Did You Settle for Nursing?

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I really want to be in the medical field. I've thought about becoming a nurse, but I really think I would hate settling for it. My life's dream is to become a doctor. Ive been in the hospital before and they seem to get all the glory and respect from everyone around them and make all the decisions. I also really want to make good money and have a great lifestyle like they do. However, i'm scared about how long i'll have to be in school and how competitive medical school is. I'm thinking I should just go into nursing and see how I like the medical field first. I know it will be terrible pay and cleaning up poop all day. That scares me. I don't want to be some doctor's helper and be belittled all day, as well as being poor. Have any of you first went into nursing, then onto medical school?? Any suggestions? I'm really at a crossroads here.

The OP was proud enough to put RN in her "name", but is undecided as to major and feels like nursing would be settling.

As in "going all the way", it's the attitude and implications that set everyone off, not the honest curiosity of a young student.

Nurses and nursing students come here to be free and find support. I don't always get support on the outside. People look at me funny when I say I'm in nursing school because I'm 40 (almost) and they think I should have all my ducks in a row and be planning my retirement or something!

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Sorry- just had a weird thought.....with all these nurse/dr threads popping up maybe the med-students over at SDN are bored and they're just messing with us!? HAHAHA just kidding. Some of my best friends have been med students! REALLY!

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
Sorry- just had a weird thought.....with all these nurse/dr threads popping up maybe the med-students over at SDN are bored and they're just messing with us!? HAHAHA just kidding. Some of my best friends have been med students! REALLY!

I have to admit I've had the same thought. It seems like all the hot-button issues are being brought up all at once.

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Specializes in Med/ surg,ortho.onc,supvsn.

From your post, you have absolutely No idea what nursing consists of.It also sounds as if you just want a job that may make you alot of money ,status and prestige.I did not hear you wanted to help people, promote well being, educate or anything related to that.Maybe the medical field is not for you, maybe it is.I do not want to say this isnt for you, but you do need to reassess what you want.Never for one second did i feel i "settled', because i did not, i had thought about being a Doctor early in my career, but decided it was not what i wanted to do.I love the challenge & satisfaction of nursing.Nursing is not like you see on tv,and nursing truly is the backbone of healthcare.If my job consisted of cleaning up poop all day then it would be a piece of cake!!!.Good luck on your quest....

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Specializes in Psychiatric Nursing.

not to sound cruel but the title of this thread is a bit unsettling to me.

realizing that you are probably trying to do some self reflection in deciding if you want to take on the additional hurdles that goes with becoming a physician is important. but choosing to settle for nursing because you are not sure about becoming a physician is a very-very bad idea.

first of all (as you will hear over and over on this forum) the work of a doctor and the work of a nurse are completely different. while both are very co-dependent on each other: doctors need nurses and nurses need doctors their is not one that is better then the other. while things such as pay scale are different so are the hours and the demands of the job..... one must decide what the are personally looking for.

look at both professions carefully before deciding what you want to do, and try to shadow a member in both fields. look at yourself and figure out what draws you into the healthcare field and which profession would meet these needs. if your view of nursing is that it is a less rigorous version of an md i believe you will be greatly mistaken once you begin working...and if you choose a profession you feel you are settling for..... i guarantee you will find yourself greatly dissatisfied simply from the lack of pride in your own profession. do not settle for any job weather it is nursing, medicine, or working as cinderella in disneyland.... your career should not define who you are, but considering life is short and most of us will spend a considerable amount of our lives working you need to pick something that you can be happy doing (most of the time).

oaky that is my :twocents:

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Specializes in Emergency Room.
Sorry- just had a weird thought.....with all these nurse/dr threads popping up maybe the med-students over at SDN are bored and they're just messing with us!? HAHAHA just kidding. Some of my best friends have been med students! REALLY!

i was thinking the same thing. we do get alot of trolls. occasionally i lurk on sdn and i am amazed at what doctors -to-be think of nurses. it really amazes me. the statement about being poor and cleaning poop was definitely meant to get our collars hot. no one in their right mind would post that unless they meant it as an insult. a couple years back we had a similar post here and the person never came back and responded to any of the replys.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

If the OP really feels that being a nurse would be "settling" then she shouldn't be one. Who needs a nurse that looks down on nurses and the profession itself?

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Specializes in Med/Surg, ICU, ER, Peds ER-CPEN.

Doesn't matter what the career path is, if you feel that you "settled" for it, you will be miserable and not do a good job, in nursing you'd start out already "burnt" out and care would suffer, you would resent your entire day, the patients, the endless dr's orders, your co workers, in short it's a recipe for disaster.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.
...... I don't want to be some doctor's helper and be belittled all day, as well as being poor.

You really need to learn what nurses do before you make a decision. This is NOT what it is like.

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Wow, I'll try not to be brutal or anything, everyone has the right to their own opinion, but I'm in disbelief right now that someone would come to a site called "AllNURSES.com" and basically say that nurses are all broke Dr's helpers that wipe poo all day long... I did NOT "settle" on becoming a RN! I could have gone to med school, no problem, however, I CHOSE to be a nurse! The nurses are the ones at the bedside caring for the patients and their families during the roughest times of their life, even though the docs "get all the glory and respect." There is nothing more rewarding to me than being there for a patient when they really need it, "glory" or not...Please go to med school, we wouldn't want you to "settle" on such a demeaning job as a nurse now would we??

I think the OP is a teenager who knows little about what really goes on in a hospital, and came here looking for advice from those in the trenches about what action she should take.

p.s. A while back, I was living in an apartment and told my neighbor, who was an accountant, that I worked at the hospital, and he went "EWWWWWWWWW!" I wondered why he had the reaction he did, because I am a pharmacist, and it turned out he had never set foot in a hospital, for any reason, since he was discharged from the hospital as a newborn, and he liked to watch "ER" and thought the whole inside of a hospital building looked like that.

I told him, "No, the ER looks like 'ER' and then only some of the time. Most of the time, it looks more like a doctor's office."

lol

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Specializes in Adult SICU; open heart recovery.
Ha! to the previous poster. I LOVE grey's anatomy. I want to be just like Izzie Stevens. Beautiful and smart :D

I can't tell if the OP is kidding but I think she's serious. This is why the popularity of shows like "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" makes me nuts. People will say "it's just TV," but clearly there are a lot of people whose views of hospitals and nurses are very much influenced by what they see on TV.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept, M/S.

I absolutely did NOT settle for being a nurse. I entered NS in my mid 30's, and it had been a dream of mine for 10 years before that. However, my previous career, marketing and advertising, was lucrative and I became a mother a year after I was married, so I never had the chance to attend until my 4th child was in kindergarten. I don't regret it for ONE second, and never ever were my thoughts toward medical school.

It peeves me that people think I "settled" for nursing. Why, because I couldn't do anything else? Wrong! It was my goal, and since I've achieved that part of it, am setting new goals in my nursing career.

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