I used to be C.N.A. when I was in college because of the pay and flexibility. I used the medical field as a way to get through college to become a teacher. (Everyone kept telling me to be a nurse and not a teacher.) However at the time teaching was my passion. I was a teacher for 8 years but due to layoffs, bratty kids, the low pay, and lay offs I was done. I am now 50 and underemployed.
I had considered nursing again since heath, physical education and fitness are my highest values. Plus, the job market looks great in nursing.
However, I have such a stigma against being a male nurse. I don't feel comfortable wiping a butt, toiletry work, and being super compassionate and super caring anymore. It is exhausting.
I was good at it but hated doing it----I felt like this is all there is?? I am an intellectual and get bored passing out meds and taking care of people.
Healthcare is the only field where I can make good pay and retire comfortably.
I have investigated nursing so many times since my options are all dried up.
Do men go into nursing because of pay? I knew a truck driver who got into nursing and didn't care for it either but liked the pay and flexibility so he stuck with it.
Well, I suppose Nursing is the "go to" occupation when all of your options are dried up.
You have not done near enough research to think the job market looks great in nursing. Depending on which part of the country you would practice in, the market is frustrating to brutal with new grads going months without viable job offers of any kind let alone the very selective position you would deem yourself suitable to. By the time you are experienced enough for a "plum" position, you will be a prune.
As a 50 plus year old male starting as a novice in a predominately female profession, you will need to check your "attitude" at the door. They will see right through you and make your life a living hell. Your stigma against being a male nurse will be thoroughly proven as your workmates need only allow you to drown in your own incompetence by failing to help the poor idiot. You will need those people but why should they help a stuffy "intellectual" too lazy to "care" or clean a soiled human being?
If you're in it for the money, again perhaps your research hasn't gone far enough. Unless you are secretly wealthy and paying cash for school, student loans (non dis-chargeable by bankruptcy) can eat up a pretty good chunk of that new grad pay.
Perhaps your truck-driver friend's job is still open.
I worked as the equivalent of CNA (different names for the same role in my country) for three years while I studied. Whilst I was good and generally enjoyed the wards at the work I found it very tiring and at times frustrating, particular in regards to patients who just wouldn't improve. Upon graduation I was offered employment in a small private hospital in the OR. I work mon-fri, scrub, circulated and assist. I love what I do!! There are many avenues in nursing that you can take, it pays to investigate and find what works for you.
I had to pay my dues and work in an ED for several years that did involve cleaning and the such often. But now as a procedures nurse in a Cath/EP Lab and Interventional Radiology I Love it. I work with technology, take care of patients, learn to do so much, and have fun. Don't file all nurses as butt wipers and med pushers.
I understand not wanting to toilet someone, in nursing we are ingrained that this is part of the job. I don't like it but do it for the patient's dignity and well being. It has to be done and I understand when some nurses feel they are professionals why should they have to clean people as we are the only professional expected to do this, but the way bedside nursing is structured it is part of the job. I'm glad I have CNA's to help and am not working as a primary care nurse. I appreciate the CNA's and help them with the patients to protect their backs. The truth there is more toileting now than ever before because of the foley free environment, not to mention all the drinkers with liver failure on lactulose around the clock! And in ICU you are usually doing primary care without a CNA, although maybe you get to put a foley in more often for accurate I & O then on the floors. Remember for liver failure patients, rectal tubes are your friend, although they still will leak.
Med pass is more of a hassle thanks to the computer micromanaging why are you a minute late or early and other questions it will ask and you won't be able to move on till you answer all the computer's endless questions. I do miss the good old days before computer charting and the foley free movement. I don't agree with it because you can use silver antimicrobial foleys to decrease the risk of a UTI and if it were me I would want a foley just for dignity and comfort!
As far as working with male nurses, there are plenty of them already and most of us women are happy to work with them for many reasons first off that most are stronger for all the lifting or turning that needs to be done. Of course I know that is not an answer you or they want to hear! Oh well it is the truth! One of the guys is so strong he will lift a patient up that fell on the floor by himself and put them back to bed. Granted I don't recommend that, but I sure do appreciate him!
Seriously dude.....? Is this for real? Reading your post I wouldn't want you working or studying any where near me and certainly not looking after me when I was sick.
Go be a truck driver because a nurse you will never be.
donsterRN, ASN, BSN
2,558 Posts
Here's your answer.
And if I may say so, we'd all just appreciate it if you'd forget the idea of becoming a nurse, and just stay the hell home.
Thanks in advance.