If you had a reset button, would you choose nursing again?

[amazingme]

I often hear conversations with nurses old and new discussing whether or not they would choose nursing as a career again if they had the opportunity. Some even have children in college now whom they haven't quite steered away from nursing, but strongly suggest they may want to choose an alternative career path. For me nursing wasn't my first career choice, but I'm glad I ended up here, and would definitely choose it again,

[Dranger]

No.

I would have gone to college did ROTC again and branched combat arms for 4 years (infantry, field artillery, armor etc). After that i would have gone to medical or at the least PA school.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

No. I wish that I had become an attorney for the ACLU or another civil rights organization or an immigration law attorney.

[AuDDoc]

I would have definitely chosen nursing and got my LPN in high school (our high school had a great program) and then went to a technical school for my AD RN (with my GPA I would have had a full ride), then got my BSN, then joined the military and let them use me for a few years then got hired by the VA and had them foot the bill for me to become an FNP.

Instead of spent many years in college working to become a surgeon, then had a change of heart and went to Audiology, then had a change of heart and wanted to do nursing, but then life got in the way and I settled. I won't deny I settled. Maybe one day I will pick up on the nursing degree again (doubtful), but I am making good money and my family is taken care of. I have good days and bad days. As I've said before when I look at how the H is changing from hospital to hotel in many facilities, I can't help but think maybe this was someone's way of saying "you're in a better place doc" and I just forget it and drive on.

Life is too short to look in the rearview.

I do wish my career path had the scope of practice and availability of jobs and different types of jobs that nursing has, but ehhhh what can you do? To have a do over in life would be nice, but who doesn't have some regrets?

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

I would choose nursing again. I might make a few different choices in school though.

[caliotter3]

Had I completed my education and continued with my career in the beginning as I had planned, I might answer differently as my career course might have been vastly different. Would I do it over again to achieve the same results as this time around, hades NO!

[f1j1nurse]

If I were doing it again in my late 30's then absolutely. If I had the maturity and foresight as a younger person, no way. I would have been better suited to have become a veterinarian or physician.

Wow exactly my sentiments!

[caliotter3]

My first inclination was to become a doctor, but chemistry and math talked me out of it early in the game. I caught the female aversion to math before that topic became popular with educators and psychologists. I've been hamstrung ever since. Never truly fulfilled throughout the years, I would have been much more satisfied being able to utilize my natural interest in medicine, science, and later on, the information technology fields. Nursing turned out to be probably the biggest disappointment of my life. As I've said before and will continue to repeat, I did not become a nurse to be unemployed.

[floridaRN38]

I wouldn't change it. Been an ER nurse 8 years. It is like a love hate relationship I have with it :)

[Everline]

No.

Not much else to say. But I'm a new nurse, still in my first year. Ask me again a year or two from now. I might feel differently. I don't know.

[ambr46]

I sometimes fantasize about what another career would be like and then speak to my sister who is an accountant for a large company where she is in constant fear of being laid off and another sibling that Hates her job so much that she has gotten quite bitter. Nah, think I'll stick with what I know-the good,bad, and everything in between.

[NursesRmofun, ASN, RN]

Good question.

It (nursing) was a good career choice and what I wanted to do...a calling...and I did and do it pretty well. However, if I could do it all over, I'd be a RT. The money is almost as much as a RN, or around the ballpark,... and the amt. of duties is far less. Thing is...there aren't as many positions either...not by a long shot.

[QuarterLife88, MSN, RN, NP]

No. I would have been a psychologist instead. That's what I really wanted to do. But I'm a nurse now, and while I do not hate it, I don't have a passion for it at all. At least not for floor nursing, so I've decided to go back to school with the ultimate goal of becoming an NP. At least that way the increase in pay and higher education, will help make up for my flop life choices.