In this article, I share some of my experiences prior to nursing school and look into the ways my views on the profession changed after reality knocked at my door.
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I just want to share my journey on how l got into nursing school and where I am now as a student.
Something happened in June 2009, I had only one year left of high school ahead of me and from there the pressure to choose a career from family and friends started to increase day by day. I was young and all I wanted to do was to travel therefore a course in tourism management was all I wanted to do, however, it was not considered a 'stable and high paying job' in their opinion.
My cousin is a nurse and at the time, even if she was always complaining about work, she was able to convince me to pursue a nursing career since from her perspective I had all the basics attributes to become a good nurse. She used to tell me that I was caring, patient and hardworking, therefore, I was going to be able to succeed and make everyone proud.
From that moment, it felt like I became obsessed with nursing and healthcare in general, I started watching tv programs such as Grey's Anatomy on a daily basis and I became immersed in conversations about the reasons why nurses are seen as 'angels' on earth.
I believed the stories about it being a high paying job and that satisfaction rate was always high.
It got to a point I saw a group of student nurses and professionals in their uniforms walking down the street and I started running to them just to ask about their experience in the program and field. For some reason, they all had only positive things to tell me,leaving out the challenges they encountered on a daily basis.
I was able to build this fantasy world in my mind thinking that all nurses are nice and that there was no such a thing as gossip or backstabbing in the 'caring profession' until I started school and reality hit me in the face.
Fast forward few years, after a series of rejection letters from Universities, I managed to get admission into a nursing program. During my studies, at some point, however, I started asking myself questions such as if the course I was attending was a matter of just passing exams or in some cases only learning about things that cannot be applied to real life situations.
Did I waste my time getting a loan for something that can never pay me as much as the loan I took out, unless if I work overtime and public holidays? Was I trapped into thinking I was going to have ' the good life career' everyone aspires? This came as an eye opener to me because in all those years of rejection from colleges my life revolved into preparing myself for nursing school, it was like I was mentally and physically thinking and reading about anything related to this field.
I am now in my second year of college and I have had clinical experiences in hospitals and different healthcare settings and I am always miserable especially before a twelve hour or a night shift. The facilities I have worked at are always short staffed, therefore my mentors have limited time to fully teach me the ropes of the job and it seems that management only keeps adding more work to already overworked nurses. Is this what I signed up for? Or the glam of being a nurse was just an illusion?
I am not a quitter and since I am not getting any younger I do not want to leave the program especially after all the time invested in it, however I am now in search of my true passion and would advise anyone thinking of going into nursing to not feel pressured into doing something you not sure about. Don't be like me and do listen to every part of a story not only the positive aspects of something. Life is too short to be miserable and settle just because is the norm. Please do share your opinion and let's have an open conversation about this topic.
