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Nurses General Nursing

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hi everyone i just signed up and here to start learing. Im still young going to be a senior in high school. ive been deciding if i want to put my life into focus with a career i would love and learn from from the work enviroment. becoming a male nurse sounds silly to many i know, but not to me. yes the salary is a good thing to think about, but its what you work for to recive the best benifits. reading about the good oppertunitys in nursing sound fantastic. working with people, meeting new people, taking care of others is somthing to always be happy about. i also have somthing that makes me feel deep inside that is a big motivation, which is my mother. she passed 3 years ago. her life was devoted on her career in nursing, she was outstanding shes was everything. i feel that becoming a nurse would just make me think about the good all the love what it really means to become the best of your own abilitys. but for now i may know nothing about this career but i do have my whole life of oppertunitys. i guess thats just my view if anyone can relate please feel open

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Specializes in Adult Stem Cell/Oncology.

Becoming a male nurse does not sound silly!!! There are more and more men going into nursing, and I personally think it's awesome! I'm very sorry about your mom....I'm sure she'd be very proud to know you're thinking of following in her footsteps! :-)

Is there a hospital nearby that you could volunteer at? I volunteer at two hospitals and it has definitely reaffirmed my desire to become a nurse. See if you can find a program where you'll be involved in direct patient care: giving bed baths, feeding patients, taking them for walks around the floor, feeding and changing babies, etc..... it'll definitely help you decide if nursing is for you :-)

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
hi everyone i just signed up and here to start learing. Im still young going to be a senior in high school. ive been deciding if i want to put my life into focus with a career i would love and learn from from the work enviroment. becoming a male nurse sounds silly to many i know, but not to me. yes the salary is a good thing to think about, but its what you work for to recive the best benifits. reading about the good oppertunitys in nursing sound fantastic. working with people, meeting new people, taking care of others is somthing to always be happy about. i also have somthing that makes me feel deep inside that is a big motivation, which is my mother. she passed 3 years ago. her life was devoted on her career in nursing, she was outstanding shes was everything. i feel that becoming a nurse would just make me think about the good all the love what it really means to become the best of your own abilitys. but for now i may know nothing about this career but i do have my whole life of oppertunitys. i guess thats just my view if anyone can relate please feel open

Hi raisonbrancrunch: Nursing has been a wonderful profession for me - get the very best education you can afford. Also, there is a movement to get rid of the term "male nurse" since we have more men in nursing than ever now. Men are now just "nurse". No matter where you work, you'll find youself working with other men.

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Specializes in ICU, ER (ED), CCU, PCU, CVICU, CCL.

Hello RBC... welcome. Here's my story that I posted yesterday on "why I became a nurse". But fist a funny story about an elevator trip I had in my hospital some years ago... maybe 12-15 years.

I was on the elevator when the door opened and two "pink ladies" got on (volunteers). One turned to me and said "Are you a male nurse"? I looked at her straight in the eyes.... looked down... pulled back my scrub pants (so only I could look down on my underpants) and got a shocked look on my face "why yes I am". They got a great laugh at that!

my story:

As I posted on the stories side of the forum, I spent many years in a Shriners Hospital. But this is not why I became a Nurse, it made me a better nurse and more comfortable in hospitals, but not why I went into nursing. The reason I went into nursing was economic... what is happening again in the US today as we watch rising food and fuel cost, falling home prices and inflation and a poor job market.

I was about to graduate from high school in 1982 (I was 19 1/2 years old due to all the years in the hospital as a child I elected to repeat 9th grade). I got accepted to Penn State, Temple, Del Val agricultural college a drafting school and Lawnwood gardens in an internship. My girlfriend at the time was going into nursing. Her mother was a nursing instructor, her grandmother was my pediatricians nurse when I was a baby! still I gave little thought about nursing. I took a job that summer at a local hospital as the landscaper and worked out of the boiler room. My brother had alreadyy graduated with a BS from Penn State in 1980 and could not find a good paying job. He spent the previous 2 Winters working for the Army Corp of Engineers taking sonar soundings of the Delaware River in the navigational channels freezing his A off. In the early 80's collage graduates had difficultly finding well paying jobs. So my brother, after spending 4 years in collage went to work for my father in a carpet factory loading rolls of carpet on tractor trailers for better money than what he got paid for his collage degree.

My SAT's were not that high but I still managed to get accepted to good schools, I just couldn't afford to pay the tuition. Reagan, a few year earlier made big cuts in benefits to handicapped persons, which I would have qualified for paid education. I went through 2 days of extensive physical and psychological testing to see if I still could qualify under the new laws for educational benefits for handicapped persons under Ronald Reagans new laws.... I didn't. the evaluator told me that I needed to go to "trade school" to be a tailor. I had a few awards from HS and my girlfriend gave me ONE APPLICATION for a nursing program. Lankenau Hospital School of Nursing..... however the deadline had passed. I applied anyway. I found out that I got accepted with conditions that I take some remedial language courses to pull up my SAT English scores, which I did. Seems all those years of homebound teachers or not going to school affected my language skills. So it became a mater of economics for me. Do I spend tens of thousands (now hundreds of thousands) of dollars to get an education and be like my brother, or go to nursing school and take the chance that I will always have a job with good benefits?

After 26 years, I still think I made the right decision. In my high school year book I wrote David Frost "the road not taken":

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood,

and I—I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.

I think you're going to make a fantastic nurse.

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Specializes in Wellness Coach, ICU, PACU, OR, Mgmt.

I LOVE the story about the Pink Ladies!

Thanks for making me chuckle, & thanks for setting them straight in their narrow-mindedness.

My husband is in the middle of nursing school right now & will join me as a nurse in about a year - already, he's having to explain his choice.

People can be sooooo limited in their thinking.

I'm just happy to have responsible & trustworthy nurses working along side me each day - don't care what their anatomy is!

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In all honesty...I love male nurses...I wish we had more of them... Good luck and welcome to ALLNURSES!!!!

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this is great! glad that i joined.

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Specializes in ICU, ER (ED), CCU, PCU, CVICU, CCL.
.

i shall be telling this with a sigh

somewhere ages and ages hence:

two roads diverged in a wood,

and i--i took the one less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference.

always remember this part of robert frost poem.

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Specializes in Ortho, Neuro, Detox, Tele.

As a nurse, I believe that men are becoming more and more accepted by staff and patients.

I can count on one hand the number of times that I've been asked to get a female tech or nurse to put someone on a bedpan or wash them up. If you show you care, that brings it out. also, I work with one DAM good nurse...who just happens to be a man. and there is another new grad starting in a couple of weeks and who will be going to nights with the other two of us...so I'm waiting for the schedule where it's a "dude night"....

You are quite smart and right to be trying to decide something now. But be prepared. Other young people may not understand why you would want to do this. "didn't you see Gaylord focker?" they'll say....and you know why you want to do this in your heart. Ignore the haters, and focus on your job. Do you have a career center, or volunteer center nearby? I would recommend getting your CNA in a summer class at a CC, and then working as a PRN tech in some facility to get exposure to patients.

I firmly believe that the BEST nurses have some practices as a CNA under their belt...it makes them a little less likely to forget where they came from. GL and welcome to AN.com!

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Specializes in Wellness Coach, ICU, PACU, OR, Mgmt.

I firmly believe that the BEST nurses have some practices as a CNA under their belt...it makes them a little less likely to forget where they came from.

Well said! I totally agree. :yeah::up:

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that sounds a good idea. and about people and there criticism dosnt bother me. i just choose to want to work on figuring out money issues for college and courses to take. nursing would be a good oppertunity to always improve upon educational wise. i feel i could learn alot not just from studing but from the whole atmophere of the career. respect on the other hand is always favored

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