Considering army nursing

jeckrn, BSN, RN · Jul 8, 2010

i am a year away from graduating with my bsn and am considering starting my career in the army. i am mostly curious about the day to day life of army nursing. i spoke with a recruiter who explained that day to day your life would be the same as a civilian working in a hospital. for the most part yes, but there can be pt, and other duties.
im wondering about the validity of this, i feel like there would be many differences but im not sure. i am also very curious in a hospital overseas, preferably germany, does anyone know how likely it is to get sent overseas as a new grad? from what i understand not easy, but it does not hurt to try if that is what you want.
i am also curious about any experiences spent deployed in the middle east. i would love any information shared regarding any aspect of the daily life in the army. i am very excited for the potential to serve my country and the soldiers fighting for us, i just want to get a good idea of what im considering.
thank you for any information that you can share, its all very appreciated.

hope this helps a little

just_cause, BSN, RN · Jul 8, 2010

Did you speak with a health care recruiter or a normal recruiting station? They are completely different.

I'd talk to your region's health care recruiter and ask if / when a tour of an army hospital might be occurying and ask to schedule a visit.. or perhaps with a local army reserve location so you can see some facilities, see some normal events and talk to those nurses.

IMHO army nursing is closer to civilian nursing / life then it is to what you probably envision as the military. That being said the additional duties, promotion system, having to do PT and other considerations will be something is part of daily life. Your likely hood of getting germany is hard to predict as its not just based off what you want but the entry grade 2lt demand of your peers at the same time.. you are all essentially trying to get a limited number of slots so its a mix of what demand the group has vs your demand vs slot demand at each of the 7 army med centers. Being deployed as a new grad is based on your unit.. they don't collect up and create a unit to deploy based on experience and desire but rather as a unit - so can't answer that question. That being said you just have to accept its a possibility and be ok with that - as its outside of your control. Deployment experiences have a HUGE variance depending on time frame, location, unit mission, duration, command climate, your position, and of course the enemy has a vote in things...

So the broad answers are basically a means of saying that in the military many events are outside of your control and its a change of thinking and just saying I'll be able to adapt and perform regardless of the task at hand - I will succeed vs a normal nursing student wanting to plan out and map out a controlled scenario.. If you can generally accept that and then cont' to do what you are doing - looking at future, weighing pro's / con's but then being flexible to what choice your handed - then I'd say your likely a good fit.

v/r