Hello everyone..What motivated you to take up nursing???

kukukajoo, LPN · Jan 18, 2006

I will be happy to help you. I am applying to the Nursing program today!!

I am 37 and my dream since I can remember is to be a nurse. Don't know if it was my mom's Cherry Ames books that read over and over or if it was "MY" nurse at my docs that took such good care of me as sick little kid. I truly loved Nurse Nancy and thought for a long time she belonged to me and nobody else!! Maybe it is the caring and compassion that comes so naturally to me. I have a bet it is all these things combined and more!

I was married and had twins at 18 and life got in the way of my dreams but now that the twins are in college I finally have the time to pursure my dreams and goals. I can't wait to be a nurse!

**RosesrReder, BSN, MSN, RN** · Jan 18, 2006

I have always admired nurses, plus there are many of them in my family. I really loved what they did for a living and decided to follow the same route.......plus many other reasons.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Jan 18, 2006

Though I am still a fairly young adult, nursing is a drastic career change for me. I worked hard and laboriously at a hazardous factory for 3 years. This factory job was well-paying but also was merely a dead-end with few opportunities to grow and advance.

amerain · Jan 19, 2006

Thank you for sharing your time..i really appreciated it...i hope others can share their reasons, too.. Have a good day...

Princess74 · Jan 19, 2006

The thing that really motivated me to become a nurse was last year when my dad got severely ill and ended up in the ICU for 2 weeks. He had this one nurse who was just an angel to him and all of us (family) too. She really made him feel like he was her special patient, they really hit it off and she did everything possible medically and emotionally to make him better.

Things took a turn for the worse and he ended up on machines and eventually we knew that we would have to let him go. She came in on her days off just to check on him, and when we removed the machines she was crying along with the rest of us. My dad lived for almost two days after we took him off of everything. She MADE SURE he was not in pain, made sure he had the meds he needed to make his passing peaceful and she made sure that the rest of us were OK.

She came to me and some of my family one night when we were in the cafeteria getting a snack and told us that she was sorry that he was dieing and what a pleasure it had been to know my dad and the great influence that he had been on her life. She told us that she knew he was going to heaven and that she also knew, that when she got there that he would be standing on the shores to welcome her in.

It was amazing to me how much she helped all of us get through such a horrible situation and I respected her so much for the way that she treated my dad. I will never ever forget her! I never did see her again afterwards but you know, I think I need to tell her this story, she needs to know what an angel she was to me.

I was of course not thinking clearly for a while after my fathers death but once I kinda got back to being myself I started thinking about every thing that had happened and how much it meant to me for her to be his nurse, and BAM I was hooked. I knew right then and there that I wanted to be a nurse. I want to make that big of a difference in someone Else's life.

So here I am a year later in my second semester of pre-req's. I will turn in my application for the RN program in September(I just wish my dad knew, he always called me his little nurse because I was always so concerned about his health and my moms health) and hopefully get accepted for the following fall.

Until then I am going to get my EMT so I can run ambulance or work as a Tech in the ER.

Grace Oz · Jan 19, 2006

the thing that really motivated me to become a nurse was last year when my dad got severely ill and ended up in the icu for 2 weeks. he had this one nurse who was just an angel to him and all of us (family) too. she really made him feel like he was her special patient, they really hit it off and she did everything possible medically and emotionally to make him better.
things took a turn for the worse and he ended up on machines and eventually we knew that we would have to let him go. she came in on her days off just to check on him, and when we removed the machines she was crying along with the rest of us. my dad lived for almost two days after we took him off of everything. she made sure he was not in pain, made sure he had the meds he needed to make his passing peaceful and she made sure that the rest of us were ok.
she came to me and some of my family one night when we were in the cafeteria getting a snack and told us that she was sorry that he was dieing and what a pleasure it had been to know my dad and the great influence that he had been on her life. she told us that she knew he was going to heaven and that she also knew, that when she got there that he would be standing on the shores to welcome her in.
it was amazing to me how much she helped all of us get through such a horrible situation and i respected her so much for the way that she treated my dad. i will never ever forget her! i never did see her again afterwards but you know, i think i need to tell her this story, she needs to know what an angel she was to me.
i was of course not thinking clearly for a while after my fathers death but once i kinda got back to being myself i started thinking about every thing that had happened and how much it meant to me for her to be his nurse, and bam i was hooked. i knew right then and there that i wanted to be a nurse. i want to make that big of a difference in someone else's life.
so here i am a year later in my second semester of pre-req's. i will turn in my application for the rn program in september(i just wish my dad knew, he always called me his little nurse because i was always so concerned about his health and my moms health) and hopefully get accepted for the following fall.
until then i am going to get my emt so i can run ambulance or work as a tech in the er.

thank you for sharing your experience / story with us. my sympathies on the passing of your dad. i wish you every success as you pursue your dream and goal of becoming a nurse. your dad will be proud! :)

following_faith · Jan 19, 2006

I have to, have to, have to be intellectually challenged. If I am not able to use my mind in some complex way, I seriously just get up and walk away.

It is not my best trait. I have had a hard time sticking with college majors and jobs because if I am not being challenged, I just sink. Hard to explain-I'm a freak of nature, I know.

Nursing holds enough areas and specialites...I really cannot think of an area nurses cannot work in! I will never be bored and I will always be using my mind.

Grace Oz · Jan 19, 2006

to be honest, the last thing i ever wanted to do was become a nurse! my original choice of career was to study law. it's what i really wanted to do. however, due to life's, sometimes unkind, circumstances, my original dream never eventuated.

so... i became a nurse! i'm not, for one minute, suggesting nursing was then, (over 38 years ago), or is now, a second rate / second choice carrer pathway. certainly not! just that for me, it wasn't my original intended career choice. and, to be honest, i 'sort of' fell into it. why? because my mother, my older sister, aunts and cousins, were all nurses! i guess i continued the family tradition in a way. in fact, it was my older sister who actually took me along for my very first interview at the hospital! i was not quite 17 years old! guess you could say i got dragged along! lol. things were done very differently in outback australia back in 1967! :chuckle :rolleyes: and so began my adventure into the world of nursing!

have i ever regretted it? sometimes, yes! but, overall, i'm thankful for the absolute privilige of having the opportunity to serve my fellow man / woman in such a way. i'm thankful for the lessons learned. the friendships made. i'm grateful to have been able to make a difference to those in my care. i'm proud of the knowledge i've aquired. it's allowed me to travel and work in many places.

and now......... i'm glad i'm retired! :)

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Jan 19, 2006

My story is not too unlike Princess74's. I had originally decided to go back to school to become a pharmacist. Even at my age, I didn't really know how BORING it could be until my very supportive husband allowed me to leave my full time job and decent pay to go be a pharmacy tech. EEEEEWWWW. I know there's clinical pharmacy - which was what I was really interested in - but EWWWWW. The only days I felt really successful was when I could HELP someone. Even as a tech, you have chances to help. And those were the only days I went home happy.

My father became ill last April and we finally convinced him to go to the doctor. I was to take him to his appointment (he was 74) but we couldn't even get him to the car. He ended up in the local ER with severe pneumonia but with a "suspicious shadow" in a lung. He was transported to a larger teaching hospital and put in the ICU.

I was so impressed with all the nurses there, how wonderful they were, how much they all cared and how fired up some of them would get when they thought Daddy wasn't getting care he deserved! The pulmonologists, based on cultures, diagnosed him with s. aureus pneumonia, and recommended a ventilator to help him breathe while his lungs healed. They were still concerned about the "shadow" in the xrays. My father had smoked for something like sixty-odd years, so lung cancer was a very real concern.

I hope that before he died my father knew he didn't have lung cancer, but I think he went to his grave thinking that. They did a bronchioscopy on him while he was on the vent and his lungs were a disaster due to the devastating effects of the staphylococcus, which had pretty much destroyed his lungs. He was on vancomycin for days, to no avail. (I've since done extensive reading about resistant strains of s. aureus - yuck.) After seven days, he reached the point where the vent had become life support. We knew Daddy never wanted anything like that, so we let him go. The only bright side was that he went on the vent expecting to come out (I hope, I hope), and he just didn't. I was with him right up until the last second, his baby girl, telling him that it was OK if he had to go. When the lines on the monitor went flat, his nurse, who had been in there with us for about two hours (and his last five hours were AWFUL - OH HOW I WISH THEY'D CRANKED UP THE MORPHINE), turned them off quickly. And I noticed she was crying.

When I'd pulled myself together, I thought - NO KIDDING - what a privilege. What an honor to be there when someone passes away. Or is born, or is told the cancer's in remission - or is told they have six months to live. My father was a Navy hospital corpsman; I'd grown up in infirmaries and dispensaries all over the place (I used to go over and wait for him in the pharmacy after school and they'd let me play with sugar pills, counting them and putting them in and out of bottles - oh the liability of it all!). I loved the atmosphere, the teamwork. And I knew I just couldn't pass it up any longer.

That's what I wrote all my admission essays on - the privilege of nursing. And the inspiration of my dad. Like Princess74, I hope he knows. And to Princess74 - I BELIEVE THEY DO.

Bolts · Jan 19, 2006

Much like some of the others, I watched my father and godfather pass away from cancer. Watching how the nurses treated them, nothing was too small to do. But being in the military, mainly male dominated units, it took a meeting with a male nurse to help me make up my mind.

Looking back it seemed a silly thing to think, but he showed me by example that you can care and show compassion for people, but still be a "man", forgive me I was young :imbar . But he had been every where with the Red Cross, doing some amazing things, but it was his ability as a nurse and his ability to teach complexed things simply the made me to aspire to his lofty hieghts. Plus I just love the job, it rocks!

Bolts :rolleyes:

farishtaRN · Jan 20, 2006

I also started out heading down a different career path. I was always very interested in medical things, and had some wonderful experiences working in a hospital in Pakistan during my senior year of highschool. I was able to have tons of interaction with patients in many different areas, observe surgery (and I mean literally standing on the other side of the table from the surgeons!), work in labor and delivery and learned how to perform ultrasounds.

But as much as I loved that experience, I was very musical, and felt that I needed to head in a direction that involved music. I started studying music therapy in college, and stuck it out for a year and a half, all the while hating it! I have since discovered that the main thing that I love about nursing is the one-on-one interaction with patients, and in music therapy it just wasn't there. I still think that it is a wonderful field, just not the one for me. All that to say that I switched to nursing, and I haven't looked back!

I have been a nurse for a couple of years now, and I love it. Of course there are good days and bad, but on the whole I am very happy with my career choice. I think it is a great honor to be able to minister to people who are often in the midst of some of the worst experiences of their lives. I think that being able to meet someone's physical needs in a tangible way as an awesome responsibility and I am happy and fulfilled in doing it. I'm now working as a school nurse and I am having lots of fun! It is really neat to be able to work with the same kids on a long term basis and see them grow and change......