Dopers who are nurses, advice for a teen interested in nursing?

In My Humble Opinion
1

2 weeks ago I had to take my 8 year old to the hospital (he’s ok!) and I made the snap decision to bring my 15 year old son with me because younger son was so incapacitated I thought I might need help lifting him.

I was so struck by how well my teen dealt with such a scary situation and focused all his efforts on calming and distracting his brother.

I’ve always known he was kind and compassionate, but there haven’t been too many opportunities to demonstrate that he’s good in an emergency. It suddenly occurred to me “maybe he could be a nurse.”

He’s bright but with no real idea of what he wants to be when he grows up, so I’m always pondering if there’s any direction I could point him in, but this is the first time I had an idea cross my mind that really clicked and felt like a good fit.

I brought it up with him tonight and was a little surprised at how interested he seemed once I mentioned it. He didn’t have any “isn’t that just for girls” reaction.

So any ideas of how to nurture this possible path? Volunteering at hospitals obviously, just wondering if there’s better and worse ways of going about that and things I haven’t thought of.

Thanks for any thoughts!

2

The first question I’d have is how good is he at science? I’ve seen a fair number of nursing students drop out because they just couldn’t deal with all the chemistry and biology that the colleges through at them. Of course, that can be something to deal with later on, I have no idea if every branch of medicine requires those classes, it’s just something to keep in mind if he’s one of those “nope, can’t do science” type people.
Having said that, volunteer work for now is going to be the way to go. Maybe put in some calls to nursing homes and see if they can use an extra hand or, possibly better, call a guidance counselor at a local university or his at his school and ask them what he should be doing now to prepare for nursing school in college. They should have resources for people like him that are looking to get some volunteer hours under their belt. My worry is that he’s not going to get to do any real nursing, as spots are going to be reserved for people actually enrolled in nursing programs and he’s basically going to be an unpaid janitor.

But, it doesn’t hurt to start making some calls, you never know what you’ll find, maybe there’s a small independent nursing home out there that’s just looking for a kid to come in on the weekends and change bandages or clean out…things that need to be cleaned out.

It’ll give him a feel for if this is really what he wants to do. There’s a big difference between helping your little brother out of the car and helping some grandpa that you’ve never met.

This sounds like a really good question for WhyNot.

3

Does your local hospital have some kind of teen volunteer program? Many do, especially during summers. He wouldn’t have any direct patient contact, but he would get a good feel for how a hospital works. Many nursing homes allow teen volunteers too. It doesn’t hurt to ask.

And many states allow people to get CNA certification at age 16. Any community college will have a program, and many employers will pay for the training, which takes a month or two, if the person agrees to work for them for a specified period of time.

p.s. If there’s a free clinic in your town, he might be able to do volunteer work for them; some places do require that they be 18 first.

4

Yup, lots of science and as much relevant volunteer work as he can get.

That said, I would keep other paths open at this time. He’s young, and there are a lot of steps from here to there.

5

Does his high school offer classes for those interested in health careers? Mine does, and my high school has a total population of under 700 students, so I bet his does, too. I’d start there. Our local nursing home hires teenagers for part time after school work, spoonfeeding residents their dinners. Not glamorous, but it will tell him if he has a heart for serving the helpless.

And, yes, science, science and more science.
Cub Mistress RN

6

15 seems a bit early to choose a life path, but if he’s interested in nursing, then he should consider it. If he’s a good student, particularly in science, that will help.

Getting his CNA and working in a hospital would be the best way for him to determine if nursing is for him. Being a CNA is also a wise move towards getting an RN job. The competition is fierce but having a reputation as a good, smart CNA will open doors. It will also prepare him greatly for being an RN, or help him decide against it.

RNs do everything the CNA does, but we’re so grateful to have a CNA to help! We spend a lot of time with bedpans and urinals, and that’s the tidy part. In addition, the RN is the doctor’s eyes and ears. The doc is there for two minutes. The nurse is there for 12 hours. It’s up to the nurse to know when things aren’t right, and to know how to fix it.

I work in an adult ICU. The experience will vary depending on the specialty. And that’s one of the best things about a nursing career: there are many specialties and many niches.

Nursing means working nights, weekends, and holidays unless you’re lucky enough to get into one of the few niches like being a school nurse with an easier schedule. It’s a physically and emotionally demanding job. You have to be smart. You have to keep learning. You have to be good with people : angry ones, dying, crazy, homicidal, abusive, and adorable ones.

Male nurses are welcome. There may be some older patients who think that’s weird, but I can’t remember it ever being a problem. Some elderly patients assume the male nurse is the doctor (and assume the female doctor is the nurse) but in the nursing world, male nurses are just nurses.

Plus, since most nurses are women, male nurses get to work with a lot of eligible young ladies.

7

I agree with the first part of the quote, but not the second. I’m a nurse, and I suck at dealing with people. Which is why I’m an OR nurse, and a damn good one. That is definitely one of the advantages of nursing, you can find a niche that fits you. And I think its a brilliant career choice for a young man…in my field, especially, there’s tons of males.

8

I’d bet some hospitals that have Candy Stripers might welcome a male CS. And I bet some of the female Candy Stripers are cute.

Fairly recently, my friend’s wife got her RN via a 2 year Associate’s program. A lot of the students took longer than the 2 years, though, because they had to take remedial courses (pre-algebra, intro to algebra) before they could get into the program. Good grades in high school Algebra I and II, Biology, and Chemistry would be a great help.

9

Not “set in stone”, but my cohort had to make our first career-orientation choice at 13 (college track or trade school); at 15 those of us in the college track had to choose between pure humanities, life sciences, physical and applied sciences or social sciences/mixed. The immense majority of us had a pretty good idea of which kind of track we wanted to follow; even if we weren’t exactly sure whether we wanted to study Economics or Business Management, we did know which track. I think that having a certain type of objective in mind beyond “want to go to college maybe” will be good for picking his coursework for the next couple of years: if he takes Biology and faints at dissecting a worm, OR Nurse is probably not the right choice.

10

There’s a way to Shadow a Nurse. I did it in high school. In my case it totally turned me off nursing and I never wanted to do it after that, but that was a good thing too! I knew it for sure. You might want to check with your school or a local hospital to see if they have the program.