how did you KNOW you were meant to be a nurse...having a conflict!

redwinggirlie · May 8, 2005

Even when you work the floor as a nurse, you will be teaching all kinds of people: your patients, their families, your peers, new grads, yourself ...... We never stop learning or teaching.

You will see, trust me.

wiegel34 · May 9, 2005

I just retired after many years of nursing. Keep doing what you are doing. Not to many are sorry for a degree in nursing. It doesn't always have to be patient care. there are many area's in the hospital that require teaching. From teaching patient about their illnesses to teaching nurses how to care for their patient to teching how to use computers. Once you get your degree, work for a while in one area, if that doesn't suit you move to another. If there is one thing I have learned in my years as a nurse:

school and the real thing are as different as night and day. hang in there.

There is life after school.

Deaconess · May 10, 2005

Hello all, I am currently in nursing school and doing quite well. But somehow, it just doesn't feel right yet and I have been wondering lately if nursing is really for me. I thoroughly ENJOY studying the material, do well on the tests, and do fine in clinicals. But I enjoy teaching MORE. I am a tutor for some of my fellow classmates and they tell me I missed my calling- that I should have been a teacher. It makes me wonder. To make matters worse, I had changed my major three times and waited to get into this RN program for two years, now I am at the top of the class. I have thought about being a nursing instructor...but that usually takes alot of time/experience.
I guess my question is How did you KNOW it was the right feild for you? And what are my options to incorporate teaching and nursing?

Nursing involves patient and family teaching in almost any setting. I too tend to be a "teacher." This has come in very handy working inthe ER and previously in ICU. In the ER I am constantly teaching from triage to discharge or admission. As I have become more experienced, I am orienting new nurses and resourcing student techs.

Some paths that are particularly suited to someone like yourself may be Clinical Nurse Educator (orientation/inservice education for staff nurses), Lactation Consultant (if you are inclined toward OB), Diabetes Educator, or Clinical Instructor. Once you get out and work as an RN you will find your niche. It sounds to me like you are someone with a broad range of interests, which is good. Nursing does not have to be your whole life (as some professors might suggest).

Alicia18 · May 10, 2005

i have known since i was very young that i wanted to be a nurse!! for the longest time, i have suffered from adhd which made it a great challenge to do so. i have thought so many times about what i wanted in life, but, my most often choice was to do something with my life that i could benefit as well as others. i graduated high school with my cna, from a tech school in june of 97 and began working as a cna in a nursing home. i then started nursing school in august and worked every weekend as a cna. i was to graduate the following year in september 98. i had only 28 days of school left, and i quit. my instructors were very adament that i should never have even persued a nursing career because people with adhd don't belong in nursing fields. i had a very hard time even getting a d in my grades. however, i re-enrolled in the next class, with a new instructor who spent time with me and i passed with a b average!!! but then it came time to take my boards and all i could think about was the other instructors telling me "you can't do it, you will never be a nurse" and so it took me until august 4, 1998 to take my boards. i was so nervous that i actually fell asleep on the computer twice, i was up all nite worrying about what they told me. my computer shut off at 85 questions and i knew i was doomed. . . until 3 days later i called and there was a license in my name!!! i had passed and i had done what they said i couldn't do!!! i was so proud of myself that i went and bought my super instructor a dozen of red roses, walked into that school and started crying - until i seen her, then i reached up and hugged her so tight. i told her that i had passed my boards because of her. we both cried. but the moral of the story is, even if you don't feel like it is the right job for you now, wait till you get out there and work with the people, it is such a rewarding career. and, yes, even if you think that you may not like actually working the field, you should persue a teaching career in nursing. i think you may just make it worth your while if you do tutoring now and enjoy it now, go for it!!!!! get that teaching degree!!! reach for the stars!!! you can do it!!!!!!! never let anyone tell you you can't, simply because, the word "can't" does not exist in nursing. good luck in all you do!!!

i think this is great! your story is an inspiration to everyone who says that for this or that reason they can't follow their dream.

i hit upon nursing as a career when an order of catholic nuns were talking about how nursing was one of their duties. i had always been interested in biology, but thought i wanted to be a nun -- just then, though, i realized i wanted to nurse. i had already visited nursing homes with a group of kids from my church, but when i first did some volunteer work in med surg, i knew for a fact that i had found what i wanted to do. i like helping people, and the satisfaction of being able to help other and being such a big part of their life settled it for me. i considered teaching as well, asoldierswife05, but being able to teach new people about their duties at my workplace during orientation has filled in that need for me. you might want more, but don't give up on nursing if that's what you want. there is always a way to incorporate what you love into your job. if you find you don't like nursing later, you can always go into teaching, and you'll have that handy nursing background! :)

Judee Smudee, ADN, RN · May 11, 2005

One thing that has never changed for me is that I feel totally and completely happy when I am with the patients. It was that way when I was a new nurse and is that way now that I am an old nurse. Sad to say that there are millions of little things that keep me away from the patients. These things are my burden.

tencat · May 11, 2005

I am 35, and I'm starting nursing school in June. I have been a public school teacher for 12 years. If you're worried about being limited by getting a nursing degree, you are much more limited if you teach public school. You can either teach, be an administrator, or be a counselor. That's it. That's part of the reason I have chosen to leave teaching, because I feel 'boxed' in. It seems that nursing has endless possibilities, and I like the fact that when I need something new, I can find it.

If you feel strongly about teaching kids, you could be a school nurse. I'm sure school nurses can teach things like health and CPR to kids. As far as college goes, Community Colleges often let people teach who have a certain number of Master's credits in their field. But, you would need to be a nurse for a few years before you could go that route.

Just remember that it's never too late to change careers! Don't feel like you have to be locked into something for the rest of your life. I read somewhere that the average person has 5 careers during their work lifetime. If it makes you miserable and starts affecting your health (as teaching did for me), then it's time to make a change. Don't be afraid to do it!

NurseLeeLee · May 12, 2005

I decided to go to nursing school because I knew I wanted to work in medicine but I didn't want to be a doctor. :icon_roll I was not sure it was my calling until I realized something. I absolutely hate getting up at 5am. I absolutely hate driving for 30 minutes to get to work. But no matter how much I feel like I just don't want to get out of bed, when I step foot on the hospital floor I light up. My whole demeanor changes when I'm in the hospital. Time flies, I bond with my patients, I love the staff I work with, and I come home wanting to tell everyone about how great my day was (HIPAA has taken that ability away :uhoh21: ). I believe everyone has a different meaning of life, but the meaning I have discovered to mine is to get to know as many people as I can and help them in whatever way I am able. There are days when I come home and a little black cloud hangs over my head :chair: , but there are days when I come home and I'm smiling brighter than the sun. Give it time and you may notice one day that you really love being a nurse.

WHat is HIPPAA?

live4today, RN · May 12, 2005

there are plenty of opportunities as a nurse to teach others.
since i became a nurse, i've had more opportunities to sit down with patients and their families and explain what was going on and what to expect. and i wouldn't have it any other way.
a nurse who is willing to sit down with patients and family and teach them about their tx/dx is worth more than their weight in gold. teaching is not merely restricted to a classroom setting!

patient and family teaching pre-procedure/surgery and post procedure/surgery was something i thrived on in nursing until nurses were forbidden to "sit down with patients and family and teach them about their tx/dx". :rolleyes: yep! thooooooose were the days....looooooooooong gone where i happen to end up working for the past few years. :uhoh3:

cabbage patch rn · May 13, 2005

First of all, nursing school is nothing like what it will be like in the real world of nursing. You will have to practice for a few years in order to find out if it is for you or not. When I was in school, the first clinical I decided that nursing wasn't for me. I hated it and thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life. But I decided to stick it out because I didn't want to quit, lame I know. The first few years after graduation I can't really say that I enjoyed it either. But, after becoming a seasoned nurse and finding my niche in OB, I can honestly now say that I LOVE what I do. It will take some time before you know for sure.

Nightcrawler, BSN, RN · May 13, 2005

Like some of the other posters have said, patient education is one of the most important parts of the career, in some areas I feel that it is THE most important part. I work on a busy telemetry floor which also serves as stepdown for cardiothoracic patients for a major Southern California teaching hospital. We are the ones who are responsible for teaching the heart/lung transplants about their medicines, changes in lifestyle and all of the rest of the things they will need to know in order to go on and live full lives while reducing the chances of rejection. Teaching on our floor can be the difference between a long and healthy life, and one which is spent in and out of the hospital with complications. These are patients that absolutely must be compliant with their medication regimen, and I cannot think of any other teaching role, in or out of nursing that has more meaning. I too enjoyed tutoring while in school, and I found a role that combined all of the things I loved, physiology, nursing theory and skills, pharmacology, and teaching. I am still a new nurse but I celebrate the news when I hear that one of my patients got their transplant, and I look forward to the time when they come back to us on the road to a whole new life. Patients from the past regularly stop by the floor to visit and thank the nurses their role in the patient's new beginning. I just wanted to put in my two cents.... Good luck to you in whatever you decide to do.... You are still young and you have plenty of time.