advice on Social worker stepping into the field of nursing

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Hi,

I recently graduated with my Bachelors in Social work and I would like to go for nursing(RN).I thought I was just going to go straight in to the Masters program for Social work but I have a real interest in working in hospitals. Does anybody have any advice or any thoughts?

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

You will need to complete a lot of hard science (meaning anatomy, chemistry, microbiology) befroe being considered for a nursing program. And social workers DO work in hospitals - I'm a little confused by that statement. Can you elaborate?

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Hi, yes they do but in order to work in a hospital I have to have my Masters. They are also giving the case management positions to Rns.

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Specializes in Cath/EP lab, CCU, Cardiac stepdown.

First I would say make sure you really want to do nursing as opposed to just really wanting to work in Hospital. It is a serious commitment that can be quite grueling but rewarding. There is a lot more hands on with involved and you will see some sights that can be quite shocking. If you are really committed to it then I suggest you looking for either accelerated bsn programs or straight bsn. Associates degree in nursing doesn't cut it anymore, it's hard to get hired with it alone. The prereqs are the sciences mentioned above usually along with psychology classes. Be prepared because nursing school in itself is quite a commitment, it is difficult and taxing on one's suicidal life usually.

On a side note, if you decide to do nursing, you may want to consider doing psych nursing. Good luck!

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I've worked in psych all of my career, and I've known a number of SWs who thought about going into nursing because of their perception that, in psych units, it looked (to them) like the nurses were doing pretty much the same as what they were doing, but getting paid a lot more for it. In every case I've been aware of, once those individuals looked into what would be involved in getting through nursing school and starting out in nursing practice, they quickly changed their minds.

You said you were planning on going into an MSW program, and then said that you want to go into nursing instead because you want to work in hospitals and working in hospitals (for social workers) requires an MSW. I'm confused. If you got the MSW, you would be able to work in hospitals. If you go into nursing, you will need a lot of bedside clinical nursing experience, providing personal care and dealing with all kinds of body fluids, etc., in order to be eligible for RN case manager and other "cushy" types of nursing positions. Are you really interested in getting into bedside nursing?

Best wishes for your journey!

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Thanks for your reply and yes I know it's a serious commitment and I'm ready for the journey and I'm excited.

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