Would you recommend nursing to a 46 year old doing a career change?

I second TouyFL's comments. If you are up to staring over then go for it! The last thing we should do is turn away a smart, experienced professional. Yes you will have moments of frustration and feelings of helplessness. But that would be true for any type of career change. I too had a mid life career change but I left nursing - about 4 years ago.

I am now in management, over a department, with 20 employees, and a budget that is twenty times my pay. But you know what? Nursing is less stressful and I received more job satisfaction! And I worked trauma ER and SICU for 16 years. The for-profit, business world is cut throat and merciless! That's why they call it the rat race. Sometimes we don't realize what we have (and what is REALLY important) till we leave it. I am now preparing to return to nursing.

My husband is an RN too - he also changed careers from sales/management to nursing about ten years ago and he was in his mid 40's at the time. He handles it well and at least at the end of the day he can say that his work was not for naught. In nursing school he was the best student in the class and today he is very well respected by his co workers.

The only thing to consider is that the pay will be probably significantly less then you were used too. On average an Rn with a few years experience will make $40-60K/yr depending on location.

Are you in good enough financial shape to go to school and work part time as a nursing assistant? If so I would strongly recommend it. This will tell you pretty quickly if you can do the work and handle the stress of being a care taker.

Good luck