Male: CNA, Should I go into Nursing or Electroneurodiagnostic Technology

[garbenja]

Hello,

I'm 33 year old CNA. I've been a CNA for over 10 years and currently unemployed. I'm taking care of family and back in school. I have 5 years experience working in the Operating room. 5 more years working on nursing floor and being floated everywhere!

I have one more semester finishing up prerequisites. I'm in a community college, they offer associate degrees. They currently offer a nursing program as well as a Electroneurodiagnostic technology program. I would like advice on which one I should go into.

I've have plenty of experience working with nurses and patients. Everyday is different on wether I want to continue down the path of nursing. I like the flexibility, advancement options and helping people. Sometimes the stress and politics makes me want to go a different direction. Nursing is full of extroverts. I'm more of a introvert, but get along with people just fine. Sometimes nursing drains me though.

I've seen many EEG's and Intraoperative monitoring cases. It's very intriguing to me. There seems to be a growing demand and might be an option for me to take. There's definitely more nursing jobs currently, however, more competition as well. The END program specializes in sleep studies, nerve conduction tests, EEG's, and evoked potentials. It's a brand new program, making it around only 25 in the nation. It is a specialty with some room to move around in different areas. Research down the road would be a nice option as well.

The prerequisites are pretty much the same so I have some time to decide but would like some advice on which one to go into. Any help would be awesome. Please ask more questions if you need more info.

[Buyer beware, BSN]

OP:

In most instances, and not being very familiar with all the diagnostic and therapeutic as well as the commercial applications as they relate to actually being gainfully employed in this field, most veteran nurses, if I may be so bold, and to be as least biased as possible, would advise you to go into the field that would require the least amount of contact with a patient's body, fluids and exudates as possible.

So the decision, keeping this valuable perspective in mind, is totally yours.

Good luck with this.

Either way you might want to stock-up on lots of Purell just to be safe.

[dishes, BSN, RN]

Do electroneurodiagnostic techs start by doing mainly sleep studies? Do they have to do sleep studies for a long period of time before being able to do the other diagnostic tests? I have yet to hear a tech describe a sleep study as interesting, most say they are boring. The nerve conduction and evoked potentials diagnostic tests sound more interesting, what does the job description entail do the techs do a cross section of all the tests?

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Oddly enough, I have a nursing colleague whose son entered this field (ENDT) two years ago. According to her, he's making bank and the demand in their area (DFW) far exceeds the available techs so there's a lot of overtime available. I did see his snazzy new car - very lush.

IMO, although nurses may enter the job marked with salaries in the same range as other roles that have similar educational requirements, they leave nursing in the dust in terms of career/salary progression in a very short time. Nursing salary compression is a very real thing - and has been for decades. Likewise, career development in nursing usually requires advancement of formal education - not so much in other roles.

Just my $0.02.