I am a first year nursing student and just started my real clinical in a nursing home. The nurses are LPNs. I was placed with one that was very helpful as far as teaching me the correct way to do things and giving me many opportunities to do them. However, she was very negative about the profession. I appreciate her insight but she said "don't stop here, work in administration," "your life goal wasn't to work weekends and miss your family's Christmas was it?", "RNs barely make more than me and you're putting yourself at this much risk for what, 40k?"
I've heard all this before but I think the accumulation of hearing so many people unhappy is starting to make me wonder if this is right. I'm fairly certain I will continue on to nurse practitioner or admin or something like that as I love school and am usually good at it. I just need to know, is anyone actually happy being a floor nurse for once? I know there are many negative things pulling you away from patient care but does the good outweigh the bad? Do you think that nurse felt that way because she was in a nursing home and maybe because she was LPN as I know they have a hard time defending their position?