2nd semester in RN program, ready to quit.

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Well it's my 2nd semester in a BSN program but I am really thinking maybe nursing isn't for me. I love reading about patho, A&P, and I made all A's in my science classes. But I dread clinicals. Like I can't sleep beforehand, I am miserable while there, and countdown the minutes until I get home. I also have only done med/surg. I did spend a day in the ER and found it really interesting. I am so far in I don't know what to do. ....I honestly picked nursing because I wanted to have a job when I graduated college with decent pay, and I love medicine. My friends think I am more the physician type, but I really don't want to stay in school that long, nor do I want the responsibility. Any advice would be wonderful!

Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Hi Mi Vida Loca: Thanks for the heads up! I was really looking forward to my clinical in OR as I am fascinated with the whole idea of going into someone's body to "fix" something. LOL!! and I really was debating between OR nurse or Forensic Nurse, since I also love the whole idea of assisting coroner with autopsies, but don't know where to start on that one either. I guess I will just figure it out later. thanks again!

It might be different for you. I know some classmates that love it. It just didn't seem like the nurses were hands on at all in the aspect you are talking about. I love forensic nursing as well and for the longest time my family thought I was going to be a coroner. My original passion was to be a forensic detective. Before all the TV shows. I went on a field trip to Quanitco VA where the FBI academy is at and was blown away. I ended up becoming a teen mom though 1.5 years after that though and my plans had to change. lol

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Have you looked into Prison or Jail nursing? I did my cultural project on it first semester and shadowed the med/pass nurse. Today I just did my focus their and worked in the Clinic with the PA. I also love the ER. I love the constant change of pace, the more objective nursing. The jail is just like that. In the jail pain is what the patient can prove, inmates are not catered too, it is always changing and always interesting.

Anyway, just throwing that out there. Our local jail the staff have a really good relationship with the director of medical, the deputies and with each other. Downfall to that, their is hardly any turnover so job openings are rare.

I've considered it actually. The state prisons here are unfortunately in crappy areas. Who wants a prison in a nice place, lol? Mostly I want it because I'm already vested in state retirement from my law enforcement career. I also love having 13 holidays and two weeks of annual leave time starting out, in addition to eight hours of sick leave each month. I never get sick so that's no good to me, but it's a nice benefit.

The thing about working as a prison nurse in this state is that I will most assuredly have to treat felons that I put there, lol.

A C120 registered nurse, which is an entry level nursing pay grade in this state is around $37,500 be it at the prisons, health department, VA, or dept. of human services. That's actually a good living in this state although I've made more. Ironically, I could easily apply for a lieutenant's position in the prison system due to my prior LE and supervisory/managerial experience and make as much money doing much less interaction with the inmates. You'd have to do with the corrections officers instead, and that'd actually be much more of a challenge, lol.

Another venue I've considered, and would like very much I think, is getting a job with the BOP via the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Military retirement and benefits. Dang fine if you ask me.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

We don't have any state prisons close by. We just have our Detention center. It's close to 600 beds. But my town doesn't have a lot of crime. We very rarely have murders. Maybe one every few years. We have the other crimes. It's a college town so we do have a lot of rapes. But anyway, it's not in a scary part of town. Shoot compared to the places I have lived around the country I don't think my city has a scary area. lol Anyway, so it's not as bad as I have heard the prisons can be, shoot I have never even heard of nurses being treated this well. Their has never been an incidence of violence on the medical staff at the facility.

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It might be different for you. I know some classmates that love it. It just didn't seem like the nurses were hands on at all in the aspect you are talking about. I love forensic nursing as well and for the longest time my family thought I was going to be a coroner. My original passion was to be a forensic detective. Before all the TV shows. I went on a field trip to Quanitco VA where the FBI academy is at and was blown away. I ended up becoming a teen mom though 1.5 years after that though and my plans had to change. lol

FBI....

My dream was to become a federal law enforcement officer. It still is. I specifically wanted to a Deputy U.S. Marshal. Sadly, I'm red-green color blind and am thus considered medically disqualified. The same applies to what I wanted to do in the military. I was going to do ROTC back in college and commission in. Got shafted on that as well.

Why am I in nursing school? The short answer is actually because I can't do what I want to do in life.

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We don't have any state prisons close by. We just have our Detention center. It's close to 600 beds. But my town doesn't have a lot of crime. We very rarely have murders. Maybe one every few years. We have the other crimes. It's a college town so we do have a lot of rapes. But anyway, it's not in a scary part of town. Shoot compared to the places I have lived around the country I don't think my city has a scary area. lol Anyway, so it's not as bad as I have heard the prisons can be, shoot I have never even heard of nurses being treated this well. Their has never been an incidence of violence on the medical staff at the facility.

So I gather you do work in a county jail..?

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

Yes, the closest prison I think was over 3 hrs away. I tried to shadow there for our project but none of my classmates in my group were willing to make the drive.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.
Change your major.

Nursing isn't medicine. :twocents:

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.
FBI....

My dream was to become a federal law enforcement officer. It still is. I specifically wanted to a Deputy U.S. Marshal. Sadly, I'm red-green color blind and am thus considered medically disqualified. The same applies to what I wanted to do in the military. I was going to do ROTC back in college and commission in. Got shafted on that as well.

Why am I in nursing school? The short answer is actually because I can't do what I want to do in life.

wow, Im sorry :(

what about prison/forensic nursing? unless you've already thought about that... :)

ETA: nevermind, I should have read some of the other posts!

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I can SO relate to what you write. I was in the BSN program at the community college (who had an affiliation with the state university: we took the same courses and tests as the Univ. but at comm.college tuition rates and graduated with the university degree: a sweet deal!) and would talk with students in the ADN program at the school and they would go on and on about how they loved their clinical days each week. Meanwhile, I'm thinking "Thank God I only have to do ONE clinical 1/2-3/4 day (I forget, but it wasn't a full 12 hr shift) per week", because I HATED and dreaded it. It was a 2nd career for me, starting at age 36, and if I didn't do nursing I had no other options I could think of. I was really worried because I'd gone to college once already and knew students studing education who, when they finally got into the classroom, found they hated teaching. And I didn't want that to be me, wasting lots of money and time and never using my new career.

Like you, I loved studying and particularly patho and A&P and even math (which I'd hated and been awful at earlier in my life/education), but didn't enjoy the patient care (bathing pts. esp.!). I was scared to death that my clinical instructions would find out how much I (didn't think I) knew: they always took my maturity and 4.0 grades as indicating I didn't need help, and rarely spent time with me.

Probably for lack of any other options, I stuck with it and my first job with in a NICU, thinking I'd be learning a lot from dealing with all the body systems, and teaching parents. I was fired from that job after 18 mos. because apparently I couldn't put my knowledge into use (more a lack of confidence on my part, in part due to a bad preceptor match-up - and inexperienced first-time preceptor- as acknowledged by and admitted by the unit Manager. (I was ready to leave myself at that point due to unfriendly atmosphere and philosophical/ethical issues I was having with the religious hospital culture & trying to save some of these babies, and lack of parental presence that I'd anticipated, during my (night) shifts.)

Anyway, I quickly found a job on a cardiac unit: it's now 20 years later and I'm still there and still enjoy nursing.... for the most part! It gratifying to have moments when you know you've done well by your patient, and even better when THEY tell you so. I love the schedule (still working night shift: we don't do baths on night shift LOL), getting paid for the actual hours I put in, the pay, the variety, and being able to leave my work at the timeclock!!

There are SO many options and paths to take with nursing so I encourage you to keep with it. With your prior teaching experience, have you considered being a nurse educator? Or nurse admin.? or flight nurse? or...... Lots of ways to do nursing w/o being bedside. Leave that for those who enjoy it; not everyone is cut out for it. But who knows, you may surprise yourself with a little more school and experience under your belt, just as I did.

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