Is nursing for me?!

GeminiNurse29 · Mar 20, 2019

Just my two cents: Some nursing schools require you to have CNA experience or at least care giving experience. I was not a CNA before going to nursing school (though I did work as a caregiver) but from what I’ve seen and heard, CNAs do very physical hands on work. Lots of patient lifting, twisting, and turning. And even though you may be the RN, you’ll still have to do it once in awhile depending where you work.

I currently do triaging for urgent care. That’s a desk job and I’m on the phones pretty much the whole time. I got the position because I had experience triaging for a clinic that served the under and uninsured. I got that job because I’m fluent in one of the languages of the patient population they serve. Before that, I did mental health and home health. So there’s a lot of variety in nursing. Each of them all have their challenges.

River&MountainRN, ADN, RN · Mar 20, 2019

If you're already burned out dealing with people (looking at working as a legal and personal assistant as a lot of dealing with people), nursing is not going to help that. It could very well make it worse.

Just to get through clinicals, before you even become a nurse, you will have a lot of standing. There are desk jobs in nursing, but a. you have to make it through clinicals first, and b. you usually need some experience first before office jobs will consider you. It's not impossible, as I got my first office job about 6 months after graduating, but I also had LTC/SNF nursing experience by then, as well as multiple years as a CNA.

hopefulFNP2017 · Apr 1, 2019

Don't do it. If you're already stressed out, and looking to get out from that kind of life, nursing is the wrong career. Nursing has plenty of stress in store for you. Someone said that you may have to step in and turn and move patients sometimes. Uhm, no, it's more like, all the time. I'm working at a place that's really great and people help each other already. But even then, there's just SO MUCH turning, moving, cleaning poop, toileting needed for our patients (I'm at a stepdown, usual ratio is 4:1 or 5:1) that it's pretty much all hands on deck every shift. In nursing school, they said, "learn to delegate!" and stupidly teach us what things we're supposed to delegate. People actually think you'll get to delegate a bunch of things to a tech. That's a joke. Yea, once you get out in the workplace, you discover that there's ONE tech for the whole floor sometimes. There's no one to delegate to. You'll be lucky to find another nurse who's free and can help you, and if your patient is obese, good luck finding two more strong and able bodies to help out.

It sounds jaded, but it's true. That's how it is, and I've heard my workplace is high acuity, but generally a pretty good place to work compared to other places where horror stories abound.

EMB1548 · Apr 1, 2019

You could do insurance like Humana or do research, but a lot of times these companies are looking for nurses with a least one year of experience. NP you would need clinical experience as well. I would suggest Peds possibly? No matter where you go, it's a very physically demanding job. I would suggest if you're adamant about nursing to look into IV teams, dialysis, radiology, cath labs, outpatient, community nursing (like going to schools to test hearing, etc) or holistic nursing if you're looking for something a bit kinder on your body. Med-Surg is hard, TCU, and ICU is all challenging on your body even with good body mechanics. The experience is needed and prepares you, though! Best of luck to you!

Seeing Myself Out · Apr 2, 2019

I highly my current dislike desk job but I also dislike jobs that only or mostly involve manual labor. I have complications from old injuries as well and have not found my niche in nursing and I doubt I ever will. At this point I don't think nursing is for me, but I still work part time to pay bills and consider myself to be darn good at it too. Make the best out of your situation.

Seeing Myself Out · Apr 2, 2019

18 minutes ago, Seeing Myself Out said:
I highly my current dislike desk job but I also dislike jobs that only or mostly involve manual labor. I have complications from old injuries as well and have not found my niche in nursing and I doubt I ever will. At this point I don't think nursing is for me, but I still work part time to pay bills and consider myself to be darn good at it too. Make the best out of your situation.

highly dislike my current desk job*

**CalicoKitty, BSN, MSN, RN** · Apr 2, 2019

2 hours ago, Seeing Myself Out said:
highly dislike my current desk job*

Brains are weird. I didn't even realize the mistake. I had to reread it a few times.

As for going into nursing when you are burnt out from a field already and may have physical complications from work, I don't know. Honestly, it doesn't seem like a good idea. Nursing has a high rate of burnout, and a lot of physical activity (including injury rates). I'd see if you can shadow nurses for a few shifts, and maybe NPs in whatever field you're interested in. Nursing school is an expensive experience within itself, and deciding later it was not the right choice could be an expensive world of trouble.

TriciaJ, RN · Apr 2, 2019

Yes, there are desk jobs for nursing. But you will have to jump through many physical and mental hoops to get there. I don't know what about being a legal assistant burned you out, but that doesn't sound promising. Whatever the demands are, you can safely multiply them several times for nursing, and add the physical requirements. You probably don't want to do this to yourself.

If you have an interest in the human body I'd recommend medical transcription. Yes, you'd have to shore up your writing and spelling skills but that is a desk job that you would probably find interesting.

I hesitantly suggest any kind of an imaging tech (x-ray, CT, US, etc) because they do involve a certain amount of standing; not sure how much lifting and positioning would be involved. Medical billing and coding, maybe?

There are a lot of health care-related occupations that are less demanding than nursing. They may be a safer bet for you.

Workitinurfava, BSN, RN · May 28, 2019

On 4/1/2019 at 7:33 PM, EMB1548 said:
You could do insurance like Humana or do research, but a lot of times these companies are looking for nurses with a least one year of experience. NP you would need clinical experience as well. I would suggest Peds possibly? No matter where you go, it's a very physically demanding job. I would suggest if you're adamant about nursing to look into IV teams, dialysis, radiology, cath labs, outpatient, community nursing (like going to schools to test hearing, etc) or holistic nursing if you're looking for something a bit kinder on your body. Med-Surg is hard, TCU, and ICU is all challenging on your body even with good body mechanics. The experience is needed and prepares you, though! Best of luck to you!

Dialysis is all day every day standing for 12-15 hours. It requires bending too. The machines are always beeping so you have to get up and check them. I tried it, I had to be at work at 4am with the nurses to get the machines and water tested, and I was not seeing nurses leave until 9pm. I left earlier because I was in training but was told I would have there schedule when I came off of orientation. The techs tend to ask for help because they do the majority of dialysis and feel the nurses have time to help them. She would have to run all around the clinic or stand most of the day. In the inpatient settings, I never saw nurses sitting. Things move so quickly because they force as many treatments on a nurse as possible. Community nursing depending on the type will require walking and driving all over the place, so you can check up on the patients. I am not so sure she will have a good start because she is not able to stand for long periods.