No needle nursing?

Nurses General Nursing

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Hi! This is my very first post so im not exactly sure how this works, but I have been trying to figure out what I might want to do as a proffesion. Im only in high school but I love helping people and especially children or babies:) Anyways, I have been thinking about nursing lately but wasnt sure if i could get over my huge fear of needles!!! Is there ANY type of nurse who doesnt give needles? Or should I choose a different career?

Specializes in Pediatrics, Step-Down.

One more thing to add unrelated to needles... don't limit yourself to pediatrics right away! Almost my entire 90 person nursing class started out thinking they wanted to do peds. At the end only 5 of us really wanted to do it (I actually wanted to do adult burn ICU when I first started school and now I am absolutely in love with pediatrics). You have to deal with kids who are dying, debilitating congenital disorders, parents who are very very nervous, and kids who think you are the worst thing that ever happened to them because you are wearing scrubs. You have to be willing to do CPR on a child, pin a child down to get an IV into them, and provide end-of-life care to a child and their family. With that said, pediatrics is an amazing specialty. You see the best of the best and the worst of the worst. You see kids finally get heart transplants and premies who grow up to live normal lives. As a pediatric nurse, I would love to have you join my specialty some day. But don't limit yourself to that just yet. Experience everything that nursing has to offer (and believe me, there's a lot!). Be open minded, learn everything you can learn, and choose your specialty later on. And once again, don't worry about the needles ;-)

Specializes in LTC, wound care.

I felt the same way as you at your age, however, as soon as I got into the lab, first quarter, learned how to do it, it was a breeze, and you know what? It doesn't hurt you at all! You will be fine...

When I was young & in high school I was absolutely terrified of needles. I would almost pass out when I had to go to the doctor in fear that I would be given a shot or they would have to draw blood. I am now 26 and just got done with my first semester of nursing school and while I still do not like having blood drawn from me, it is MUCH different to be the one that holds a needle. I thought it would bother me giving injections and starting IVs but you are more concentrated on performing the skills correctly rather than the needle itself. To me, it has been one of those mind-over-matter things- did I really not want to live my dream because of a fear? To me, the answer was no. If you want to get over your fear of needles, I would recommend looking on youtube how to give injections/start IVs. The more you see it done, maybe the less fearful you will be.

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