Am I getting into nursing for the right reason?

emtpbill, ASN, RN, EMT-P · Feb 23, 2023

I was a medic, now PHRN, for 25 years before going back and getting my degree and RN license. It just felt like the natural progression for me, 911 and critical care to go to the ER from the street. For me, I haven't looked back. While a lot of the 'critical patients' come in by squad I had a woman walk into the ER after falling at church. She drove herself to the hospital complaining of hand injury. But, because she was on Coumadin we scanned her head and found a sub arachnoid bleed and had a helicopter landing 20 minutes later. On top of that the triage nurse puts a chest pain in the room next to hers (still my assignment) and when the tech did a 12 lead I could see right away a STEMI. And since this was on a Saturday we had to wait for the Cath team to be called in.

Im going in today and will try to find out door to balloon time but it will be skewed a little (Cath lab called me in the ER and said that she was the only one there and I had to sit on the patient in the ER until more of the team got there).

Definitely can get the adrenaline going a little bit.... Nothing like combat (didn't have the honor to serve , bad eyesight) but to me I am seeing more sick people in a shift than I did on the squad.

I know this is an older post, just my 2 cents from a medic turned RN.

_firely · Feb 26, 2023

My suggestions would be to look at one of these, not nursing:

1) Physician's Assistant school. These programs, MEDEX in particularly, were designed for just such a transition from military corpsman to civilian practitioner.

2) Firefighting. Someone else already mentioned this one, but this is your best bet for a rush (depending on where you end up working) but also is least expensive path. Firefighting is more likely to provide a pension, unlike most nursing jobs and you can be working almost right away as a medic somewhere building that resume. You could also just be a part time paramedic while working on something else. This will expose you to more ideas from people in that world.

3) Medical School. This is the longest and most expensive route, but if you are already going to commit a few years to school, why not go all in? If you become a hospitalist as either a doctor or PA you will have plenty of stress caused adrenaline rushes as you try to balance your patient load. Plus its less gross and higher paying than nursing.

4) Respiratory Tech. This one is quick and inexpensive in terms of schooling. If you work for a hospital, this puts you right there in the code team. Respiratory is usually the first person to show up when that code button is hit and they have arguably the most critical job in establishing and maintaining that airway.

londonflo · Feb 27, 2023

Orca said:

I was tired of the dead end job that my bachelor's degree in psychology had landed me

I so wish anyone enrolling in Psych Major would realize that unless you are going to the full way to PhD you are not going to get a job that is more than minimum wage. A hair stylist I loved told me her daughter has going to the BEST college for a Psych Bachelors. Never hear from her.

MrChicagoRN, RN · Oct 13, 2023

londonflo said:

I so wish anyone enrolling in Psych Major would realize that unless you are going to the full way to PhD you are not going to get a job that is more than minimum wage. A hair stylist I loved told me her daughter has going to the BEST college for a Psych Bachelors. Never hear from her.

It all depends what you want to do with it. It's actually a good generalist degree

My son & DIL both graduated in psych from great state schools. He's a VP in one of the financial concerns and she is an analyst for the government. They're both doing great ?

NYC Nurse · Jan 25

ZombieMedic123 said:

Not even in RN school yet (I start in 3 months) but I am having second thoughts.

Just curious, especially for other males, why did you get into nursing?

Going to be brutally honest, nursing do not really interest me (only the idea of ER, ICU, CCT, Flight, etc nursing interest me because of the "rush" and how cool it is). The idea of caring for someone in a non critical situation does not interest me. Of course I care about people, but unless they are about to die or in serious condition, it doesn't really interest me.

I am mainly getting into nursing because I am a bit older (late 20's) and need to find a stable, good paying career. I would like to have a family one day and want to make enough money to live comfortably and be able to take care of my family. I have some medical experience through the military so naturally I look into this as the next step.

My true "passion" for medicine lies with military/tactical medicine, and paramedicine. I can't do the military thing forever, and paramedic don't get paid enough for what they do. So here I am pursuing nursing.

I don't hate it, but I am definitely not "passionate" about it coming in.

Did you guys get into nursing because of pure 'passion'? or what was your motivation?

IM tired of this passion idea. I didn't go into nursing for the passion. I went into it for money. to support my family. to have a reliable job. nursing for me was brutal. I went to med surg, was bullied severely. but I learned and once I learned I switched to psychiatry. a speciality I really enjoyed. am I passionate about psych nursing? umm I would rather sit on the beach and not worry about going to work. but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed speaking with my patients and in psych that is your job. And me and my family are not broke because I chose nursing. And that was important for me. but nursing is not easy. but I always wonder what other route would I have gone. and I cant imagine have gone another route. I got involved in real estate investing. and I dunno. I hated the sales part of it. one thing I like about nursing I that no matter where you are, you job is to help the patient. theres something cool about getting paid to do that. what I can tell you is, don't expect bedside nursing to be IT. it not your final job. go to CRNA, NP, PMHNP. continue with education so you can get paid more and have more autonomy. this will make you enjoy your job alot more. unless you are in cali. cali norcal nurses get paid a crazy amount. NPs and RNs there make the same.

RickyRescueRN, BSN, RN · Mar 29

As a nurse with 32yrs experience who has worked in ICU, ER/Trauma , Flight nursing for 19yrs and now the OR, Do Not pursue nursing if your heart is not in it. Right now the drop out rate for new grads is 48% within the first 2 years of graduating . In order to survive this demanding profession , you need to have passion or vocation for it otherwise you will not survive and will be negative, demoralized , miserable and more than likely get into trouble for having a bad attitude . Just a word of caution too, Flight nursing and the other "cool" specialties require that you show compassion, caring , nurturing etc too when the situation at hand requires it. If you are "not about that" then you will not fit in to the nursing role . Stick with being a paramedic, Flight paramedic, cop or something that is less 'touchy feely' and save yourself a bunch of $$$$ and a life of frustration.