The time is finally right for me to go to school. I’ve been thinking a long time and decided on entering the medical field. There are good local programs for a range of options. The paths I’m most interested in are Radiologic Technician, Registered Nurse, Surgical technologist, and Respiratory Technician.The first three have the option for further education and specialization, a plus.
Please share your experiences in the field, what you like/hate about the job, anything you thing I should know.
I’m an Associate Degree RN. The coursework was two years, but I fast tracked in 1 1/2 years. I was not one of those people who “always wanted to be a nurse” but just lucked into it almost by accident, really. I couldn’t have picked a more satisfying career.
There is also a one year LVN and a 4 year RN. You can earn up to a Doctorate in nursing, too.
It’s an excellent field and offers a good return on your investment school-wise, and has plenty of advanced educational opportunities. There are so many areas in which to work that it should not be difficult to find a niche you enjoy.
You may find it hard to get into nursing school right now- I understand the demand is high and that there are waiting lists and much competition. There is a nursing shortage now.
I love nursing and sampled clinic work in such areas as pediatrics, geriatrics, and general medicine. I then moved into OB with a special emphasis on fertility work, and have been working for some time now with high risk pregnancies in a hospital setting. Some of our patients may stay for four months!
I plan to stay at my current job for a very long time- I enjoy everything about it.
I recently retired after 34 years as an RN. I was a medical corpsman in the Air Force after high school, Then a nursing assistant until I started school. In all, I’ve done some form of nursing for a total of 39 years.
My first job as an RN was on the same unit I had been an assistant, at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
That was a strange transition, from being at the bottom of the food chain to the top. Since I worked there through school, it was between one day and the next. That was a leukemia floor. It was before ICUs (yes, indeed, I am old) so the work was very labor intensive. It was where I became an Adrenalin junky.
From there I went to dialysis. For the most part a yawner, so, of course, I gravitated to acute dialysis. By then ICUs had sprung up.
After being there a while, I was promoted to acting head nurse (hated it) I found out I’d been replaced by way of the hospital newsletter, so It was time to move on.
I decided I was too smart to stay a nurse, so I applied to Med School. I was accepted, and spent exactly 26 days as a medical student. I then knew I was waaaay too smart to be a doctor. It made me realize That I *needed *to be a nurse.
I went back to the leukemia unit. Things had changed a bit. The sickest patients went to the ICU. That is, except for our first bone marrow transplant. Can you guess who was at the bottom of that pile?
Very few places were doing bone marrow transplants then. Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Sloan-Kettering in New York and M D Anderson in Texas.
K U was one of the first outside the big 3 to try. We were mentored by Fred Hutch. We did 2, both were miserable failures.
When the second one died, I called my contact at Hutch, to let her know. We talked for a while, and by the end of the conversation I had a new job. All I had to do was drive my 280Z and everything I owned, from Kansas to Seattle in December, to start by the first of the year. I gave my notice at work that day, and at my apartment the next.
I started at Hutch the first week of January 1978.
I look back and see that I’ve been a small part of the history of medicine. I worked with ground breakers in dialysis.
I’ve had many lunches and midnight snacks with a Nobel Prize winner. Didn’t know it, wouldn’t have cared.
I never lost the high.
I went from Hutch to various ICUs, first, surgical, then to trauma, and finally to pediatric ICU. I’ve worked as a travel nurse in critical care. Twice. Once in 1980 for 1 year, then again in 1990 for 3 years.
I loved all of it… until I saw the pain I had to inflict to do my job well. Once seen, I couldn’t unsee it. (why is a longer still, story)
My wonderful husband saw my problem, and asked me to retire and take care of just him.
Junky, no more, I spend my days involved in art projects, and I do take very good care of the love of my life.
Just a note on the other careers you mentioned. They were all at one time or another, a part of nursing.
I’ve known a number of xray techs over the years. Most were not very happy in their jobs, and, unless things have changed, they make less than an RN.
I’m not sure what you mean by “surgical technologist” If that means perfusionist, then the money is good, you get your allotment of excitment, and, pretty much write your own ticket, if you’re good. At one time there was talk of requiring an RN prior to going to perfusionist school.
If you mean surgery tech, you’re looking at a nursing assistant with a specialty.
There are two levels of expertise in the respiratory field. Both go through training. One level stops there. I believe they are respiratory techs. Low pay long hours, and they do about the same as a therapist, who has a state certification. To get the cert they have to pass a national board. I’m not completely sure how it works, but neither path gives you the money nursing does.
Another choice, that you might explore, is physicians’ assistant. They make more money than most nurses. The education is similar. They’re work also parallels that of yesterday’s office nurse.
First let me say: Nursing is wonderful. I love it. I wouldn’t trade it for any other job. But there are up and down sides to every profession.
Some things I don’t miss that I did first starting out:
12 hour shifts that turned into 14hr shifts 4 or 5 days in a row.
Being shorthanded constantly ward, which meant the hours fluctuated constantly.
Working weekends and holidays, never seeing my family.
What I love about it:
It’s one of the most flexible fields you can go into. There are so many areas you can specialize in. Emergency medicine, scrub nurse, ICU, pediatrics, oncology, dialysis, labor & delivery, nurse anesthetist…the list goes on and on. Or, you can choose not to specialize at all, and contract yourself out to work per diem in whatever capacity you like. The nursing shortage really does afford you that many choices.
I love helping people feel better. Knowing I made a difference in someone’s life. I’ve helped deliver two babies, and delivered one on my own (she wasn’t waiting for the doctor). I believe that was the best work I’ve ever done.
In nursing, there’s a lot of high emotion alot of the time. You have to be able to separate yourself from it. Which is difficult, sometimes. It can be the most fulfilling thing in the world, and it can tear your heart out. For the most part, it’s very rewarding.
Good luck in whatever you decide.
Thanks for the relies. How hard is it to get the shifts you want? My children are still quite young, so it’s a big worry.
As a new grad… What part of “nightshift” do you need explained? Seriously, It depends on the hospital. There’s a paradox in staffing, always has been. The people who need the most experience and supervision are put on the least busy, least supervised shift.
Even with small children, you can work it out. In fact, I know people who work nights by choice, so they are home with their kids. They have a sitter who sleeps over.
Somehow this seems to preclude sleeping, but I guess they cope.
One other thing, Don’t expect to work in ICU, or surgery, or recovery right out of school. You shouldn’t, even if you could. Get basic skills down first. I’ve mentored new grads in the ICU, and its overwhelming for them.
The politics of nursing are a circus in a torture chamber. Nursing is the only profession that eats its young. (this was the title of an article in RN magazine a thousand years ago, but still true.) With the shortage of nurses now, things might be better than I’ve described, but in 5 years some new adminstrator will come up with the idea of running the hospital without the nurseforce. The pendulum swings back and the beat goes on.
So you see, if we loved, and are still loving it, even in the face of all the negative, it has to be *GREAT! *
Keep it coming, guys - I was about to start a new thread before I searched and found this one.
I, too, am thinking about becoming a nurse. I’ve already got the B.S. part, and I’ve found and applied to a college here who offers a nursing certificate, which appears to be equal to a BSN. I think I want to do it, but I’m still not 100% certain. So tell me more about nursing.
What’s the worst part?
How do shifts work at your place of employment?
What can I expect after I finish my program and get my RN, a newly minted nurse?
Could you maybe briefly enumerate some of the other fields/specialties I can get into?
Have you gone on to get any further advanced degrees? MS? Or trained to become a nurse practitioner? How was that, or what have you heard about it?
What are good websites I should check out for additional information?
Thanks!
Snicks