s a little easier for me to accept the downsides, and I can work (or not) entirely at my whim.
Personally, I find nursing to be a calling - like most medical professions. You are dealing with human lives, and you need to have an attitude of service to others, despite whatever salary you may or may not receive.
My daughter is at the end of her residency in nursing (first year after earning the BSN). And I advise a fair number of freshman headed for my institution’s nursing program. It’s a good job. A new nurse can afford to live on her own and has some flexibility. But… It’s physically and emotionally exhausting. Twelve hour overnight shifts are brutal. Some doctors are nice, but they can be pretty condescending, too. And let’s face it, you will deal with blood, poop, vomit, pus, and a whole lotta other grossness coming out of adults, not kids, and you really should have adequate bedside experience before moving on. And while most of your shifts are pretty uneventful, you’ll realize your mistakes can directly cause suffering.
You will be far more intimately involved with your patients than nearly any other provider. On your shift, you will attend to their every need and continually assess their condition.
Admission, even to 2 year programs, can be highly competitive, even at schools with high admissions rates. Oh, and the vast majority of your classmates will express the desire to be nurse practitioners.
@ordinarylives, yes, or CRNAs. In order to get into CRNA school, a minimum of one year in ICU is required (and almost every CRNA I work with spent several years in ICU before gaining admittance to CRNA school), which is not necessarily going to happen for the new grad. I did a new grad ICU residency, but it was very competitive, with few spots.
When I thought of ICU, I thought of all that technology, running codes, constant excitement. But think about the person who is in an ICU. Many are unconscious, on ventilators and completely snowed. They are lying in bed, completely dependent upon nurses to care for their every need. I was totally shocked at how much of my day was spent cleaning up poop and various other bodily fluids.
TV nursing is far more glamorous than the actual job. And we have far less time for talking to handsome docs in the hospital cafeteria and getting caught up in person drama in the hallways. 
My D1 is a nurse in her first year of work after getting a BSN and passing the NCLEX. She likes it and had no difficulty getting a job. She works in the cardiac unit of a busy hospital and has 12 hour shifts, sometimes 3 days in a row. She’s young and can handle that but I’m sure if you’re older or have children at home you would seek a different form of employment.
Nursing is very flexible but there is more money if you become a nurse practitioner. Then, you become more specialized so your options are less flexible. One thing that bothers me is that to become an NP now you pretty much need to get a doctorate in nursing.
I’m a nurse practitioner with about 20 years combined RN/NP experience so I’ll have a go at this:
Pros:
-love the on the spot critical thinking. In most positions you are right in the thick of it and your skills and education matter on a daily basis
-most (not all) patients appreciate you for what you do. I have a drawer FULL of thank-you notes from patients and families. I’m not sure how many other careers are as rewarding?
-for the most part, great colleagues and teamwork
-flexible scheduling
-variability…if you don’t like Cardiac ICU, switch to ER! If you don’t like ER, switch to cardiac rehabilitation.
-I absolutely love and am fascinated with the human body and I have a passion for explaining it to my patients and teaching them all about how their “parts” work.
Cons:
-on the spot critical thinking ==> the stress can be crazy sometimes when it is 2 am and it’s just you and the critically ill post-bypass patient and the ventilator alarm, another RN and the RT trying to figure it all out while you are waiting for the in house MD to arrive or call back. You’d better have the personality to be ok with this type of stress
-some patients treat you like Xrap; don’t even remotely acknowledge what you truly do and will get mad when you don’t deliver medicine like they think they deserve it ("I want my Zpak because I KNOW I need an antibiotic!)
-flexible scheduling: those 12 hr shifts that are so appealing (“COOL…two days off a week!!!”) can break you and trash your body. I can recall many many many days where I didn’t stop to go to the bathroom and didn’t take more than 5 minutes to eat because my ICU patient had to go down for a CT scan…and I had to travel for 1-2 hours with them to monitor the EKG and the vent while they are in the tube. Also, 12 hrs of moving and lifting patients = >killer back strain even for the ones of us in crazy good shape. I am approaching 50 and I seriously don’t know how some of the older RNs keep doing 12 hr shifts in critical care and ER. It was killing me when I was in my 40s!
I am now a nurse practitioner and honestly on most days I sincerely love what I do. But it is stressful and when I was working in primary care I watched wistfully while the office staff whipped out the back door at 5 pm on the dot and I still had a mound of charts to review, order, prescribe, etc. But that’s the tradeoff…with more education comes more responsibility and comes more pay also. I don’t agree with the DNP movement…but that is an argument for another day.
I’m not a nurse, but here is what I see among my middle aged nurse friends, and now among younger people going into nursing:
It is physically hard work. As friends age and have families I see them moving into less stressful, less physically demanding, more predictable (and less direct patient care oriented) positions. I know a lot of nurses and former nurses with back issues.
But! There are so many unexpected professional directions that nurses can take.
I have an RN friend who is legally blind, who works at a regional poison control center. She’s the person you call when your toddler drinks something he found in the garage. She walks you through the entire process of what to do over the phone.
I have nurse friends who work in insurance, who work the administrative side of a transplant program, who work in a follow up program with cardiac patients, who teach, who work in clinics…etc. They have regular hours, and decent life styles. I know only a few nursing friends in their fifties who still work in direct patient care in hospitals. They are exhausted, but have their own reasons for continuing in that professional direction.
^^^ perfect example of why nursing is a good profession… Lots of choices within the profession.
And then you’d have to try to frantically catch up with your other patient in the unit who’d been seen by 5 different docs and had pages of orders written. Even if peers had given meds or stepped in to help, you still were behind on your charting or other interventions. The memory is making me feel anxious.
My DH had a hard time believing it when I’d get home after a 12 hour shift and tell him “Hold on-let me run to the bathroom. I haven’t gone since 5 am.” And ditto on the 5 minute lunches.
I did have to quit in my 40’s due to back problems, among other reasons. I’ve had one neck surgery already, and am growing suspicious that another one looms in my future.
@Nrdsb4 … Yes!
I still sometimes have a nightmare where I wake up in a sweat in that hazy “was it a dream or was it real state” because I had dreamed it was the end of the shift and I realized I had been assigned bed 7 which was at the end of the hall and in a corner… And I had not been in there all day!
For the OP: nursing has been very very good to me. I wholeheartedly recommend for any young person who likes to think on their feet and is in love with human anatomy and physiology and the complexities of how it all mixed in together. But make sure you are not wearing rose colored shades… It is a very real and demanding career. I’ve always thought it paid pretty well and as the secondary income provider in our home it has allowed me to be at home more with our family. Alternatively, when H (engineer) was laid off I was able to add a part-time role overnight and we were able to push through the layoff without a huge impact.
OMG, I have that exact same dream, except I only realize it when I’m giving report and the oncoming nurse asks me about it. I always deny he was my patient, until she points up at the assignment board…that’s the worst.
@carachel2 @Nrdsb4 Wow! Your experiences sound incredibly rewarding! I am sorry to hear about your back pain and the short bathroom and lunch breaks that were offered. Those 12-hour shifts really appealed to me at first! I am a senior in high school and am seriously considering pursuing nursing, but I have not had that much insight on what it really takes to become a nurse. I know that I would like to work in the delivery room or working with pediatrics, but those nursing fields are highly impacted. I do like the fact that nurses are flexible in which they can switch “departments” or “fields” so to speak. @carachel2 What was your experience like going through the process of becoming a nursing practitioner? I heard that these days, it is really difficult to become a nursing practitioner now. Thanks for the responses!