does age REALLY matter?

CTPCTstudent · Aug 8, 2008

Thank you to everyone who took the time to post their support for those who go back to school at the ripe old age of...(sigh) 50! I have been debating whether to go to nursing school now that my kids are grown and out of the house and I can financially make it work. You all have helped me to make my decision as I wondered how someone in their 50's would be received by the younger group.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!:redbeathe

To the obviously younger person who started the original post - being prejudiced against someone's age is just as bad as being prejudiced by someone's skin color. Give older people and chance - then if they can't "cut" it or you don't like them, that's okay. Just make your decisions based on facts. Good luck to you! :banghead:

digbyzoom · Aug 8, 2008

My story...I graduated with my BSN after 5 years at 50. I supported all of my schooling myself. I prepared by taking refresher adult ed courses in chemistry etc before I started my prereqs. I am now 54 & just switched to working 8 hours days as a PHN in Hospice/Palliative care after working 12 hour nights shifts since graduating.

I think ANYONE who wants/can & is willing to do what we do, keep the learning curve fresh & know that nursing is SO much more that a "job" should be encouraged to go for it...at ANY age...good luck to you...

whodatnurse · Aug 8, 2008

I have a sister who was, literally...the first baby boomer, born on January 1, 1946. (Okay...she wasn't THE very first person born that year...but her near 4:00 AM arrival put her among the first several thousand, for sure.) Anyway...this post reminds me of a story my mother told me of when my aforementioned sister graduated as class salutatorian from high school in 1963 and was headed off to college to major in chemistry (practically unheard of for a woman then), that everyone in town kept saying to my parents:

"You're wasting your money sending a girl to college! She's just going to get married and it will all have been for nothing!"

I thank God for the boomers. They reinvented old, tired-out notions then...and they're STILL reinventing old, tired-out notions today!

itybits · Aug 8, 2008

That post is really sad. After I had my 4th child (I had been a stay at home mom for 15 years!) I was 36 and didn't know what to do with my life. I felt it was "too late" for me to be a nurse. But I trolled this website for weeks looking at other people's comments. Based on what I read, I gained the confidence to try. 18 months later I'm a 4.0 student with a choice between 2 scholarships. I hope hope hope that no one read that post that was in my same position.

Good for you nontradstudent! I don't think anyone that read the original post would give it any consideration except that it speaks worlds about the lack of wisdom of the writer.

wahdidah · Aug 8, 2008

Well, I guess I'm in the minority here. I think age does really matter, if you're going to be a bedside nurse. There are things I can't physically do as well as I could 25 years ago when I started in nursing. That's just the simple fact of aging and I am in excellent shape and exercise and take care of myself. I can't imagine starting in nursing now. However, that's not really fair of me to say, b/c I've been in nursing for 25 years and I know what I'm in for. It might be easier if I wasn't a nurse and really had no clue about what I would be facing.

I'm very glad that you guys have had such positive experiences with the newer 'older' nurse. I don't mean to offend......I put myself in the older nurse category, but I think of myself as a seasoned older nurse instead of a newbie. I work in a large metropolitan area in a fast pace specialty ICU. The only 'older' nurses worth their salt in my unit are the ones who've been doing it since they were younger. The newbie older ones just haven't been able to cut it. I have yet to meet a new older nurse who can run circles around me. To be fair, many of the younger newbies can't cut it either. The younger newbies fall apart when they get a difficult assignment and cry like 3 yr olds about how 'unfair' their assignment is.....something I would have never dreamt of doing at their stage in the game.....back then it was called baptism by fire. The older newbies are more mature and have the benefit of life experience but in my facility it seems like they're the ones who are out more often with work-acquired back injuries. To be fair, the ICU I work in is the most difficult and challenging one I've ever worked in and I don't know if I could have survived there when I started out in nursing. So maybe management shouldn't hire so many newbies for a unit that is that difficult. But with the shortage...that's not going to happen.

That being said, in all my years, I have worked with a few older newbies who have been excellent nurses and I would let them take care me or my family members....but overall, I think it's a physically demanding job for someone to go into at an advanced age. Not impossible, but challenging. Heck, I think it's a physically demanding job for someone my age who's been doing it forever. Nursing could be a little less physically taxing if we had proper staffing and adequate amounts of ancillary staff, but then I'm so tired of saying that, knowing full well, it's never going to happen!

SunnyCaRN · Aug 8, 2008

And so my question is, do you think that person's spot would have been better off to a younger person who could aleast work MORE than 15 years in nursing before it's like, "oh, I can't no longer catch up with all the action?" I mean, we are in a nursing shortage, and we have enough nurses retiring as it is...to now have new nurses that won't really last that long in the field.

The reality of the situation is you will probably only work about 10 years. If you are planning a family, you are probably going to take time off and move out of the work force for a while. When you have a little more life experience you will learn that you will be a better nurse because now you can deal with so many more things. You will actually have more compassion. As for doing more there are a lot of unhealthy 20 somethings out there, I think the better question is are they healthy or unhealthy -age really doesn't have anything to do with it, health does. I hope you will learn on your journey through life not to be so stuck on age, it really will be to your advantage in about 5 years.

basqgal · Aug 8, 2008

Wow! I thought we were living in "modern times"!!! I am 41 years old and preparing to enter the nursing program. DOes that make me an antiquity??? I am personally insulted by such a remark. I had young kids in some of my pre-req classes that quite frankly I wouldn't want anywhere near my loved ones in a hospital setting.

I was one of those young kids 20 years ago and I was nowhere near ready to take care of someone elses needs.

Hey writer... try raising 3 kids into college,2 in grade school, a husband, run a household AND go to school full time. We are not as decrepit as you might think. We may know more about the REAL world than most. :yeah:

quotetheraven · Aug 8, 2008

I came in this morning to read some posts while having coffee. My best friend of 44 years is coming in from out of state tommorow to spend my birthday with me. 54 years old. wow. I have been accepted into nursing school and am waiting, like so many, to be called. I read your post. Actually, it did not offend me, but it did make me laugh. I have been the oldest in all my classes so far. I have top of the class grades, worked rings around the "younger crowd" and always the one the teacher, who's usually in the "older crowd" asked to help her out with my classmates, one way or the other. I have raised two children, served in the US Army as a Sgt, raised a husband, and cared for all the older memebers of my family. Buried my parents, uncle, and one child. I don't faint at the sight of blood, don't have any "young" issues. No monthly cramps, not going to get pregnant, don't have to take off time to take care of kids, not going to have boyfriend issues or marital issues (I have raised him right) Know where I have been and where I am going. I have been the one my classmates vent to, the one they come too when the going has gotten rough, I have supported them, encouraged them and helped them. I have life experience, that can only be gained from having been around for awhile. My family live to be in their 100's, at 54, I feel like I have many useful years yet and will work, till they give me a cake and show me the door. I will be, a very good nurse. I am not old, I am complete.

Protonprimary · Aug 8, 2008

If I take the original poster's question, not as a personal statement about the abilities of any individual, but as a question about capacity planning for the nursing profession in general, I am reminded of a number of factors that would go into making that judgment. I don't know the answers to these, only raising them as an alternative way to approach the question.

1) What is the nature of the nursing shortage? Is it simply the number of nurses, or the right combination of nursing, interpersonal and time management skills to support an effective team? For instance, an older, second career student may bring good adaptive skills, self motivation, time management, team coordination and communication skills that take time to develop in any person and can be acquired in many careers.

2) Is it possible that older students' appreciation for their career make them more likely candidates for mentoring in the future? I have heard, but I do not know, that supportive mentoring has not been historically part of the culture in nursing, but it is in many other fields. Part of the lack of spaces in nursing schools is the availability of clinical instructors, and a supportive, informal mentoring environment can make all nurses more effective and will improve patient care over the long term.

3) What is the expected time working as a nurse for different starting ages? I'm sure there are some statistics somewhere. I haven't found details but I am sure that it is not just the number of years till 70. I would guess that it is much shorter.

An article posted on Medscape (Factors Influencing Work Productivity and Intent to Stay in Nursing) a few days ago talks about job stress being a higher determinant of the intent to stay than retirement, and many of those factors contributing to that stress are environmental rather than age-related, but it's not a simple issue.

When studies such as these talk about an aging workforce, it's unclear whether the important factor is the chronological age of the workforce, or whether they are using age as a proxy for experience, which describes the real problem: that there are not enough new nurses coming into the field to replenish the numbers leaving (or likely to leave in the future). One important exception to this is the increased risk of musculoskeletal injury in an ageing workforce.

I think that questions about the economics of school admissions are important and extremely interesting. It would be interesting to ask the question to your school (minus the negative tone) about how they look at the future of nursing and how they're helping to plan for the long term.

We're all responsible for investing in the future of nursing: through instruction, mentoring, cultivating interest, and working to make conditions better, safer and friendlier for keeping the workforce we have.

--thomas

full disclosure: second career, just starting direct entry program, 45

Ruby Vee, BSN · Aug 8, 2008

wow. for a group that is suppose to be compassionate and educate, the responders certainly aren't giving the op anything but grief.
from a logical standpoint without having a lot of facts - her post makes sense. the op stated that she respected new 'older' nurses and those who follow their dreams at any age - the question was is is logical with the very limited space available in nursing education - is it a better investment for schools to educate younger students, with the sole argument that they could work longer. she said absolutely nothing derogatory about those individuals or the care they give.
now, to answer the question (i do not have any hard facts/statistics in front of me). it is pretty much a gamble either way. younger new nurses are more likely to change professions, decide to be stay at home moms, etc. while those who decide to go into nursing when they are older are more likely to have more concrete ideas with what they would like to do with the rest of their lives. so they may give nursing a good 10-20 years, but that may be all the 'young' nurses want to give either before changing the direction of their career.

a nurse who graduates at starts her/his first job at 55 has approximately 11 years left before they can start drawing full social security. let's see -- 11 years at minimum wage in a job you drag yourself to every day? or 11 years doing something you've always dreamed of doing at a decent wage?

a nurse who graduates and starts her/his first job at 21 may decide, like so many of those i'm working with these days, that nursing isn't for them, or that they really need to become a nurse practitioner or go to anesthesia school or go back and become a stock broker after all or stoop working and raise a family. so -- 11 years? or five?

and after all, is it any of the op's business?

offtowonderland · Aug 8, 2008

It is the ignorant that look at a person and judge them. :confused:

wahdidah · Aug 8, 2008

My opinions are my own. I thought message boards were a place to share opinions. I'm not age-prejudiced....hell I'm old myself! I'm not trying to offend anyone, although I can see that's happening. If you think I'm rough.....wait until you get out of school and start working. I know that the work is physically hard. When I was in nursing school, they portrayed the world of nursing as using your mind and making a difference......yadda yadda.........it's physically hard work. I wish someone would have been honest with me about that. I'm in my early 40's and I don't see myself doing this 10 yrs from now. Let alone starting nursing at my age. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's damn hard.

Everyone has come from somewhere...whether it's raising a family or having another career. Just be prepared for what's ahead......it's rough. At any age. But put a lifetime of wear and tear on your body........it's going to be tougher. Again, I'm not saying it can't be done.......but I have been a nurse for 25 years and have seen it all........and unfortunately, it's tougher for some than for others. And in my original post......I believe I did mention that alot of younger nurses have trouble adjusting too.

Nursing has many benefits....and for me, is a wonderful career.........but I've seen it change over the years. Not all of it positive.

I'm talking about my work environment..........which may be very different from wherever any of you may end up working. For the past 3 years, none of our 50+ GN's have made it to their 1 yr anniversary date. And again, I think I said it before........if I had come to this unit as a GN, I probably woulldn't have made a year either. It's rough out there.....and I truly wished someone would have warned me about that 25 years ago.