Why are you REALLY going into nursing? Honest answers please.

Nursing Students General Students

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Ok, I'm a bit frustrated with all of these posts telling us that we shouldn't go into nursing because we need a job and steady income. Sure, I do like to help people, but I need a steady job even more. So, I decided to post a poll to see if we can get some honest answers.

:p

thank you lauralou! :) finally, what i have been trying to get across in a nutshell. :p

"however, i don't think the reason someone goes into nursing determines whether they are a good nurse. i am sure there are many people who felt a "calling" to nursing but are bad nurses. my only concern would be someone who hates nursing but does it only for the money. i think that attitude would impact patient care. if someone provides excellent care, it shouldn't really matter what their motivation is".

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Because I get to wear scrubs!!!

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You know, you may have been kidding, but I love scrubs! LOL!

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You know, you may have been kidding, but I love scrubs! LOL!

No kidding. I own a pair that I sleep in. I have not even officially started nursing school yet.

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I had some that I sold when I gave up my dream of becoming a nurse and now that I am going back, I would love to buy some. Not knowing where I will work and what their dress codes will be, I can't afford to spend money on something I won't be able to wear.

*sigh* right at this very moment, I am so very proud and happy to be a part of this profession even if I am not "there" yet.

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You know, you may have been kidding, but I love scrubs! LOL!

I am so NOT kidding! That was a real motivation for me. Another was being able to work two shifts (24 hrs) and be considered full time.

As far as scrubs go, I am working in a doctors office now (with one year to graduation) and I can wear any scrubs I want! I can also buy used scrubs for $5 each at the uniform store. I am in scrub heaven!!!!!!

Ali :balloons:

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The truth:

As I was growing up I was constantly sick, in and out of the hospital. When I was 7 years old I was hospitalized for 2 weeks (became septic due to a rip roaring kidney infection that I waited until I passed out before I told anyone I was sick), anyways my parents were unable to stay in the hospital with me and the nurses were the ones that came in at night and red bedtime stories to me and played with me. I certainly did not know at age 7 how much money nurses made. When I graduated from H.S. I decided to go and become a medical assistant to get my feet wet and make sure that this is what I wanted to do with my life. When I started working for physicians and they had me putting in I.V.'s and monitoring patients recieving infusions, I decided that I would go back to school, because I just loved it. I made $8.00 an hour at this physician's office and still had no idea that a nurse made that much more until I started going to college and had people telling me that I would be making the big bucks when I was done. So, no I had no idea how much money nurses made. I have just always wanted to do it. I love the clinical/skill aspect of nursing. The human body is fascinating and the more I learn the more I want to learn. I think everyday that if I can make a difference in someone's life the way the nurses did for me when I was a sick child scared to death that I have done my job. No I would not do it for free but if it paid $8.00/hr or $25.00/hr I would still do it.

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I think medicine (i am encompassiong nursing related issues in this general phrase) is fascinating. I enjoy learning, educating, biological sciences, psychology and helping others. I do not wish to spend the next 12 years of my marriage, and daughters life in medical school, I have always had the utmost respect for nurses and have worked with them in a variety of settings and found their jobs interesting. I also like the flexibility of a nursing career and the pay rate/benefits are decent. I'm not gonna lie i don't have a "calling" just more of a practical mind that thinks this will be a great fit for my personal, professional and familial goals.

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Specializes in Burn/Trauma PCU.

If anyone is still reading this far, I'll add my list:

--Cliche as it may sound, I really want to make a difference in the lives of other people. I tried a few other avenues to do that, but I just don't think I was really reaching anyone by learning how to efficiently collate, interpreting the "PC LOAD LETTER" error message on my printer/fax, hocking insurance to cranky car owners, or floating from temp job to mindless temp job.

--Like a lot of us, I've always been interested in medicine and caring for people. As a five-year-old, I used to chase the 3-year-old next door to me with a "medicine" bottle filled with M & Ms and plaster every inch of exposed skin with Band-Aids anytime she had as much as a scrape or mosquito bite (much to the dismay of my "waste not, want not" parents)

--I am just in love with the idea of coming to work in "pajamas" covered head to toe with SpongeBob SquarePants and Birkenstocks on my feet. That's my idea of business casual!

--We all had different reactions, aside from the collective shock and horror, to September 11. I still remember my first reaction vividly: I wanted to go to NYC, immediately, to ease pain and get people back on their feet. Still do, actually.

--My current OBGYN, an FNP, is the coolest: she was the first healthcare provider in my lifetime to really sit with me and listen to me, discussing my health with me rather than sort of telling me and sending me on my way. Along with other NPs and RNs I've met, she's been a huge inspiration to me.

--I am really, really tired of barely scraping by to make rent. I do think that, in general, nurses fall into that not-really-paid-for-what-they're-worth category... but as someone who's never topped out above $20K/yr after 10 years in the working world, nursing wages seem like winning the lottery!

--A calling sometimes takes 27+ years to really, truly be heard. Now that I hear it clearly, I'm not going to ignore it.

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Specializes in Neuro.

I want to be a nurse for a couple of reasons:

- I've been kind of a lost lamb in college, going for a Spanish degree mainly because I took a placement test and was able to start taking hours for my major during my freshman year. I've been leaning toward professions where I could help people (mainly teaching, due to the Spanish degree), but I've never been gung-ho about teaching.

- From my experience in the field of medicine as a patient, I've always felt that nurses are able to provide more patient interaction (particularly Nurse Practitioners, which is why I'm leaning toward doing that) than doctors. Nurses come in, get your vitals, symptoms, etc., then the doctor comes in, gives me a prescription, and I leave. I've always been able to have a more valuable relationship with my nurse than with my doctor, and I really like the concept of a caretaker-patient relationship.

- My favorite channel on television for the year we had digital cable was the Discovery Health Channel. I love the surgery shows, the Diagnosis Unknown where the CDC gets to help track down epidemics, Impact, where they show awesome diagrams of exactly what happened and all the neato technology that goes into making them better, etc. I think it's absolutely fascinating. I think after the fifty bazillionth time my fiance said "Geez, you watch that channel so much you should just go to nursing school or something" kind of clicked. ;)

- I will be able to immediately utilize my degree in a very specific manner. My fiance graduated in December with an English degree, and since then he's had jobs like a daycare instructor and a telemarketer. What does one DO with an English degree? Lots of random stuff, apparently. What does one DO with a Nursing degree, on the other hand? They become a Nurse, end of story. After hanging around with College of Liberal Arts students who have no clue what they want to do after they graduate, that makes me very nervous and I want to get into a profession in which I can get a degree that will allow me to do one specific thing, so I will know precisely what to do when I get out of college.

Meghan

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Specializes in Burn/Trauma PCU.

- My favorite channel on television for the year we had digital cable was the Discovery Health Channel. I love the surgery shows, the Diagnosis Unknown where the CDC gets to help track down epidemics, Impact, where they show awesome diagrams of exactly what happened and all the neato technology that goes into making them better, etc. I think it's absolutely fascinating. I think after the fifty bazillionth time my fiance said "Geez, you watch that channel so much you should just go to nursing school or something" kind of clicked. ;)

OMG - Me too! I love Discovery Health! I watch it all the time :p My favorite of the shows right now is The Residents - last week they highlighted an ER nurse and I was completely hooked (plus, her name was Anne, too). I'm too poor to keep cable these days, and I don't really mind losing it... except I want to keep Discovery Health (oh, and The Learning Channel, too)! Too bad you can't buy cable channels "a la carte" here... :crying2:

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OMG - Me too! I love Discovery Health! I watch it all the time :p My favorite of the shows right now is The Residents - last week they highlighted an ER nurse and I was completely hooked (plus, her name was Anne, too). I'm too poor to keep cable these days, and I don't really mind losing it... except I want to keep Discovery Health (oh, and The Learning Channel, too)! Too bad you can't buy cable channels "a la carte" here... :crying2:

Aaaaah, The Residents is my fave also! I saw the one with Anne. She was the one who kept saying she went into nursing so she could work in L&D, right? OOoooh it's medical mondays on TLC tonight:) I love those 2 channels.

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