Career Help Needed - What about nursing?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I’m thinking about a career in nursing. This would be a second career for me, and is a RADICAL change from what I’m doing now. In fact, this change would be so radical that I don’t even know what it is that I don’t know, you know?

So far, I have two areas of concern: nursing school, and then the actual practice of nursing (as in, what would I be doing?). By the way, this would be in the US.

I THINK that I want to end up as an RN, and I think that I would be most interested in working in a surgical setting. I live in Dallas, and have looked at the job postings at the hospital near my house. There are 230(!) nursing jobs posted just for that campus. The ones that interest me read like this: “GN / RN INTERNSHIP - FULL TIME - (7p-7a Weeknights) - NEURO VASCULAR RENAL - 9 ROBERTS - DALLAS” and “Graduate Nurse / Registered Nurse, Bone Marrow Transplant – M-F, NIGHTS: 7p-7a at Baylor Dallas” Unfortunately, that’s about all the information given. So based on that, can anyone tell me what this sort of job would actually entail? Clearly, both of these are night jobs. Is it actually 5 days, 12 hours/day, 60 hour weeks? Or is it more likely to be 4 12 hour days? Also, obviously these are internships, but from what I’ve seen in other postings, you generally need at least a year worth of experience, and I assume these internships are a way to get that experience.

As for school, my understanding is that the RN program is generally 4 years. I already have a degree in mechanical engineering, so I’m going to assume that most of my science and math requirements, except biology, anatomy, etc, are taken care of. I have another degree which should count for a bunch of humanities requirements. Based on that scant information, can anyone give me any idea what I might be looking at for school, both time and cost?

I know this is very scattered. It is an accurate reflection of my thoughts on this.

By the way, here’s the punchline. I’m a 37 year old husband and father of two. Thankfully, my wife can support us through school. Here’s the punchline to the punchline - I’m a lawyer.

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Guess I’ll give it another try.

I did find out that “M-F nights 7p - 7a” is most likely just three days a week. That’s definitely a plus.

Anyone with thoughts?

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Ha love the punch line to the punch line.

Can you talk with any RNs in your area? I come from a medical family (dad is an MD, mom and sis are RNs) and I knew I had zero interest in either of those. So why do you want to become a nurse?

BTW regarding hours, my sis works at the VA hospital in Denver. She used to work three 12-hour shifts (night) so she’d work Fri/Sat/Sun. That fit her schedule and her personality. I believe she’s changed to closer to 40hrs spread out through the week. Shift work is insane IMO, so are you sure you are up for it?

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Thanks for the thoughts Contrary.

As for the shift work, I don’t believe any shift could be more of a whip than being a lawyer. This past Monday I was spending Memorial Day with friends, and was literally in the pool with a beer in my hand when I have to take a call from my boss, WHO WAS IN THE OFFICE(!!!) and wanted to know if I was going to have a particular document ready to go to a client by 10:00 am Tuesday. Why did she call me on Memorial Day, BECAUSE THE CLIENT HAD CALLED HER, AT THE OFFICE, FROM HIS OFFICE!!! Previously, the doc wasn’t needed before close of business Tuesday, so I wasn’t prepared to send it by 10:00am. Soooo, after all our guests left around 8:30, I stayed up 'till about 1:00 working, then got up at 5:30 to continue working (and take the kids to school, etc., etc) to have the doc. out the door by 10:00.

My wife (also a lawyer) has been up past midnight the past two days working on things, and a friend of ours (also a lawyer) worked 'till 1:00 the other night, took a 3 hour nap, and was back at it by 4:00 am. This is Dallas, not New York City, and we are all around 10 year vetrans, not first year associates. So, shift work doesn’t scare me. At least its written down and can be planned around/covered for (understanding that schedules get messed up from time to time).

I’ve spent 10 years behind a desk - I’m ready for a change.

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You can also become an RN in 2 years by going to a school with an Associate’s degree program, like I did. Many community colleges have these programs. The degrees you already have would probably cover all the non-strictly-nursing classes you’d need other than anatomy & physiology (unless you already took that for some reason, few people seem to unless they are going into a medical field.) Tuition at my community college was less than $3000 per year, but books were probably another $1500 for the two years.

By being a nurse and a lawyer, you’d probably get snapped up quickly to work in risk manangement or some such. As in, so quickly it will make your head spin. You might have to fight to actually work with patients.

Don’t let your age worry you. I’m older than you are and I just graduated less than a month ago. Men are needed in nursing, IMHO. My class only graduated 4 men.

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It sounds like you could handle the schoolwork and be very employable, but I’m a little, I dunno, taken aback at how little you seem to know about the actual work involved in the job.

I realize it would be difficult with your current schedule (understatement!) but I’d recommend at least doing some volunteer work in a hospital to see how you felt about a) being around sick people a lot and b) taking orders from doctors.

Also, while some nurses can be brusque, IME most of them are not nearly as brusque as most lawyers I know. How do you feel about regularly taking the time to be kind and respectful when you are smart, right, and in a hurry?

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Some states (like Illinois) will let you sit for your RN exam with a two year AAS (Associates of Applied Science) degree. Other states require a 4 year BS degree. Since you already have a BS, even in an unrelated field, you may also be eligible for an RN Completion program - 18 months (ish) to get the additional nursing classes you need to sit for your RN, and that much closer to your Licensed Nurse Practioner status (Master’s Degree, unless it’s a PhD). In short, start calling schools near you to find out what’s offered.

Some of your old credits will transfer, and some may not. At my school, things like English and Philosophy transfer (for your humanities and elective requirements), while math and science credits only transfer for 5 years - so I had to re-do Biology and “College Math” even though I got an A in both 10 years ago. I still haven’t gotten a straight answer as to whether or not old Psychology and Sociology credits will transfer - are those “sciences” or not? No one seems to agree.

If you go into surgical nursing, do NOT count on getting off your shift anywhere near the posted time. In fact, for hospital nursing, period, don’t count on getting off when the schedule says you will. The fact is that most departments are critically shortstaffed, and if the clock hits 8:00 when you’ve got someone bleeding out of random orifices in Room 123 and another person codes in room 135 and the family of the guy in 132 wants to know if he’s going home today and you’re still waiting to hear from the doc…well, you’re lucky if you get a bathroom break, much less get to go home on time. (I say this as a person who babysits regularly for two different nurses. We never know when their kids will be picked up! It can, seriously, range from 3 hours before expected to 6 hours after expected.)

I’m very, very excited about becoming a nurse. I really know, deep down, that it’s finally the right thing for me. Only you can really tell if it’s for you.

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I’m not a nurse, but I’m a nurse tech (read: orderly/housekeeper/gopher) in surgery, so I can at least fill you in a bit on what surgical nurses do. Do you have specific questions, or just want a general description?
BTW, my Eventual Goal is an RN as well. But probably not in surgery. I’d eventually like to get into travel nursing…more money, lots of opportunities to move around.

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Ok, since I doubt you had chemistry, bio or organic chem, much less physio, anatomy or pathophys in law school (but you might have had some of them in undergrad), you will need to do pre-reqs.

Most BSNs are 4+ years (mine was 4 and 1/2 in 1984), and most Associate degrees require the prereqs, which make them almost 4 years as well.

Your best bet is to talk to a counselor at the nursing school about your options. Class slots are tight and extremely competitive (one of the bottle necks in nursing is the schooling–instructors and full profs don’t make as much as RNs on the floor, sadly enough).

The GN position you saw advertised was for a Graduate Nurse–an internship of sorts, with a lookout for hire once Boards are passed. GNs work under the auspices of an RN, and have certain limitations on their practice (depending on the state).

I think that a lawyer would make an excellent nurse–you already have many of the critical thinking skills needed to succeed as a competent practitioner. You may find the course more rigorous than you think. You will also find you are not the lone male nor are you the lone second career-er. Contact the local nursing college or school–see what track you fit on (WhyNot is right in her assessment re “fast track” stuff–but you need those sciences!)
You might also consider getting your CNA certificate and working as one (nurse’s aide) to see if it’s for you. When you ask at the college, ask specifically about surgery tech positions/certifications–that might also help you decide if it’s for you.

Good luck!

Rigs–RN for 20+ years.

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Wow. Thanks everyone, especially for the encouragement to move into a second career. It’s strange how powerful a few words of encouragement from an independent stranger can be. Glad I bumped that thread when I did!

To hit a few points, Elenorigby I had chemistry in my undergrad, but you’re right that I’ll be lacking the O-Chem and anatomy-related courses. Kind of looking forward to that though. While I’ve been doing technology-related law for the last 10 years, it’ll be nice to get back into harder science study. I’m sure the coursework will be more rigorous than my law degree (I found law school to be a 3 year dream - still graduated cum laude), but it’ll probably compare favorably with my undergraduate work.

bodypoet a general description would be outstanding. Like I said, I don’t even know enough to ask specific questions.

WhyNot I sure hope to hell my math transfers. I’ll be royally peeved if Calc. I & II, and Differential Equations don’t count for something! :slight_smile: Thanks for the heads up on the scheduling thing. I guess that’s one area of the practice that House gets right.

Harriet you’ve got every right to be taken aback by my unpreparedness - I am too. Unfortunately there is no one in my circle of family and friends involved in medicine, so I came here first for some general rundown. In my defense, I didn’t know anything about being a lawyer when I went into that, and I made a pretty good run with it. Actually, I didn’t know anything about mechanical engineering when I got that degree and subsequent job, but I was pretty good at it too. I guess I was just looking for something to get me out from behind my desk, into a career with lots of openings, and the fact that I live about three blocks from what I understand to be a damn fine hospital that has 230(!!) nursing jobs posted right now all sort of nudged me in this direction. I’m pretty excited to be leaping in a new direction.

As for the lawyer personality moving into healthcare, I do see where you’re coming from. I can say that most people think I’m a pretty nice guy, but it will certainly be something to keep in mind and work on. Taking orders from doctors shouldn’t be a problem. I’m a corporate lawyer and in this position you’re pretty much always in the subservient role to your clients. It’s not like being a generalist working for the public. In that case, you are most likely in charge because your clients are probably not familiar with the process. For a corporate lawyer, the roles are completely reversed. Corporate lawyers usually work for a company’s General Counsel who is most likely senior to you, generally knows what he/she wants, and just doesn’t have the time or desire to do it. Add in the pressure to keep these clients happy so they pay your bills, and it’s typically a non-stop ass-kissing marathon.

Cub Mistress Thanks in particular for your encouragement.

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Sorry for responding so late, but maybe I can give you an overview. This is, of course, only a view of what happens in this particular hospital; I have no idea how similar/different other situations may be. I’m a nurse tech (orderly/CNA/aide) in Surgery.
Most of our RNs work 10 or 12 hours shifts. We are scheduled to leave at 10:30 p.m. and sometimes we actually do–until recently, there was no late-night shift, so even if late cases came in, we were stuck until everything finished up. (There was a call-in team, but they didn’t like to actually be called in, so typically they didn’t come unless the late surgery was going to be very late indeed.)
Surgical nurses may assist with the surgery or be circulators, the nurse who hands stuff to the Certified Surgical Tech so that the CST doesn’t have to “break” and can stay sterile. So, Dr. wants an item that isn’t on the CST’s sterile tray, for instance; the circulator gets it, opens it (maintaining sterile packaging) and hands it off to CST. She also does all the documentation for the case. She also answers the phone, passes messages, calls for supplies, helps with non-sterile patient care, and generally keeps the room under control.
RNs help stock the rooms, stock instruments (those instrument trays can be HEAVY, too), deals with families, carries/administers/documents/wastes drugs. On evening shift, they help with the stuff I normally do: because housekeeping isn’t allowed in surgery, we do all the cleaning, mopping, etc, ourselves.
Nurses run a lot of interference with the docs, especially when the docs get difficult to deal with. It seems to me that there is more doctor/nurse interaction in surgery, because they spend hours together, whereas in the units the docs are in and out more.
The surgical nurses I know who have worked in other parts of the hospital tell me that surgery is easier, and that is true in some ways–you usually only have one patient at a time, after all, and there is no long term care or even a lot of follow up on our parts. (The docs do the follow up, and the patient transfers out to PACU and then back to another unit, and other nurses take over.) You never have to give a sponge bath or fetch a Sprite for anyone in surgery, and even the grouchiest patients are asleep most of the time. On the other hand, when things go badly in surgery, they can go very badly very quickly–but I suppose that’s true in other units as well.
I’m most amazed when a stat case comes in–a trauma victim, say. One minute the Charge Nurse is walking down the hall saying, “Hey, guys, stat trauma coming in, 57 yo male hit by a car, head and chest injuries, he’ll be here as soon as he comes out of the scan,” and while no one seems overly rushed or excited, five minutes later the trauma room is stocked, staffed, and ready to go. It’s very, very cool. (My philosophy during such cases: Stay near the door, keep the warmer stocked with fluids, be ready to run, and turn your nametag over so the doc can’t call you by name and send you for something that you have no idea what he’s talking about.)
Surgery can be interesting, but it can also be very long and not-so-interesting.

The main lesson I’ve learned by working in a hospital: Nurses run the place, pure and simple.

Does that help?

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Yep–that’s about the size of it. People (well, not surgical pts but most admissions) come to the hospital because their health or disease condition can no longer be managed at home–they need NURSING care. Sure, the docs call the shots and order (and often do) the tests, but before and after care; discharge teaching, activities and hygiene are all under the nurse’s auspices. (the doc has to order activity: bedrest, bedrest with bathroom privileges, up ad lib etc), but it is up to the nurse to carry that out–just like all the other orders.

So, yeah, we pretty much run the place. Anything you see on TV about nurses is wildly wrong, btw–we are overlooked and not well understood.

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Hmmm…am I to assume with the username rpinrd, that you went to RPI?

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Lots of good info here

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Ah hell. Sorry to resurect this, but I missed all the great replies and couldn’t let them go unthanked. Bodypoet, that was very helpful. What size hospital are you in? I know that the hospital close to my house has 24 hour surgical staff. I’m guessing that all of the more or less planned surguries are done in the day, and that the night shift gets the car crashes?

bouv you are correct. Don’t let my decision to not follow a traditional engineering path be a negative statement on RPI though. Awesome education, and I can say that the school’s reputation sealed the deal on my first job as a lawyer.

Ca3799 that link is going to take some time to work through.

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My brother (age 32) is a cardiac critical care nurse. He is doing great, both in pay and in the huge flexibility he has with being able to choose where and when and how much he wants to work. Frankly, I’d be hard pressed to come up with a better field than nursing to be moving into these days.

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Another option for nurses is private duty, which is what Mr. SCL does. The pay is good and the hours are usually pretty regular. The downside to private duty is getting attached to your patient - if you spend 40 hours a week caring for someone you are going to get attached, and Mr. SCL recently lost his first private duty patient who wasn’t elderly. He had been the case manager/head nurse for a quadriplegic patient who decided he wanted to be taken off the respirator.

As someone mentioned earlier - with a degree in law in addition to a nursing degree, you will have options that do not involve patient care at all.

Nursing school is tough - Mr. SCL had his LPN when we married but I was with him for his RN - and he studied as much for it as I did for the law degree I never used.

Good luck!