Re: Is it worth it?
To answer your title: is it worth it? IMO -- YES!
However, you will find real-life nursing different than nursing school, and you have to find your niche where you're most comfortable.
I think of myself in the ER as being at the "beginning" of the continuum of care. Medical stabilization and/or safety from an unsafe situation is the primary focus in the ER. Other than helping the students I occasionally precept, I haven't seen or thought about a nursing dx since graduation, although the basic idea behind about a half dozen nursing dx's are inherent in the care I give. My world is about a lot of assessment, a lot of diagnostic testing, a lot of procedures, a lot of meds, and then moving on to the next crisis. I don't set "goals" for my patients other than to maintain VS and other parameters like blood sugar, or that they are either discharged to home or leave my ER still alive.
Someone who works in rehab, just for one example, might be viewed as being at the other end of the "continuum." They might see the final outcome of my ER patient whose left leg was traumatically amputated. By the time that nurse sees the patient, he/she is medically stable -- the major threats of hypotension & infection have passed. That nurse will ultimately see the patient's adjustment to a prosthesis and his/her re-learning to walk.
In between, that patient will have been cared for by med-surg and probably critical care nurses too.
Each of these "stages" of care are critical in their own right. But it takes different sets of skills and different states of mind to provide each type of care.
So, in my view, the fact that my real-life experience as a nurse doesn't really much resemble the 30-page care plans of nursing school addressing every aspect of the patient DOES NOT make nursing less rewarding.
I hope this is somewhat helpful in answering your question. Good luck to you!
Is it worth it?
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