Growing up, I always wanted to be either a Nurse or a Dental Hygienist. My first job as a teenager was in a dentist office so that is where the interest in dental hygiene started. I have always wanted to have a job where I help people so Nursing has been a close second.
So I grew up, got a career in retail, got married and started to live happily ever after. Shortly after I got married, my hours started getting cut because I had the audacity to start asking for days off here and there, if I requested one day off, I would only get 4 hours for the whole week. So I decided it was time for a career change and pursued my CNA. Fell in love with the field and decided to pursue an RN at my local community college. I quit work to peruse my RN full time and this, along with a lot of unforeseen expenses, generally poorly managing our money, and my inability to tell my husband "no" when he wanted things we couldn't afford because I didn't feel like I had a right to... Or he wouldn't listen to me because I wasn't contributing to the household (huge marital resentment but that is besides the point)... Forced me to stop perusing my career goals.
So I dropped out of Nursing school and started using my CNA for the first time. My first job being in LTC. WORST WORK EXPERIENCE EVER!
Don't get me wrong. I love being a CNA. I love being able to help the residents do things they can't do for themselves. There is nothing about the nature of the job that bothers me.
I hate that staffing is constantly such an issue. I hate that they make someone go home half way through each shift because of labor costs, and census, while they let people work ridiculous amounts of OT at time and a half because they don't know how to schedule coverage. No joke. For example on Christmas Day, afternoon shift, there are 3 CNAs scheduled when there should be a minimum of 7 with 1 person going home halfway through the shift. This isn't an isolated incident. It happens about half the time.
Sterile Technique is nothing like I learned in nursing school.
Nurses do not watch residents take their medications.
Residents rights are a joke.
The field is nothing like I imagined it to be.... The list goes on.
I'm not sure if all nursing homes are terrible places to work at. I have heard that they are all the same.
One thing that attracts me to nursing is the flexibility, and various places a nursing license can take me.
Things that defer me from going into nursing are the high patient load, the long shifts, the shift work, and the fact that I hate working in LTC, but will probably have to start out in LTC or Med-Surge (which I hear also sucks)
So this brings me to the point of the post. I am almost to a point where I can go back to school with or without my husbands help. I could make few more sacrifices and have a career in dental hygiene (the pre reqs were pretty much all the same, but i would have to commute or move 2 hours away to peruse this) but it would be easier and more convenient to peruse the nursing career.
Does it get better? Am I looking at things as CNA when as a nurse things are way better?
*****Does anybody have regrets about choosing nursing over another field?*****
