[butterflies135]

i have a question. i recently started back to school am doing prereqs for ns. i have a coworker that i dearly do love and today at work she told me that she didn't think i would be truly happy as a nurse because one i am to caring and would get to attatched to people and i have a need to want to fix people. isn't that what nursing is all about? being caring and compasionate and wanting to make people better. her other concern was i have a huge fear of dead people which other nurses i have spoke with ahve said you get over. she thought i should look more into social welfare or psychology so i could work w/ the living. but i really want to work with people and not at the srs building no offennse just not my thing and i have a family so 6+ yrs of school just isn;t in the plains. ireally want to be a nurse does her concern sound legite or should i just ignore her and keep going? sorry to go on and on. any advice helpful. thanks

[caliotter3]

Your friend probably means well but she can't live your life for you. You have to make the decisions and take the actions that you feel will make you a happy and productive human being just as you would not presume to tell her how to live her life. JMO

[Babs0512]

I think you should do what you think is best for you. It is your life to live. You can thank your friend for her concern, and you appreciate her friendship, and then choose the direction you'd like to move toward.

Good luck

God bless

[kcochrane]

I agree, you have to do what is best for you. Caring and attachment are good qualities of a nurse. It also ok to want to fix things as long as you are realistic to just what you can fix. And yes, nursing should take care of your fear of dead people, it did for me.
Good luck.

[Tweety]

she didn't think i would be truly happy as a nurse because one i am to caring and would get to attatched to people and i have a need to want to fix people. isn't that what nursing is all about?

Yes and no. There's a difference being being caring and compassionate and wanting to help people get better and becoming attached and wanting to fix them.

Having compassion, caring and empathy are the conerstones to a good nurse. This must be balanced by some detachment, rather than attachment, because at the end of the day we need to leave and tend to our own needs and the needs of our families.

We are there to help them to attend their maximum level of wellness, not fix them. Patients come to us with a myriad of problems: ill health, mental illness, family problems, money problems, addiction, noncompliance, just to name a few. We have to know that in an 8 or 12-hour shift we are not going to fix them.

By all means, please become a nurse, because we need people like you. But don't blow your friend off, because she sounds like a good friend that knows you. Stop to think that you might have some issues that you need to work on to help you become the best nurse and person you can be.

[talaxandra]

While I agree with Tweety - is your coworker a nurse? How well does she know you? It's true that some pople can't manage to transition from caring about and attaching to patients, and rapidly burn out, but most of us learn how - and some of us never have that problem in the first place. I think that being open to it as a possiblity, as you are, is a huge step in the right direction.

Depending on the field, you actually might be able to fix people, at least in the short term. And as you encounter a range of experienced you may find that your idea of what "fix" means changes - it doesn't necessarily mean cure.

Whatever area of nursing you go into, death will play a part; in those specialties where it's least common it's usually more devastating. We live in a death-averse culture, so it can be difficult but most of the young nurses I've worked with have found the reality of caring for people near death, and after death, less distressing than they feared. And unless you're working in a morgue or path lab you will be working with the living.

Athough there's some overlap, psychologya nd social work are very different from nursing, and having an interest in and affinity for one doesn't mean you'll be interested in the other - I'd be a dreadful social worker, and a terrible psychologist ("right, I've heard enough - here's what you have to do")but I think I'm a pretty good nurse.

[Tweety]

Good point talaxandra, that becoming a good self-actualized nurse is a process that can be learned. We all go through a process where we toss out what works and learn to improve what does.

We all need to find balance in how we deliver care.

For example some of us to have to learn how to detach with empathy, and how to leave work at work. Others like myself, have to learn to take victory in small everyday things. Nothing to me is more exciting that making a difference, be it big i.e. saving a life, or small such has easing someone's pain and anxiety.

[talaxandra]

Exactly - and there are some people who aren't able to learn the art of detachment while retaining empathy. They either detach completely or get emotionally burned out. Being aware that it's possible to get too attached to a particular patient helps, as does being open to the idea that this might be that time you get a little too involved. If you're lucky your colleagues pick up on it and let you know; if you're smart you listen and evaluate whether or not they're right.

Originally Posted by Tweety

Others like myself, have to learn to take victory in small everyday things.

One of the best things I was ever told in nursing, something that has shaped my picture of my day-to-day work ever since, was from another student, really early on in my training. I'd had a terrible shift and was bleeding distress all over the place when she said "Did you make a positive difference to anyone's day?" And now that's my definition of a good shift - and I don't have many bad ones.

[butterflies135]

thanks everyone for the advice. i don't plan on ditching her as a friend actually the opposite, i do value her opinion and today we discussed it more. no nether one of us are nurses actually we are hairstylist and i;m the only one going to school to become a nurse. she sees how i visit w/ my clients and care about them and is worried i won't get that fullfillment out of nursing and i think she is very wrong. also she had a worry that the would not be room for advance schooling and i totally told her that there is always room for advancement in school after all my total goal is to become an np. thanks again everyone for the advice this is just a little more background on the situation.

[Tweety]

Good luck to you!

None of us are born perfect nurses, but being aware of our strengths and weaknesses (and listening to others) is imporotant.