I need some serious career advice PLEASE

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Hello everyone. First off I want to thank everyone for taking the time to read this. For a while now I have been trying to decide between pursuing nursing or respiratory therapy. I know you all have read threads about this before but I just had to ask again. The things that attract me to nursing are: advancement opportunity, higher pay, only one exam to take after graduation, and learing a little bit about the entire body. The things that worry me about nursing are: being responsible if something happens to the patient and, keeping track of all the medications for your patients. What attracts me about respiratory therapy is: the ability to move around the hospital and to not be stuck on floor my whole shift and, they seem to have down time throughout their day. What I don't like about RT is the pay. I have shadowed an RT and it was okay but I have never shadowed a nurse. I am on my schools waiting list for the RT program and I am hoping to get some feedback from you ladies (and men) on the nursing profession and RT profession. I ultimately want a career where I am able to support myself without any help and to support a child ( if I happen to have one in the future) Any advice please?:uhoh3:

P.S I know for sure I want to be in the medical field

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

Have you talked with any RTs lately? I have a friend who is a RT as his wife and they are having a TOUGH time finding a job. It seems that RTs are having even harder time with employment than nurses are.

You may want to check into that.

Also, it seems to me that nursing as a profession is a virtually unlimited field in terms of types of jobs. You can be a floor nurse, a community health nurse, a home health nurse, an infomatics geek, etc., whereas a RT is a relatively limited field.

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At my hospital, there are float nurses that go somewhere new every day. That may be something to consider if you don't want to be tied to one floor.

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Thanks you two for your comments

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