[nurse2b2010]

Originally Posted by SweetLemon

Well I was going to be a teacher but decided I did not want to be around sick kids all the time....

Oh the irony! That is just too funny! LOL

[Fathappychap]

mindyg22
I would happily send you pics but need to have email address to send to plus i dont have enough posts for private messages yet

[ramun]

2)to meet women and have a good salary

3)inspired by my aunt who are nurses

1) To serve God

disappointed in the beginning, but loving it now after nearly 20 yrs of service from a lowly male nursing assisstant to a (pacu) RN/BSN with a loving wife (not a nurse) and 3 kids.

[nurse2b2010]

Originally Posted by newtothis123

Thats easy.. i love helping people and I do not want to spend 8 years in the med school so here I am starting my career.

I love helping people too, but I never initially thought I could or would want to be a nurse. I still have to get through nursing school which I start this fall. But back to story -- got married right out of high school, started working as a legal secretary, started a family, had to go back to work after children were born (not happy about it but oh well). Never even thought about nursing until one day my kids were around 7 and 5, but then I knew it waasn't feasible for me at that time in my life, so dismissed the idea and never revisited it again until the day of my 48th birthday! I woke up that morning and said I need a career change, too many negative experiences in the legal arena. I want to do something where I feel it's rewarding and yet I can make a good salary to pay for the education I will need, etc. So, here I am 1 year later going into nursing school this fall! A grandmother of 3 (soon to be), 4 wonderful grown children (two mine, two step).

Oh, btw, I just watched the vets perform a C-Sec on one of our cows. Fascinating! I thought I might get queasy seeing all that blood, etc., but I didn't. Unfortunately, the calf was dead. Now, if the heifer just makes it!

God Bless All

[Cathlabnurse46]

As I posted on the stories side of the forum, I spent many years in a Shriners Hospital. But this is not why I became a Nurse, it made me a better nurse and more comfortable in hospitals, but not why I went into nursing. The reason I went into nursing was economic... what is happening again in the US today as we watch rising food and fuel cost, falling home prices and inflation and a poor job market.

I was about to graduate from high school in 1982 (I was 19 1/2 years old due to all the years in the hospital as a child I elected to repeat 9th grade). I got accepted to Penn State, Temple, Del Val agricultural college a drafting school and Lawnwood gardens in an internship. My girlfriend at the time was going into nursing. Her mother was a nursing instructor, her grandmother was my pediatricians nurse when I was a baby! still I gave little thought about nursing. I took a job that summer at a local hospital as the landscaper and worked out of the boiler room. My brother had alreadyy graduated with a BS from Penn State in 1980 and could not find a good paying job. He spent the previous 2 Winters working for the Army Corp of Engineers taking sonar soundings of the Delaware River in the navigational channels freezing his A off. In the early 80's collage graduates had difficultly finding well paying jobs. So my brother, after spending 4 years in collage went to work for my father in a carpet factory loading rolls of carpet on tractor trailers for better money than what he got paid for his collage degree.

My SAT's were not that high but I still managed to get accepted to good schools, I just couldn't afford to pay the tuition. Reagan, a few year earlier made big cuts in benefits to handicapped persons, which I would have qualified for paid education. I went through 2 days of extensive physical and psychological testing to see if I still could qualify under the new laws for educational benefits for handicapped persons under Ronald Reagans new laws.... I didn't. the evaluator told me that I needed to go to "trade school" to be a tailor. I had a few awards from HS and my girlfriend gave me ONE APPLICATION for a nursing program. Lankenau Hospital School of Nursing..... however the deadline had passed. I applied anyway. I found out that I got accepted with conditions that I take some remedial language courses to pull up my SAT English scores, which I did. Seems all those years of homebound teachers or not going to school affected my language skills. So it became a mater of economics for me. Do I spend tens of thousands (now hundreds of thousands) of dollars to get an education and be like my brother, or go to nursing school and take the chance that I will always have a job with good benefits?

After 26 years, I still think I made the right decision. In my high school year book I wrote David Frost "the road not taken":

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I—I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

[lamazeteacher]

"get an education and be like my brother, or go to nursing school and take the chance that I will always have a job with good benefits?" cathlabnurse46:

I hate to burst the above bubble, but these days, I've found the hard way, that after age 55, since health insurance for rmployees of that age costs employers at least $1,000 more monthly, it's been difficult to keep jobs. I got them, as I had qualifications and experience that was needed, but once HR had the health insurance papers completed, and my birth date was known to the insurer, it was bye-bye (for no reason, as that happens during probation). I've got a good manner, strong ethics, and ability, but 5 jobs have gone "south", since I turned 55. I can work part time on nights; and in HH per diem, but anything like the administrative work I've done previously, is history.

Medicare is a bad joke, especially part "D", and supplemental insurance is costly. I'm writing this so other Nurses will have this "heads up" and plan for it by looking into "Universal Care" such as almost every other civilized country has. I have family in Canada, and know the care there is good. They haven't needed to wait in long lines - ever, and my brother there had 2 knee replacements without waiting....... They pay nothing for prescribed medications, and so far no copay at doctors' offices. Yes, I'm thinking of going back there, but I hate to do that as a senior who isn't contributing to the program. I'd be able to work for 5 more years, maybe (I'm 69 now).

The main argument I hear about it in the USA, is that government can't be trusted with health issues, so private insurance companies rake in twice to 3 times what health insurance for all would cost, and refuse coverage for anyone who's ever been afflicted with a disease that might be costly to them.

So we trust government with our security, in floods and other disasters they've proved to botch, and go to war, endowing our country with our children who are over 16 (or is it 18?). Now they have the right to eavesdrop on all our telephone conversations and monitor our cell phones too. Our financial histories are public record, and housing is beyond our and grown kids' reach. They haven 't said specifically how they plan to "help" with bad mortgages we are blamed for having, due to low "credit" scores which Equifax, United whatever, and the other one have no right to extract. I could go on........ but you may know this already and probably think things will get better by the time you're a senior.

[Cathlabnurse46]

Lamaz,

I love the way you think, especially politically. I'm a political animal. But were are taking about 26 years ago when I got into nursing. Hell back then I go free health care coverage, precription, eye glass and dental. Now yes I pay $800 a month for family coverage.

But this is not the topic of this thread. While I agree that national health care has been vilified by right wing lunitics as "socialist" or "communist" in an effort to scare red blooded patriotic Americans into denying what every other major Nation in the world does (while our health care slips down to that just below Cuba in infant mortality rates) it appears that their is more support to "privatize" social security than nationalize heath care (even though we already provide 40% of our citizens with a form of nationalized health care).

Males entering into nursing look at nursing as a profession differently as do the woman. not that we can not be compassionate provides of care, but we look at the stability of long term work. Nursing in the past provide woman with the ability to jump in and out of nursing as their family needs demanded changes... for males this is looked at differently. I hope that this is not "sexest" but a reality in a male view point. It was a security issue for me, and as I review hurdreds of post today on this thread I saw a common thread among the males, as I did among many woman.

Yes age discrimination is a problem in all sectors of industry, not just health care. I wish you the best of luck. God Bless.

[maluangel118]

"I wanted to help people" haha Isn't that the cliche answer?

[4tnerzwife]

I was a journalism major and couldn't find a job with pay that even compared to McDonald's. I always cared about other people and their well being. Nursing is a very respected job and there are many positions available in my area so here I am! Last but not least...my husband made me do it

[lamazeteacher]

4tnerzwife:

I hope that you'll write articles for Nursing Journals, and add your literate view to "healthcare today" sections of your newspaper. We need to get the word out about situations of the under and non insured.