Need Advice

mrosev14 · Jul 18, 2008

I really hope no one would judge you based on your question. I wasn't sure I wanted to be a nurse until I spent time in the hospital shadowing a doctor, who is a friend. She was able to give me insight and hook me up with some great nurses to talk to. I hung around for a few months and saw a lot. I love it. That was how I decided. I would recommend you find a place that will let you "volunteer" to see what you want to do. Good luck.

Scooter321 · Jul 18, 2008

First of all, congratulations on being accepted to NS. I agree with the above poster that shadowing would really help with your decision. If I were you I would try to shadow both--an RT and an RN. I had exactly the opposite scenario. I got really interested in radiology and decided it was for me. I even shadowed for a day. Whilst getting my pre-reqs at my local community college (they don't offer RT but the courses would transfer) I got more and more interested in nursing, and I ended up changing my mind. I am now 100% committed to the idea of becoming an RN. Ironically, I was accepted into the RT program (I applied while still unsure) but not to the nursing program, the latter being at the same CC I have been taking my pre-reqs at. Sigh. There's always next year.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that changing your mind is nothing to be embarrassed about. This is the time to do it--before you invest time and money in training.

Personally, the more I thought about my day of shadowing the less I wanted to do the work. I thoroughly enjoyed the day, and everyone was wonderful to me, but I realized that it would not be long before I found the work boring and started to look elsewhere. Nursing offers so many options, I simply can't imagine that I would ever feel stuck in a career I no longer liked. As you can see, I'm no spring chicken, and this will definitely be my last career change. I want to get it right. :caduceus:

Good luck, whatever you decide.

joybells · Jul 18, 2008

Thanks guys the advice both of you gave was golden. I too plan on applying to my local Radiology Tech program . I think I am leaner closer that way, but like you said who knows I may end of changing my mind. I wanted to get all of that out of the way before I actually started my nursing sequence. I still have a little time to pray about and again thanks for the sound advice.

awhisler · Jul 23, 2008

Stick with nursing! Okay, I am a little biased being that this is a nursing forum.

I am currently in a BSN program. When I first started there were about 5 people in my class that either were not sure that they even wanted to be a nurse or were just using nursing as a stepping stone to get somewhere else. I am not two years into my program and those people have now found their love in nursing. The one reason why I would say nursing is because you have sooo much opportunity to work in many areas of nursing. You don't have to ever clean poop, vomit, or bloody messes if you don't want to. There is psych nursing for those psychology buffs, there is OB nursing that is mostly healthy happy babies, you can go on to case management which is much like social work, there is home care where you can visit people in their homes that are inbetween hospital/home transition or just need a little more help, there is OR, ER, teaching, school nurse, and sooooo many others to even touch on.

If you don't like your specialty you always have the option to change it without any new education besides what your facility will provide.

If you plan to go into radiology tech.. there are options for advancement and different pathways but you often need more education. There are far more pathways for nursing! :nurse: