Career Change?

Published

Hello, I'm hoping to get some help and feedback. I'm 33 and thinking about going back to school. I currently work in Accounting and Engineering and I'm wanting to go back to school to become an RN. I've spoken to the school about it and they suggested I talk to real nurses about it.

So here I am. Kids are almost in college. I've been working as a mechanical engineer and accountant for the past 13 years. I have decided that I want to go for my RN as a career change. I want to help people. I want to care for people. I want to make the world better. But my main goal isn't just nursing.

My main goal is to not only get my RN, but go to a RN to BSN program. Then, while I'm working as a nurse part time to get my feet in the water, I will go back to school again for my electrical and chemical engineering degree. I'm sure you're wondering why would anyone want to try to get 6 degrees?? (I currently hold Bachelors in Accounting, Marketing, and Mechanical Engineering.)

I have a lengthy answer but I'll give you the gist. I want to work towards a process that makes the hospital experience easier not only on the patient side, but on the hospital's side as well. I want to create applications that will make it easier to triage a patient. Easier to check a patient in. Schedule a patient. Make it so that the experience is more fluid. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking on the current hospital systems, but I want to make a real difference in the medical community.

So here's the real question. Am I absolutely monkey banana crazy?

No, that's not the real question. The real question is, what are your thoughts on my ideas? I'm not talking about putting people out of jobs, I'm talking about making people's jobs easier. Making state of the art technology affordable and making it so that people's lives are more enriched by allowing the medical professionals who strive to keep people healthy have more time doing just that.

I'm ready to jump in head first. I'm ready to take on the world. I just want to know if it's worth the time and dedication, or if it's something that people in the medical community will just take for granted?

Thanks,

Monkey

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

I'm not sure how EE or ChemE are gonna help in your pursuits. Have you explored a masters in health informatics?

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Thanks for the response KeyLime! The EE and ChemE will help me in being able to process and manufacture machines that will aid in the medical world. I have certifications in certain computer languages and technical certifications to help me work on software, but that isn't really the main goal. The Chem E is going to help me further my knowledge should I branch out towards working with pharmaceuticals. None of this is set in stone and my main goal isn't to just make machines. I'm looking to help people stay healthy. I want to work as a full on RN for several years before turning back to developing things to automate the process but I really want to learn about the medical science behind it.

Any technology I'm planning to create would not happen for several years. Perhaps. I'm a little bit like a mad scientist always tinkering in my shop.

I guess a better question would be do you like the current technology that's in place, or do you find yourself muttering under your breath when a machine continually malfunctions? Perhaps that doesn't happen as often as I think it would in the medical world.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

with your experience you should consider in nursing informatics.also you should check into the major medical software company such as McKesson.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

I'm not an RN yet, but I do medical research, my biggest grievance right now is the fact that the EMR we use is pretty useless when it comes to creating the reports I need for my research. It creates wonderful reports for the admins to monitor hospital type things - patient wait times, med errors, etc - but I am looking for trends in treatment and survival. So, I ultimately spend a lot of time in the old paper charts or in the EMR extracting data piece by piece when a simple query should be able to be run.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

Most of the highly specialized machines (like NanoKnife, DaVinci, etc) come with trained representatives on-call for when they malfunction. Some even send reps for every use of the machine.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

For the love of god, stick with engineering. Wanna trade?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

Also look into a masters in boomed engineering. Might better fit w your end goals than a bunch of broad bachelor programs. BME covers all disciplines of engineering

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Another word for mechanical engineer/accountant is project manager. Your message sounds like you are wanting a project management career, not nursing.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Another word for mechanical engineer/accountant is project manager. Your message sounds like you are wanting a project management career, not nursing.

This. Take what I say with a grain of salt as I'm no expert in any of these fields, but a degree in nursing sounds unnecessary. Maybe try to find people that do similar work and figure out what their backgrounds are, and go from there.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion