Hello all! I'm a 20 year old male who is contemplating a nursing career. I previously did two years at my local community college and got an associates degree in mathematics and science. My previous career goal was to become a PA, but I'm having second thoughts. There are two reasons why nursing has started to appeal to me more so than a PA...
1- I think I like the idea of direct patient care rather than a diagnosis/prescription-writing position. It GENUINELY makes me happy to make other people feel comfortable and at ease with their situation.
2- There is such a wide range of directions I could go. I could be an RN in any particular field or I could go on for a graduate degree of some sort. I've been looking into Psychiatric NP and that job seems very, very appealing to me at first glance.
3- Okay...I lied. Three reasons. My dad teaches at our local community college and it would be tuition free for me to get an ASN. This community college nursing program is notoriously difficult...but in a good way. It has a +50% drop-out rate but about a 95% first-time NCLEX passage rate. My next step would ideally get my tuition paid for to further my studies by an employer.
NOW. Here are my concerns:
1- I am a very, very empathetic person. Now don't get me wrong-- I know this is important for nursing. But I'm hoping it won't be my downfall as I physically feel different when I see people in pain. I get a weird feeling...almost painful...when other people are in excessive pain. I think this is either a good or bad thing...I'm not sure which.
2- I don't know if I can mentally do all the tasks a nurse is required to do. I get a bit squeamish at the notion of sticking a cath in someone's member or suctioning out a phlegmy trach. I've heard this is not dissimilar to many nurses' feeling early-on and you eventually get used to it.
So...all that being said...do you think nursing is for me? I do think I'm an intelligent person, but I need to be absolutely certain that I'm working towards something I'll enjoy as a career in order to be successful. Thank you so, so much for your anticipated replies. Best wishes...
He wasn't capitalizing. All he did was introduce himself. I am a male nursing student and am glad to hear another young guy is considering it.
Right. I didn't mean to offend anyone. I was mostly just throwing it out there to get some guys to potentially throw in their perspective on the nursing field. It's just that nursing is obviously a female-dominated field and I know there are some difficulties (or adjustments) men might have to overcome to have a good experience with a career in nursing.
I think Dwight here is having a bit of fun with us, Ya think?
As soon as I saw the handle was "schrutefarms" I immediately said to myself, "Yes, you must become a nurse." Also, for many PA programs you must have direct patient care experience working a certain number of hours as something like a medical assistant, LVN, RN, EMT, etc. so you kinda need to do something before you get to go to PA school, just FYI.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Hint: Don't even try to capitalize on the "male" aspect. Plan on being a nursing student, not a ******male****** nursing student, worthy of applause for going against type. Nursing already has enough males claiming special status.
UMMM can I get an "amen"? I was one of 5 females in a 100- MAN engine shop in the US Air Force. In no way did I use or capitalize on the "female minority" status of my position/occupation. Nurses who do this, frankly, get under my skin.
So. Just. Don't. Do. It. Especially in a majority female profession.
Well I've been lurking the forums for a few weeks now so I thought I'll finally chime in on a thread. Similar to you, I'm a 21 yr old male currently on 3rd year of BSN with my final goal as a FNP or ACNP. To be honest, there's nothing different about being a male other than the fact that we get to choose from 200 women in a class whereas they get 10 of us (haha :) ) Unfortunately I was supposed to start my very first hospital clinical day today but SC and mother nature decided to flood the entire state so maybe I'll be able to tell ya more in a week. So far, the worst I delt with in terms of being a male, is wearing bright red scrubs during my simulations whereas I've grown up 20 years in black/white gym shorts and shirts. The only thing I fear in terms of being a male in nursing is female personal care but that could be simply because of my age and the perception we have and/or how we are perceived by everyone.
If your still battling the PA/NP thing, this was my thought process so it could help ya. My ultimate goal was to become some type of provider with some authority. I knew I couldn't do 11 yr physician route as my brain is already fried from 15 yrs school so I thought about PA/NP. Reason why I think NP is better than PA:
1) Becoming a RN first. This is valuable experience you'll learn in terms of understanding what the patients are going through when you decided to push them a bunch of pills and ordering a indwelling catheter while being able to learn a lot of medical skills
2) Opportunity. I don't even know where to start with this one. So let's go with education, well guess what, you can choose between MSN or DNP. In terms of working, I couldn't even ya because there is so many different fields within nursing (ICU/ED/Med-surg/etc). Don't feel like working in hospital, then go teach.
In regards to your two points about why you're apprehensive about nursing, my advice is to look up the different areas you could work in as a nurse. There are a lot of non bedside options where you wouldn't often see patients in pain or have to perform tasks that might make you squeamish (such as correctional nursing, public health, clinics, insurance, etc) The decision is yours though :)
I'm not going to participate in further derailing OP's thread, but I will just say that I cannot be held responsible for someone drawing incorrect assumptions/implications from what I post.
Well I've been lurking the forums for a few weeks now so I thought I'll finally chime in on a thread. Similar to you, I'm a 21 yr old male currently on 3rd year of BSN with my final goal as a FNP or ACNP. To be honest, there's nothing different about being a male other than the fact that we get to choose from 200 women in a class whereas they get 10 of us (haha :) ).
That's one of the stranger comments I've ever read here.
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schrutefarms
12 Posts
Right. I didn't mean to offend anyone. I was mostly just throwing it out there to get some guys to potentially throw in their perspective on the nursing field. It's just that nursing is obviously a female-dominated field and I know there are some difficulties (or adjustments) men might have to overcome to have a good experience with a career in nursing.