Hi everyone,
I have been reading through allnurses forums for several months now and was unable to find any current thoughts on a big question I have for all of you already in the nursing field. I have been considering going back to nursing school (I currently have a BA + 6 years of work experience in a different field) for awhile now - I love everything the field has to offer from patient care, to flexibility, the hospital environment, and subject material. I have spent a lot of time shadowing different people in the medical community and feel that nursing is the place where I would like to work the most. However, I am concerned about job prospects. I have heard/read a lot about nursing schools being jammed up (due to teacher/school shortage) and I can't quite get a feel for whether or not nurses are being hired now (most of the past posts on this topic date around 2009/09 but I am interested in the current market). I'm sure it is place dependent, but most of my friends in the field started working as nurses 6-10 years ago. I am curious about how difficult it is/was for any of you to find jobs and if any of you had difficulty getting into nursing school. There seems to be a lot of conflicting news out there concerning nursing unemployment rates/job forecasting. I am absolutely interested in this field for the right reasons, and am not considering changing paths depending on placement, but I would like to get a more realistic feel for the time-frame/expectations starting out in this field (I am specifically interested in Emergency Medicine but welcome all thoughts and replies in all fields!). Thank you in advance for any/all thoughts!