Hi there. What a great, active board, informative!!! I feel lucky to have found you guys! I've done a lot of lurking and reading relevant posts and finally decided to ask my own specific questions. First, some background.
First - I am applying to a 2 year RN program at a community college in my area. I have already got an AA, a BA, and an MA (more on that later) including chem and biology, so I expect to be be able to take microbiology, anat and phy 1 & 2, and get right into clinicals. I work part-time already, I just want to get this done ASAP. A fast BSN is not possible due to expense.
Second - I have mixed reasons for pursuing an RN. Initially, it's been for employability, pure and simple. I have an MA in Psych and wanted to get licensed as a therapist, and I love counseling work, but it's a catch-22 - i have to work to get licensed, and i can't get a job with a license. I got lucky and got a direct care mental health position (bottom rung position) at a very big psych hospital in my area, but it's been made plain to me that they don't hire MAs (at my appropriate professional level) and no hospital in Massachusetts ever will (long story, it's a big turf war between MSWs, MAs, MDs and PhDs in my state).
But if I get an RN I have options to move within the hospital into, say, psychiatric nursing, at double the pay rate, not to mention it opens up many other doors. Not only that, but it makes me much more employable elsewhere - and my husband is only 4 years from retirement. Its more of an advantage than getting licensed in mental health at the Master's level.
Third - the more I look at RN, the more I realize the following:
-- i love diagnosis, and i am good at it.
-- i love working with people - comforting them, giving them hope, helping them heal.
-- i love fixing things, detecting clues, solving mysteries.
-- i am a science nerd, which is is why i am still fresh on biology and chemistry literally 20 years after I took the classes - I am confident I know enough I can come up to speed quickly. I enjoy learning about medications and intimate details about how the body works on every level. I am literally excited about taking these classes. I spend half my time researching this stuff on the internet anyway to better understand my own health questions and issues.
-- So - I might actually like RN work even without the psych stuff. I just think I really do not want to work with geriatrics or peds. That's my only really insight.
Fourth - and here's the all too common rub. I don't know if I can handle plebotomy, gore, compound fractures, body fluids (especially feces and vomit). I just don't know. I used to get faint at the sight of blood, but i also sat and comforted a guy who had broken his leg playing raquetball while his friend went for help. Of course, his bones weren't sticking out either. I'm terrified of doing my clinicals. I don't even care so much about afterward because I know there are a million jobs for RNs and a million ways of doing them - and with my extra education i'm hoping i can take full advantage. but what if i can't make it through my clinicals?
Is there hope for me? do i have a choice where i do my clinicals? If i have to spend a year in an ER somewhere, will I build up a tolerance for horrific wounds, pus, puke, and other terrifying substances?
Did any of you start out this way? HOW did you get past it/over it/through it??? I don't think job shadowing someone for one day is going to help because if this IS a problem one day is not going to help me get over it. I'm looking for strategies for coping with the problem - I really want to do this.
If you made it this far thanks for reading my post and I appreciate your response(s)!!!
That is great to hear about the funding for psych, I will really have to look into that. I am still torn between the degree options. I don't really think I will be able to afford any of it really, with my previous loans and the fact that my husband lost the really good paying construction job at the start of the economic trouble but I know that I don't want, no can't, continue working in mental health at the level that I am currently at. I have only been at it for 3.5 years and I am tired already for many reasons that I won't go into here.
i agree re. funding for the psych. i'm looking into grants scholarships etc. myself right now just for the ADN. I do figure once i'm in a position to make more money I can look into a BSN or eventually a NP or PA if it seems practical. It's great to know the psych nursing field is supported since that's really the direction i'm heading into. A lot depends on how long i spend with the psych hospital i'm currently involved in since my initial reason for pursuing the RN was to find internal opportunities beyond direct care and that's the only way to do it here. there is NO appreciable funding, on the other hand, for psych MA or MSW.
i agree with the fear of needles, that's always been a big mental block for me, i've always wondered if i could get past the initial fear of doing it badly and hurting someone, if i could get good at it. i'm generally good with my hands.
i'm curious to know how many people get hired from sites where they've done their clinical rounds. I know in the mental health clinician/MSW world, people very often get their first job from their site where they intern pre-grad.
Does your employer offer tuition reimbursement in exchange for service? Some employers do, especially hospitals. It is also a good way to secure post degree employment
some, only enough for about 4 credits a year (about 600 dollars - i work part-time - max would be 1500 if i worked full time, after 2 years). i definitely plan to take advantage of it, but it's not going to come close to covering my clinicals. but you're right - every bit matters!!!
I say go for it, if you really want it and have gumption than you will over come your fears. Psychic is really needed in nursing. I work in the ER and I can confidently say that their is a huge need. ( however in my state the public funding has decreased almost to the point of a total melt down of the mental health system) You said you are 45, that's plenty young enough to consider the rest of your life in your decision. You can work for another 20+ years. You could possibly work for as long in the future as you have in the past. But one word of caution, nursing school IS a big commitment at any level but if you want it bad enough you can do it.
My first psych job and only psych job is at my internship site. I was 3 months into a 12 month internship when the funding structure in the county changed to straight fee for service and they needed to hire more people. I was approached and offered a job but still had to apply and do an interview but it was a total formaility. It was really nice not working two jobs and actually getting paid for my internship.
I was actually having a conversation with an LPN at work, who is going back to school as well, about opportunities for work and we came up with an idea about creating a nurs tech type position at our 16 bed Evaluation and Treatment center. So now, I have to talk with the Nurse Clinical Director there (who used to be my manager, he is an RN, MSW and moved over to the E&T when it opened) and see if I can talk him into some sort of part-time position when (I am being positive that it will happen soon lol) I get done with my first semester of nursing school since the school I applied too is literally across the street from the E&T.
A lot of times, it can be about what you can create for yourself or who you know in these economic times.
$600 is $600 and would pay for at least one class, that is at least one less that you have to pay out of pocket!
Good luck! Let me know what you find and if I stumble across anything, I will pass it on as well.
i think in this life, you can do whatever you want. it's good that you have dreams, goals and the desires to make them come true. do listen to negative people because they will steal your dreams. you can do it, and you can be successful at it. the job market everywhere is tough, that's life, before nursing school i was working for companies that told me what job to do, what career where available. i pick nursing, i pick this career and i love being a psych nurse. this website used to be a cool site, but now it's just a site of cry babies, crying about the patients, the doctors, the work and the job market. nursing school is a beast and only the strong will survive, but for those who dream of being a nurse it is worth it.
I am also concerned about dealing with poop, vomit, bodily fluids... I can handle blood. It is the smell of things that get to me. I just finished a CNA program and we had clinicals for 2 weeks at a nursing home. We wiped people, picked up poop in the shower, put on adult briefs, changed soiled linens, took out people's dentures, and wiped people's mouths when eating. Was lucky enough not to deal with vomit. I am glad for the experience, but quickly realized I did not want to be a CNA especially for low amount of pay. However, it was rewarding getting to know some of the residents... they really appreciated the additional care we provided.
It seems to me that there are some areas where you wouldn't have to deal with poop and vomit as much as other areas. How about hospice nursing... visiting people at their homes on a weekly basis? How about obstetrics? I can deal with amniotic fluid and blood. How about restorative care? I think there are options out there for people who just cannot deal with certain smells.
i think if not psych nursing, where I'm really starting as the ASN is really a way to leverage my MA into something useful and employable in substance abuse treatment, i would really look hard into hospice care. i worked as an admin at a hospice for 2 years and it changed my life. the more i look at nursing the more i realize a lot is going to boil down to what i can handle physically and mentally (blood). i might really love hospice nursing, or even the ER. In a way I look forward to my clinicals as much as I fear them. I fear I won't get through them, but I'm excited to think I may learn things about myself and what I can do, that I don't currently know. I love that nursing is such a varied field!!!! Meanwhile I'm going to get case of vicks to i can always keep a little tub in my pocket to rub under my nose
When I started nursing school I was a bit squeamish about certain things. To a degree, I still am although I've become acclimated. Mostly how I cope is focus on the task at hand and not on the "yuck" at hand. When I do think about it, I try to think about it clinically (for example, *why* pus is white, gooey, and smelly).
You being a psych person and all, I'm sure you're quite familiar with desensitization and therapies for phobias though gradual exposure... same deal.
I have been an RN 17 years. I honestly didn't know if I could bathe anyone else when I got into this field. That was my biggest concern. The blood and the pus and the gore, well, depends on what you get into as a specialty. I can say I have mainly done nursing home and home care in my career, and not a whole lot of blood and gore have I seen. Psych nursing is cool, however there is a lot of tricky problems patient-wise and colleague-wise in that field. I have worked in it and found it ok, but nothing I would want to spend a career in. And be forewarned nursing school is tough and much of what you learn in nursing school has not a whole lot to do with everyday nursing in a real live employment setting. Good luck.
I think you may benefit with the RN degree. You are obviously into science with your background. If you are interested in mental health nursing, you will get to a mix of nursing and psyche, but won't be handling the things on a daily basis like the regular nurses are dealing with (IV's, catheters, NG tubes, etc). I'm in my mental health rotation at an outpatient clinic and the RN there runs some of the groups and he also handles the nursing aspect such as doing physical assessments, administering meds, and addressing any medical issues that occur on the unit. Most of the patients are schitzophrenic and/or bipolar so they are on heavy duty medications that have to be monitored closely and have a multitude of side effects. It's totally different from the medical surgical nursing clinicals. It's more low key because we are trying to maintain a neutral and positive environment that won't overstimulate the patients.
KFoss
54 Posts
That is great to hear about the funding for psych, I will really have to look into that. I am still torn between the degree options. I don't really think I will be able to afford any of it really, with my previous loans and the fact that my husband lost the really good paying construction job at the start of the economic trouble but I know that I don't want, no can't, continue working in mental health at the level that I am currently at. I have only been at it for 3.5 years and I am tired already for many reasons that I won't go into here.