If you could redo it....would you choose nursing?

[ICURNPA92]

Would you redo choosing nursing or the medical profession?

Curious to the feelings of others

[nursevjb]

Hell nah!!!

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

It's never to late to follow your dreams and let nursing pay for it. I am a writer as well and will soon publish my first book - stay posted all. I am also working on a novel which will feature the psych environment (You just can't make this stuff up). The trick is to get back into the habit of writing so sit down and write something every day. I's 54 so it's never too late.

Hppy

[ArrowRN, BSN, RN]

My biggest issue with nursing is the lack of respect we receive, and the lack of professionalism some portray which further perpetuates the lack of respect. Sometimes I feel like I got a BSW, Bachelor degree as a Waiter...and the HCAPS standards focus on customer service has made it worse. Had I choose to do it again I would go with a pre-med bachelors then P.A. school.

[Hangin'On,RN]

If I could go back, I would NOT choose nursing. I had no clue what I was getting into. I've had some good experiences over 13yrs and have also had some career blows that have made me seriously question my career. I tried to escape once, but didn't make it. Now, I sit here unemployed, trying to decide what path to take because after working as a school nurse for three years we were laid off due to the school nurse program loosing funding.

[stl2nola]

No way in hell. I fell into it by accident. All I ever wanted to be since childhood was a police officer. I am currently making my exit as quickly as possible. My Meyers-Briggs personality profile has zero to do with nursing and primarily focuses on the legal field such as police officer, attorney, judge or paralegal. The only thing medical that fit was pharmacist, trauma surgeon, or coroner and I'm surely not going to medical school.

[preemiepoweredRN]

Wow..I think about this often (especially when work gets "hard" aka most of the time).

I think I still would choose nursing.. Not sure what I would do otherwise for a profession.

[soon2beNP]

nursing is my second career and due to financial constraints, I went the LPN route. I'm almost 40 and just got accepted into a bridge program...wish I would've started earlier instead of wasting my youth trying to achieve a BA in business. Expensive mistake! My first love was occupational therapy but I started a family young and there went that dream! Not much of a support system. Hopefully my future allows to become a pediatric NP...at this point alittle far fetched...and I almost feel like it's too late.

[friendlylark]

I could not be more proud to be a member of the nursing profession :-) It is one of the things I am most proud of in my entire life.

That being said - when I was just out of high school - I began attending college for Journalism and Public Communications. There is a part of me that always wanted to be a writer, a journalist :-) It would have been a very different life for me! Sometimes the inflexibility of the nursing profession is a bit tricky for me. And by that I mean, I worked in the dot com world for a while - and I miss the work-from-home options and the hour-long lunches with colleagues.

There is also a part of me that is totally turned on by legal knowledge. I completely love it! So perhaps in another life I will be a lawyer.

To be honest, I didn't come from a family that encouraged higher education. My family is quite religious and I think my dad's attitude was that higher education is a selfish and vain pursuit - not in line with advancing the Kingdom of God. It is more important to spend time studying the Bible, than studying medical knowledge. In fact, he even discouraged me from going to Bible college - because too many kids leave their religion after studying it in a liberal environment!

I don't know - suffice it to say - my family was NOT pro-college. I was the first and only kid to graduate from college - and I didn't become a nurse until I was 36. So in some ways, the odds were stacked against me. But I overcame :-) And becoming a nurse is one of the best things I have ever done. I went to community college to do it - and I am so dang proud of that community college! I know that some people look down on community college - and I certainly don't have the pedigree that others might have - but that is OK. God bless the broken road that led me to becoming an RN. No one can ever take it from me.

Sorry this got a little too deep - but it's time I start sharing my story.

[K9lover, ASN, RN]

It isn't that I would have chosen something else, I just wish it would have stayed more like it had in the beginning when I started, versus how it is now (and I've only been a nurse since 2011). I loved the bedside and did not want to leave (there was so much more to learn and do), but when it felt as though my license was being put on the line with every shift, I left. I enjoy my current role, but this isn't what I had envisioned when I realized that I had to become a nurse.

Nailed it. I used to love bedside nursing, I used to be able to give TLC...worked in oncology 10 years and never comforted family while staying dry-eyed myself. Now that we are married to computers patient perception is they are secondary to documentation and they are correct. Of course we always documented but there was a time when one could spend time with patient since we didn't document in 'real time'. That and we have become such an entitled society we have scores based upon getting family their trays, " can i get you anything? Food, happy marriage, a dime bag, fulfilled life. I have the time!" Scripting, CMS reimbursement based upon. ' customer satisfaction, Studer etc...have created a perfect storm of making bedside nursing hell.

[Caffeine_IV]

I would do it again but I would plan more in regards to my job selections.

There have definitely been up and downs and some shifts where I'd say F-this I'm never coming back. I always came back though.

[MurseJJ]

YES. I only wish I did it earlier. Sure, there are challenging days, but after working other jobs before entering my professional career as a RN, I know that no job/career is perfect, and all have challenges (and having friends from college in other fields like finance, engineering, law, medicine, marketing, etc., I know that is certainly the case everywhere).

The key is finding a position that speaks to your interests, as well as an organization (if you work for one) that values and supports nurses and the nursing profession. I'm grateful to work at an academic medical center that really values its nurses, knows the areas that we need to work on, and provides multiple opportunities for nurses to advance professionally. We really are seen as colleagues with our physician partners, in all settings, who value our judgement and knowledge.

[hrtnrs123]

Absolutely not. I would most certainly choose a different career. After 30 years of bedside nursing this career path is among one of my biggest regrets.