I'm sure other people have asked these same questions a few billion times, but I need to take my turn asking questions. And expressing a few worries.
I'm 30 and looking for a new career path. I've thought about going back to school for a teaching license, but I've also considered going to nursing school. I know I'd have to do a semester or so before even applying (my BA is in a communications field), and I'd want to do a BSN. My fear isn't that I wouldn't be good at it, but that I'd invest all that time and money into going to school, get bored after a semester or two, and move on to something else. (I've kind of got a track record with this sort of thing...) My frequent job-hopping has, in the past, been related to my excessive boredom or frustration with each of those jobs. I need something I actually am interested in and give a rat's butt about! I'm also pretty apprehensive about "friends" and relatives finding out I'm in nursing school and rolling their eyes and saying, "Oh, I'm sure THAT will last." I'm not someone who needs a lot of encouragement, but I really, really don't need a lot of discouragement, either. I know that if I hate it, then it's better that I get out as early as possible, but I'm really tired of people acting like I'm doing something wrong or I'm irresponsible just because I try a lot of dfferent things.
Oooookay. Well, there was a lot more to that than I thought there would be. Any suggestion for dealing with all that would be nice. Now on to the more concrete stuff.
I'm interested in working in schools, and I know that school nurses are badly needed in my state. The requirement are basically a BSN, an internship, and state board of ed. licensing, and a job is almost guaranteed. Do school nurses do much formal teaching, such as in health classes or the like? I imagine it changes from district to district and state to state, but in general, do they tend to do much classroom time? I think they do the whole "you're going to get your period" talk to the fourth-grade girls around here, or at least they did when I was in school, but I don't know if they do any other classroom work. Honestly, the addition of classroom time would be a bonus in my mind, but I could be looking at this all wrong.
What sorts of jobs do school nurses do in the summer? Could you get work in, say, hospitals, or would it be more like summer camps? Do school nurses get very involved with individual students, or is it more of a general public health thing?
How long are shifts in hospitals, in general? Is it organized like three 8-hour shifts, or is it 12-hour shifts?
How do patients usually treat their nurses? I've had "service" jobs that were just demeaning, because people felt like they were paying your salary, so they have the right treat you like crap. I'd hate to go back to that.
Also, t.v. shows usually show some animosity between doctors and nurses. Is that real, or just t.v. drama?
And, based on another post I read, how often do you do little basic are things for your patients, like helping them brush their hair or shave?
Part of the reason this stuff is on my mind is that I recently visited a friend in the hospital after she had major surgery, and she had a horrible experience with the nurses there. (She's in health care herself, so she was pretty objective about, and she still thought that most of them didn't know what they were doing.) Also, when I first walked into the hospital, I thought it was odd that so many people were wandering around the lobby in their pajamas... until I realized that those people were the nurses! Ugly, baggy scrubs, plastic clogs, sloppy ponytails. Not professional-looking, and as I later learned, not professional-acting, either. Maybe it's a little arrogant of me to think that I could do way better than that... but I'm pretty sure I could. Another young woman I know who's a nurse told me that she loves her job, but that she had to quit the last one because of the stress of dealing with nurses who hated their jobs! She said that whenever she acted happy, they acted like they had some kind of duty to bring her down.
Okay, sorry for the long post, but any commentary would be appreciated. I'd like to get some sort of plan formulated in time for the fall semester, and I'm having a little trouble making up my mind.
