Re: Male nurse career advice

Originally Posted by TLCinCICU

Nursemike - you and I think a lot alike. I would enjoy working by your side. I've had those same warm-fuzzies when a patient & his/her family asks "Are you back tomorrow?". You're also right about teamwork being such huge part of it - including the doctors, your peer nurses, and the aides/techs. I never even imagined the nurse having such a large collaborative role in a patient's medical care while I was in my little community college nursing program back in West KY. I work with some amazing doctors who have tremendous respect for bedside nurses.

What does frustrate me is that it often seems we do more to satisfy TJC and third-party payers than we do the poor soul that lies in the bed we're assigned...

Yet at the end of 99% of my days, I come home feeling that I've made a difference - even while my feet, lower legs and perhaps my back, ache. My education, my skills, and my instincts have helped someone on the return road to health. I'm glad I made the choice back in 97 to return to school and get an RN license.


In comparison to dentistry, I don't have to run my own practice and I don't have to be available (usually) "in case of emergency". A dentist also rarely has someone in his chair that is truly happy to see him.

Same here. It took me a little while to figure out that TJC probably refers to what I fondly call "the Joint Commission AHO's." (I know they do an important job, but they still give us hemorrhoids.)

As for private practice, I did the self-employment thing as a carpenter. There are rewards to being your own boss. Working for someone else, you do the very best you can, often contrary to your employer's will, and when it's all done you sign their name to it. But in all my life, the last thing I ever wanted to be was a bookkeeper. So my advice to anyone wanting to be their own boss is to be sure to make enough money to hire a bookkeeper. Also, your boss will still be a jerk, at times, but you'll feel a lot less inclined to complain to others about it.

Re: Male nurse career advice

yes in a hospital you have to learn how to defend yourself and also be confident that you know what your doing based from experience and some of my friends some co-workers from hospitals tend to gang up on you when they don't like you because some people become judgemental easily

Re: Male nurse career advice

whew, all the time i thought i was the only one who feels the way you guys feel. Though not yet a nursing degree holder, but I'm on my last year of my schooling. Some people put me down, telling me all im gonna do is wipe other people's crap. It gets me annoyingly mad . I don't fire back cause i understand that they got tiny brains to comprehend that nurses do more than wiping other people's crap . One of my younger cousins ask me for advice about getting a nursing degree, i told him that he got to start liking books because he's gonna be reading a lot of it. I shared to him one thing that i learned from my internship that when you get into nursing, you'll see things that ordinary people don't see everyday. Ranging from unusual patient cases to trauma victims up to real life drama. One of those drama i learned from is the value of "hope", how one family loses their mind and burst into tears when a family member had a code blue and ends into a flat line, and another family who had the same thing but didn't burst into tears because they drew hope out of their religious belief (i hope i dont instigate any religious debate). I learned from my internship to practice restraint so as not to end up in court because i smack some patient or family members for being a**holes. But the best thing i learned after all the hardwork and sacrifices i have to do to get my nursing degree(wish me luck because im about to graduate next year) is that everytime i see my client/patient getting well especially when i see those pqrst waves running again, i know i did something for that person to be living again.

Re: Male nurse career advice

Today I looked after a Pt who was driving a car involved in a single vehicle rollover, her parents were also admitted to hospital and another family member was killed, as you can imagine the grief and guilt were pretty intense. During my shift my interactions with her started with basic "mental status checks"and developed into short conversations. Imagine the feeling when I went in to check on her she was laughing with friends about one of our conversations.

That is the feeling that makes all the bad stuff related to nursing pale in insignificance.

And to all those nurses who think that it is poor Pt care, telling a Pt to practice an ëxorcist" voice to match their beaten up face and go to peads to scare the kids. Hasn't tried it on the right Pt.

Re: Male nurse career advice

When I was alot younger I had problems getting along with management also. I thought it was because I was just not a "conformist". As I look back I now know it was because I had poor people skills and thought I knew everything better than my coworkers. If someone is not a conformist and gets fired alot for not being able to get along with others I would not recommed nursing. NO WAY - NO HOW! In my mind it raises some serious red flags.

Getting along with your supervisors, co-workers and butt head patient/family members is an absolutley ctitical skill for being a nurse. You cannot be a loner/non-conformist/do it your way person in nursing. If you cant bite your tounge, keep smiling and do your job in spite of what you think of your supervisors, don't waste your time going to nursing school.

I think as a Dentist you would have more autonomy and get to have things your way more often even though I believe you would find out you still work for someone else. (your customers/patients)

Re: Male nurse career advice

Go into nursing. If you decide to go into another MD/PhD program such as denistry, medicine or vet school a nursing degree well you have 4 years to think about it. Colleges do a disservice to students who are pre-med, pre-denistry etc. by pushing them into Biology b/c biology students are cheap to edcuate and therefore profitable. The problem is if you don't make it you are stuck with a Biology degree and what good is that going to do?

You'll get a better edcuation in medicine and even denistry by going into a 4 year health care field such as Nursing, medical technology, physician assistant etc.