I just turned 46 and I have been working as a Legal Secretary since 1998. I just recently received my NCCP (North Carolina Certified Paralegal) Certificate. Not finding any jobs, although I have tons of legal experience, they always find a way to say you're not the right fit. But, I'm not bitter about that. I have been wanting to change my career to the medical field since 2008! Lately, not sure if it's an age thing or my calling is calling me! I have spent the last year at a LTC facility visiting my father who has dementia. I have really grown, my desire to be a nurse has grown being there everyday. My question is do you think it's crazy to jump out there and quit my job, take out student loans so that I can attend the RN program....alllll programs are day only classes. I've talked to two nurses that did that and they are fine! I was all geared up to do it, but I let fear enter my thoughts :-(. All I know is 20+ years is a long time to sit at a desk (although I make decent money) and do nothing all day! I'm in commercial real estate and right now, it's slow! well it's always a little slow for me!
Next question, do you think attending a hospital that offers RN classes or a community college is best? I'm leaning towards the hospital..fingers crossed that I get accepted.
You're missing something fundamental here. None of the multiple nurses who observed your dad, or in theory should have observed your dad, noted and/or acted on his s/s of pneumonia. It took yourself, a lay person, to do so. Taking this whole story as accurate, what does that tell you about the working conditions? What is it about you and your personal career history that gives you the confidence expressed here that you could out perform all of them and succeed in this environment?
Are you asking me if any of the nurses acted or noted??? After I mentioned it to them. My complaint is take notice that his sleeping and his normal daily routine has changed....drastically! You are with him for 12 hours!! When you wake him to take medicine, he's confused...not alert.... These particular nurses...some nurses..treat patients like they are just bodies and not human bodies with souls. They just through meds in their mouth and keep it moving.
The working conditions at this facility...needs major improvement. Things have gotten a little better with the new DON and administrator. But all I'm saying, and this is not to you..., is if you are going to choose this field, have the heart for it. Don't just do it to have a job. One RN at this home stated one day...and I 100% agree with her.....that this job is half book smarts and half people smart. Working in LTC you have to have a way with people and you have to have patience.. You have to want to care, to have a caring heart
My belief, I believe everything happens for a reason.
Aspiring RN, this thread has really blown up, hasn't it?? I'm actually a little embarrassed reading some of these comments from people who call themselves RNs. If I were you, after reading these comments I wouldn't want to pursue nursing either. But do keep in mind in nursing or in any profession you always run into people that will try and bring you down or make you feel small.
Yes! I know!! They are cracking me up! Their opinions will not discourage my dreams! Oh yes! I know!! I was raised by a woman with a sharp tongue! LOL These post don't bother me..LOL
I have never once said that I hate my job because the reality is that I love it. Just because something was "brought to your attention" doesn't make it so.
However, I am one who is able to discern between reality and fantasy. Saying (as you have) that we have been negative and mean-spirited to you is a fantasy that you are confusing with reality. We have given you solid advice based in reality. Reality is not always pretty. Reality is sometimes hard to handle. Do those statements make me mean and negative?
If you believe that you have been treated so terribly on this thread, then you are indeed a special snowflake. Kind of strange to find one at your age, but so be it. Your tender feelings will be in shock when you start nursing school and meet a drill instructor of a clinical leader, or a didactic instructor who doesn't sugar-coat your chances of success.
Honey I am BY-FAR shaken in the LEAST bit by anything that any of you have said! You call what you have given me was advice???? I say it's your condescending, judgmental opinion! Only thing you've done is shown me the egotistical, "I-Know-It-All", opinionated nurses that I will be trained by... I'm pretty sure they all aren't like you.
What makes you think that you can handle it and I can't??
And this just underscores what many of the comments here have been trying get across.
NOBODY is trying to say you WILL regret it or that you shouldn't do it! We've been trying to offer you ways to become better informed so you can make a decision based on reality; not your version of reality, but one from an insiders perspective.
I honestly have doubts about you actually making it through the nursing program, not because you aren't smart enough, but because you are very rigid and not open to anyone's ideas or suggestions but your own, which, up to now, have been based on very limited exposure to the nursing profession, regardless of what you may think.
I also have no doubt that if you do make it through the program and get to actually practice, you will find that nursing is not what you have created in your mind. It may even creep through your awareness that at least some of what we have said here has been good advice, and not just the advice that you claim to have accepted, but that which you have rejected out-of-hand. Although to tell the truth, even if you come to realize that we were right, you probably won't admit it.
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Aspiring RN, this thread has really blown up, hasn't it?? I'm actually a little embarrassed reading some of these comments from people who call themselves RNs. If I were you, after reading these comments I wouldn't want to pursue nursing either. But do keep in mind in nursing or in any profession you always run into people that will try and bring you down or make you feel small.
And you will also find those willing to blow smoke. No one here has been rude, although some of OP's posts have been a bit borderline (HUN? really?). No one is trying to dissuade OP from applying to nursing school. Those who have posted are trying to present a reality that OP is NOT aware, regardless of how much time he/she has spent with his/her father. Being a family member does not provide a glimpse into the reality of nursing. Even a day spent shadowing can only impart a tiny bit. Fully informed decisions need to be made, not those made based on only one view.
Specializes in ER, PCU, UCC, Observation medicine.
Right cause every time someone decides to go to nursing school a group of nurses huddles around them and tells them how unworthy, and unsuccessful they will be. Don't be so ignorant and defensive of the people kicking this girl to the curb. Have you even read the comments from Roser, really, and you call the OP rude for using the word HUN, give me a break.
I would also challenge your argument about caring for a family member. That is actually how I got involved in nursing when my father was crushed by a backhoe. Ya, it gives you plenty of glimpse of what it takes to be a nurse. Besides you are an OR nurse what do you know about caring for more than one patient at a time? You have no right to say caring for one person cannot be insightful.
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Right cause every time someone decides to go to nursing school a group of nurses huddles around them and tells them how unworthy, and unsuccessful they will be. Don't be so ignorant and defensive of the people kicking this girl to the curb. Have you even read the comments from Roser, really, and you call the OP rude for using the word HUN, give me a break.
I would also challenge your argument about caring for a family member. That is actually how I got involved in nursing when my father was crushed by a backhoe. Ya, it gives you plenty of glimpse of what it takes to be a nurse. Besides you are an OR nurse what do you know about caring for more than one patient at a time? You have no right to say caring for one person cannot be insightful.
Wow. Just wow. Caring for one person as a nurse is completely different than caring for someone as a family member. As for your comment about "what do you know about caring for more than one patient at a time", it's attitudes like that that contribute to nurses looking down their noses at other specialties and considering them "not a real nurse". No one has been kicking this girl as you put it to the curb. They are trying to provide the insight that a non-nurse cannot have. No, nurses don't huddle up around each and every student. But when they come here and ask questions, they are going to get answers, whether they like what they read or not.
Contemplate being unemployed on a frequent basis, for varying lengths of time, to include years, not just weeks, depending upon your neck of the woods. If you have any inkling that any of your past difficulties are related to your age, you better bet that you will face age discrimination in nursing. And add no experience to your age? As previously stated, becoming an RN does not guarantee a job will magically appear. Just the way it is.
Right cause every time someone decides to go to nursing school a group of nurses huddles around them and tells them how unworthy, and unsuccessful they will be. Don't be so ignorant and defensive of the people kicking this girl to the curb. Have you even read the comments from Roser, really, and you call the OP rude for using the word HUN, give me a break.
I would also challenge your argument about caring for a family member. That is actually how I got involved in nursing when my father was crushed by a backhoe. Ya, it gives you plenty of glimpse of what it takes to be a nurse. Besides you are an OR nurse what do you know about caring for more than one patient at a time? You have no right to say caring for one person cannot be insightful.
I'm truly more disturbed by your posts than by the OP's. At least she can, in the end, claim ignorance as a wanna-be nursing student. You claim an advanced degree yet show a remarkable lack of real-world knowledge and have no such defense. Scary.
Specializes in ER, PCU, UCC, Observation medicine.
Wow. Just wow. But when they come here and ask questions, they are going to get answers, whether they like what they read or not.
Ya she got a whole bunch of answers to questions she didn't even ask. She asked what the best 2 year program is, a hospital based program or a ASN program, and if other people had jumped ship and switched careers.
Specializes in ER, PCU, UCC, Observation medicine.
I'm truly more disturbed by your posts than by the OP's. At least she can, in the end, claim ignorance as a wanna-be nursing student. You claim an advanced degree yet show a remarkable lack of real-world knowledge and have no such defense. Scary.
Wow, coming from the Queen B herself. I do have an advanced degree, that's pretty much the only thing you've been right about. LOL at lacking real world knowledge, I'll take that as a hyperbole.
Aspiring_RN_
71 Posts
Are you asking me if any of the nurses acted or noted??? After I mentioned it to them. My complaint is take notice that his sleeping and his normal daily routine has changed....drastically! You are with him for 12 hours!! When you wake him to take medicine, he's confused...not alert.... These particular nurses...some nurses..treat patients like they are just bodies and not human bodies with souls. They just through meds in their mouth and keep it moving.
The working conditions at this facility...needs major improvement. Things have gotten a little better with the new DON and administrator. But all I'm saying, and this is not to you..., is if you are going to choose this field, have the heart for it. Don't just do it to have a job. One RN at this home stated one day...and I 100% agree with her.....that this job is half book smarts and half people smart. Working in LTC you have to have a way with people and you have to have patience.. You have to want to care, to have a caring heart
My belief, I believe everything happens for a reason.