A Nursing Career Over 50

groovycindy · Aug 24, 2008

I am 51 and feel called to become a Nurse. I have a BA- I graduated in 1980. What is the best path for me to pursue a career as a nurse? Am I too old - I feel like I am in the prime of my working career! I have no experience in Nursing but lots in working with people.Any advice is appreciated.

pattylpn54, LPN · Aug 25, 2008

groovycindy

you're never too old. i'm 54 and graduated school june 13th & got my lpn licence 8/8/08. if i can do it anyone can. go with your feelings & good luck

A6fan · Aug 25, 2008

I'm 50 and just getting started with Excelsior after 20 years in the Army as an 18D and then being "retired" for 7 years. There are many ways to practice nursing - certainly there is a place for older newbies!

lifeisgood2008 · Aug 29, 2008

After 30+ years in retail management, I begin my new career next Tuesday as I enter this falls LPN program at the age of 57.

jbtampa · Sep 2, 2008

I am a newly licensed 54 year old nurse. Turn downs and no call backs from interviews as a respiratory therapist were brutal. The blond new grad hottie always got the job I once got at interview. So, nursing is, praise God, different. School, however, was a bit of a shock. Senior moments in a classroom of kids in their twenty somethings--priceless. At graduation I was bestowed the Florence Nightingale Award and was first by months to pass boards..welcome!! :smokin:

Student InNJ · Jun 29, 2009

It's a great idea...that's why I'm doing it. I'm a 55 male, now taking my prereqs. I have a B.A. and a M.S., and need to do something different. It all goes well I'll start school in 2010 and be hitting the job market in 2012. Good Luck to you. Feel free to email me privately.

Shenanigans, RN · Jun 30, 2009

There was a guy who started when he was 58 after a life long career of being an accountant. He made it.

There was also a lady in my class who started when she was 65, she was a few sandwiches short of a picnic and was clinically very, very dangerous. She finished too.

Of course, I'm from NZL, a blind gorilla with no arms could get into some of our schools. >_

nkara, CNA · Jun 30, 2009

It's absolutely possible. I work with a nurse who left the financial world and received her RN license at the age of 50.

I'm kinda in the same boat. I left the mortgage business and now I'm pursuing my RN license. Just starting with pre-req's so I'm hoping by 45- 50 I'll have my license ..

I look at it this way. I'll still have at least 20 more years of working left in me at that point?

jc3015 · Jul 6, 2009

I became an LPN at 54 and will begin my local RN bridge program in August. Go for it. j

rgar98 · Jul 9, 2009

Hello,

I just turned 64 and retired from teaching high school biology for 39 years. I had to retire due to a contract I made with my school board 5 years ago. But, I'm not ready to retire and nursing seemed to be a logical new career for me. I have a BA in biology and a MS in physiology. The school I applied to would not accept my prereq courses because they were taken over 10 years ago and they were not swayed by the fact that I taught the very course as an adjunct many times (anatomy/physiology), at the very same school I was applying to! I wrote the president of the school and the dean and finally my courses were accepted and I was eventually granted acceptance to the school starting this Fall.

So now begins my tenure as a minority: an old, male nursing student; I'm looking forward to it. What I'm not looking forward to is being a classmate of some of my former students, which is very possible.

Good luck with your career decisions.

RG

Snoopy54321 · Sep 16, 2009

hello!

I really encourage older workers go back to nursing if that is their dream.

I am just wondering how many of them found jobs in the hospital or nursing

homes.

I have nurses friends at their 50 could not find jobs at all for 1 year.

I am curious it is their age or this lousy economy. People often

told me you should have connection; May be that helps too.

snoopy_nurse

getchris · Sep 16, 2009

There is most definitley age discrimination in nursing. If you are over 50 you will have a tough time finding a job. Electronic application submission allows them to use a database to search for candidates under 40. Do everything you can to not divuldge anything that will reveal your age. It's a bunch of crap but it is a fact, no question.