Discouraged from pursuing Nursing...

[mimi26]

Hello all,

I have found this website's forums and articles extremely helpful over the past few months, however, now I am posting myself with hopes of receiving some insight from practicing Canadian nurses.

I am 20 years old and up until very recently had my heart set on nursing as my career path. After graduating high school I have been working several dead-end retail/customer service jobs at minimum wage. I finally said 'enough' and decided I needed a real career and not just a job. I considered several different options for a Bachelors degree (which is what I eventually would like to complete at minimum) but nursing immediately caught my interest for the following reasons:

- Options to specialize in different areas and to work in varying settings

-**Helping people!**

- Excellent pay for level of education

- Options to upgrade skills such as pursuing a Masters degree to become a NP

All of these reasons were enough to make me want to pursue nursing. I have even registered for my nursing pre-requisite courses at a college for this fall. However, recently I have found that I am feeling a bit discouraged. I have spoken to several nurses and I find many of them are burnt out or seem unhappy. My friend's sister has been a nurse for 15 years and she even mentioned to me to look into dental hygienist school because it is a less demanding job both physically and mentally, yet still warrants a comparable salary. I have also been reading that the job market in BC is over saturated and it is difficult for new grads to find placement. Others have told me horror stories about the way nurses are treated by patients and even doctors. The bedside nursing stories are not too appealing either but are something I can deal with.

So as of now I am a bit leery of moving forward with my plans to attend school this fall. To be honest, the thought of shift work and bedside nursing does not deter me. However, my long-term career goals were to move up the ladder and eventually find a position in management or specializing in an area of interest such as Pediatrics. (Although I do realize that would take several years.) I am now wondering if this is a realistic expectation for nursing as a career or if it is more realistic to expect to be working in a long-term care facility or something similar and having little hopes of advancement?

Does anyone have any words of advice for me? For those currently employed in Canada, if you had to do it all over again, would you?

My other area of interest would be health administration and I am considering enrolling in a Bachelors of Business Administration or similar program.

For those that read this entire post, thank you! I am utterly confused about the next step in my education and career path, I feel like I am losing time and can't waste another year pondering... Any insight would be appreciated!

[joanna73, BSN, RN]

I've been a nurse for 2 years. It's what I chose to do, after having worked in other fields. I'm not discontented by any means (although I do despise overtime...so I quit working overtime), however, if I had to do this over...I would pick physio therapy, recreation therapy, or dental hygenist. You're helping people, and making more money with better hours, for a lot less stress.

[mimi26]

Wow, finally found my way back to these boards!

I want to thank all of you that were so thoughtful in your responses and apologize for not responding right away. I have read through all your postings for a second, third, fourth time and have taken all of it to heart.

So, here is where I am at now. After some long and hard consideration on my part I withdrew from my college courses for September as I thought business/administration/health administration was a path I would like to explore and was still leery about entering a nursing program. I started a full time office job in Inside Sales/Office Administration and was hoping this would not only help me gain valuable work experience in Administration but to also help me gain insight into my future career path. Although the pay is decent and this is a role I could see myself filling for a few years to come, I am realizing this is not the 'career' I envisioned. Perhaps monotonous office work is not for me - I crave human to human interaction and can see in a few years time I will not feel fulfilled. I am realizing about myself now that I need to feel as if I am contributing to something larger and helping others (especially in the community in which I live.) So in a roundabout way, this has all led me back to nursing.

Although I have set myself back a semester from withdrawing from my courses, I see this as an opportunity. My main goal right now is to get some volunteer experience in a health care setting to see if this is REALLY what I want to do! I have hopes to volunteer through this fall and if I still feel the same way, I will start to enroll in college to complete the BSc Nursing pre-reqs in January.

Thank you all again and I would love to hear any other ideas, comments, or insights you may have. Or even personal stories on your journey to becoming a nurse would be great to hear. If I do enter a nursing program then I will be 25 or 26 when I graduate depending on how long the pre-requisites take me to complete. It's sad to say I feel far behind my other siblings that have already completed their bachelor's degrees by the time they've reached the age of 22. Perhaps I am just a late-bloomer! :-)

Edited to add: I should also mention that I have been researching many other career options in the health care/social services field. A few that had initially interested me that I had looked into - Social Worker, Youth Protection Worker, Counselor, Midwife, HIMT, Nursing Unit Clerk, and probably a few more that I cannot recall right now. I will continue to do some research on the various fields and perhaps try to gain some volunteer experience. It is true as many of you stated though that every career has its pros and cons. My mother manages a treatment center for youth and is employed by the health authority, and my sister is completing her masters degree to become a clinical counselor. So as you can see I have been largely influenced by those close to me and realize that I too want a career that is just as fulfilling! Anyways, I will stop yapping now. Maybe I will update you all once I have some volunteer and real world experience in the health care setting to see if I am still feeling as optimistic!

[loriangel14, RN]

Don't worry about your age. I was almost 42 when I graduated.