What inspired you to be a nurse?

[dc1994]

My inspiration comes from growing up with an epileptic mother and when my grandfather got sick when I was 15. My grandfather had leukemia and Parkinson's disease. He was put on hospice, first at home, and then inpatient. I was with him the entire time, and seeing the way the nurses cared for him and our family inspired me to become a nurse. Five days after being admitted to an inpatient facility, he passed away. My mom was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was 8 years old, after she had a bout with meningitis. My father and I have been her primary caregivers since, and even though her seizures are relatively well controlled, I have witnessed them and cared for her many times.

When I think about being a nurse (everything from HOPEFULLY getting the acceptance letter to my program to my personal experiences) it brings tears to my eyes. I can't think of anything I'd rather do than help people the way I've seen my loved ones helped. I was never one of those kids who thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn't realize it until I got older and went through some very difficult things. I can remember going to my school counselor and principal in high school and telling them, "I want to be a nurse." They smiled, said they knew I could do it, and set me on the right track. I'm now 19 and getting ready to apply to nursing school in January. I'm excited, nervous, scared, and pretty much every other emotion there is. At times, I still doubt myself and wonder if I'm smart enough to do it. I may not be the smartest, but one thing I definitely do have that can't be taught is compassion.

So, when did you realize that nursing was what you wanted to do? Was it an experience?

[windsurfer8, BSN, RN]

I dated a girl who was a nurse. Became interested and knocked out a BSN. Pretty good gig. The absolute best part for me is the freedom it allows. You can live anywhere..Maine, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Arizona. I have lived all over.

[lpn2B2016]

My mother had kidney failure. I spent a lot of times in the hospital with her before she passed away. The way her nurses at Davita treated her was awesome. Those ladies were really family. They were my first inspiration. Then I became pregnant with my youngest child. A young OB nurse just blew me away. It was set in stone then what I wanted to do. 8 years later, here I am at it once again.

[umbdude, MSN, APRN]

Nursing was never on my radar when I was younger. The way I was brought up, guys become engineers, computer programmers, accountant, doctors, and lawyers. So I ended up in finance.

I was never an extrovert, but I really do love people in general. So at one point I started volunteering as an ESL teacher and really enjoyed it. After that, I spent a couple years doing HIV/AIDS educational outreach at nightclubs, and phone outreach for people who are HIV+ or living with AIDS. Although I was climbing the ladder of my finance career, I loved interacting with people from different backgrounds. I decided to change when I couldn't see myself doing something I didn't care about for another 20-30 years.

I explored different careers (mostly healthcare, social and hard science). I actually created a spreadsheet with various careers and factors important to me, and assigned weights and score to each. These factors ranges from ease of entry (how hard to get in), age factor, and interest level in the subject, to salary, possibility of interacting with diverse spectrum of people, and purposefulness. Nursing ended up being the top. After working as a home health aide taking care of an elderly patient and finishing first semester of nursing school, I felt even more confident about this career choice.

[Leonardsmom,LPN]

When I was younger I had never thought about nursing as a career, I wanted to be a teacher, or a veterinarian, or a doctor. By the time I had graduated high school I decided to pursue teaching. Started taking classes at the community college and even had transferred to a 4 year university and completed a few semesters when I decided that teaching wasn't what I actually wanted to do. Stopped going to school and spent the next several years flip flopping about what I wanted to do. Thought about linguistics for a little while and decided against it since learning other languages really doesn't come all that naturally to me. Started pursuing photography which I love and have natural talent for, but soon realized the actual difficulty of making it work as a career to live off of. After a few more years I thought about nursing, started taking some of my pre-reqs for the program and got a job at a LTC facility that had training available onsite for CNA certification. At that time I was working full-time midnight shift and ended up failing my classes that semester. I stopped going to school but continued to work as a CNA. After 6 years I have decided that I truly do want to pursue a career in nursing and am starting back to school this summer semester. I have 3 semesters worth of pre-reqs to complete going part time and will be applying for the nursing program come next spring of 2015. It has been a bit of a journey to finally reach the place that I know what I want to do, and sometimes I do wish that I had gone back sooner. Even with that there have been a lot of valuable experiences that I have had and lessons learned that will make me a better nurse for it.

[floatnurse29]

I realized it when I was a little girl. I wanted to help people but I also wanted to go to graduate school and knew this would be a great stepping stone in the medical field.