Non-Nursing Master's - Considering Nursing

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Hello, everyone! I have a Bachelor's and Masters degree in Communications and have been in the field for about four years. In high school, I earned my CNA certification and was eligble to test for a phlebotomy certification as well. When I went off to school for my Bachelor's I was a pre-nursing student and completed all the prereqs. I ended up not making the min score required on my HESI (A&P portion) twice and was kicked out of the major right before moving on to clinical for the BSN. Because my academic career at the University was already paid for, I decided to stay and pursued a degree in Communications. I went on to receive my masters (also paid for by a University) as well and have been working in the field doing internal communications, social media, etc. I have the itch to go back to my first love, nursing. I feel torn about switching careers after obtaining all my other degrees. I am looking for advice on changing careers and also thoughts on what types of programs that I should consider? My sciences are expired since it has been longer than five years so I know that I will have to take those at a community college before I can apply to a program anywhere.

Looking forward to hearing and gaining your feedback!

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If you have a bachelor's degree, a couple years patient care experience, and redo your science pre-requisites you can apply to a Physician's assistant program.

I am a nursing as a second bachelors student and enjoy it. But I would have applied to a PA program if I had two years prior patient care experience. Respiratory therapists, optometrists, and dental hygienists also have interesting jobs and good salaries.

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5 minutes ago, Seyleigh said:

If you have a bachelor's degree, a couple years patient care experience, and redo your science pre-requisites you can apply to a Physician's assistant program.

I am a nursing as a second bachelors student and enjoy it. But I would have applied to a PA program if I had two years prior patient care experience. Respiratory therapists and dental hygienists also have interesting jobs and good salaries.

What is the difference between PA school and nursing school?

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Physicians assistant is a masters program. You work under a doctor, often in an ER or private practice. You can prescribe medications and diagnose patients under the doctor's license.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I don’t want dissuade anyone from their dreams but I should intensely shadow nurses and get to know what real nursing is all about. It would be a shame for you to regret leaving your current position.

Nursing is HARD. Especially bedside nursing. What is your perception of nursing? If it is the Nightingale Fantasy, than you are in for a rude awakening.

As a nurse you will have so much responsibility and so little authority. All the possible things that could go wrong, YOU will be blamed for.

Housekeeping didn’t clean the room good enough? Your fault.

Cafeteria screwed up a tray of food? You fault.

Pharmacy is late with medications and your patients are in pain? Your fault.

Physician doesn’t order appropriate treatments and you don’t catch it? Your fault.

You catch it and inform MD? You fault for disturbing the MD.

You are busy doing chest compressions on patient A, and are unable to tend to patient B? Your fault. (I’ve had families actually walk into the room of a coding patient and DEMANDS attention).

For medsurg: You’ve got 7 patients to assess, medicate, and make comfortable. You’re being spread thin. Everyone wants something from you and usually at the exact same time.

Radiology on the phone, family on the phone, patient needs to pee, other patient in pain, family member mad because patient isn’t getting pampered enough, doctor on the phone, and charge nurse keeps nudging you about a transfer or discharge because you’re getting a new patient in that room.

ICU 2-3 patients. All possibly dying. You run run run run ALL shift. No pee no food no water. Family is pacing outside their room just waiting to complain or make comments about some small obscure observance they’ve made. They ask you why the patient is coughing every damn time they cough while the patient is on a ventilator (where they'll naturally cough). They ask you to suction every 10 minutes even though you’ve explained frequent suctioning can cause damage and irritation and you need to let them cough on their own.

Oh the best is having a vented and agitated patient the doctors won’t order sedation for..... and if they self extubate it’s YOUR fault! Lol.

I could go on forever.

Cant forget the drug seekers. The ones that throw things at you (including urine) and all you names.

Hope you enjoy nursing. ❤️

1
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Specializes in Critical Care.

Just do PA school and safe yourself the trouble of nursing.

1
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1 hour ago, CardiacDork said:

I don’t want dissuade anyone from their dreams but I should intensely shadow nurses and get to know what real nursing is all about. It would be a shame for you to regret leaving your current position.

Nursing is HARD. Especially bedside nursing. What is your perception of nursing? If it is the Nightingale Fantasy, than you are in for a rude awakening.

As a nurse you will have so much responsibility and so little authority. All the possible things that could go wrong, YOU will be blamed for.

Housekeeping didn’t clean the room good enough? Your fault.

Cafeteria screwed up a tray of food? You fault.

Pharmacy is late with medications and your patients are in pain? Your fault.

Physician doesn’t order appropriate treatments and you don’t catch it? Your fault.

You catch it and inform MD? You fault for disturbing the MD.

You are busy doing chest compressions on patient A, and are unable to tend to patient B? Your fault. (I’ve had families actually walk into the room of a coding patient and DEMANDS attention).

For medsurg: You’ve got 7 patients to assess, medicate, and make comfortable. You’re being spread thin. Everyone wants something from you and usually at the exact same time.

Radiology on the phone, family on the phone, patient needs to pee, other patient in pain, family member mad because patient isn’t getting pampered enough, doctor on the phone, and charge nurse keeps nudging you about a transfer or discharge because you’re getting a new patient in that room.

ICU 2-3 patients. All possibly dying. You run run run run ALL shift. No pee no food no water. Family is pacing outside their room just waiting to complain or make comments about some small obscure observance they’ve made. They ask you why the patient is coughing every damn time they cough while the patient is on a ventilator (where they'll naturally cough). They ask you to suction every 10 minutes even though you’ve explained frequent suctioning can cause damage and irritation and you need to let them cough on their own.

Oh the best is having a vented and agitated patient the doctors won’t order sedation for..... and if they self extubate it’s YOUR fault! Lol.

I could go on forever.

Cant forget the drug seekers. The ones that throw things at you (including urine) and all you names.

Hope you enjoy nursing. ❤️

Hi CardiacDork,

Thank you for your perspective. Yes, I have shadowed and completed clinical rotation programs previously before switching educational trajectories.

It seems if you are a bit frustrated and exhausted with your current situation in nursing. I am hoping it gets better for you. Don't burn yourself out. Thanks again for your feedback!

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Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.

I am also a second career nurse, I have previous bachelor's and master's degrees in molecular and cell biology and worked for 17 years in pharmaceutical research. I transitioned into nursing because my previous education and experience were a good fit for many of the science based courses in nursing school.

I appreciate CardiacDork's input, although I find that my impression of nursing is not quite a negative. I have worked in long-term care, med-surg and ICU and I think there are many diverse options for nurses. There are rough days, and some challenging patient populations, but there are rewarding days where you can really make a difference in the life of a patient and/or family. Just this week I was able to help a family make an unfortunately rapid transition from CPR to DNR and their loved one passing. Then, I was happy to spend a night making a non-verbal patient smile and laugh while providing care. I had a sweet woman who was very ill that told me I was the best nurse she had, all because of a little flavored mouth swab. If you think nursing is what you want, then do it. Once you're in the field I think there's a place for almost everyone, direct patient care, support- like IT, management, education, etc. There's no way to really know once you're in it, but don't spend you life regretting not going for something. Good luck.

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Specializes in Dialysis.
22 hours ago, CardiacDork said:

I don’t want dissuade anyone from their dreams but I should intensely shadow nurses and get to know what real nursing is all about. It would be a shame for you to regret leaving your current position.

Nursing is HARD. Especially bedside nursing. What is your perception of nursing? If it is the Nightingale Fantasy, than you are in for a rude awakening.

As a nurse you will have so much responsibility and so little authority. All the possible things that could go wrong, YOU will be blamed for.

Housekeeping didn’t clean the room good enough? Your fault.

Cafeteria screwed up a tray of food? You fault.

Pharmacy is late with medications and your patients are in pain? Your fault.

Physician doesn’t order appropriate treatments and you don’t catch it? Your fault.

You catch it and inform MD? You fault for disturbing the MD.

You are busy doing chest compressions on patient A, and are unable to tend to patient B? Your fault. (I’ve had families actually walk into the room of a coding patient and DEMANDS attention). I got in trouble for this one time...because I didn't write an apology letter to Patient B's family member

For medsurg: You’ve got 7 patients to assess, medicate, and make comfortable. You’re being spread thin. Everyone wants something from you and usually at the exact same time.

Radiology on the phone, family on the phone, patient needs to pee, other patient in pain, family member mad because patient isn’t getting pampered enough, doctor on the phone, and charge nurse keeps nudging you about a transfer or discharge because you’re getting a new patient in that room.

ICU 2-3 patients. All possibly dying. You run run run run ALL shift. No pee no food no water. Family is pacing outside their room just waiting to complain or make comments about some small obscure observance they’ve made. They ask you why the patient is coughing every damn time they cough while the patient is on a ventilator (where they'll naturally cough). They ask you to suction every 10 minutes even though you’ve explained frequent suctioning can cause damage and irritation and you need to let them cough on their own.

Oh the best is having a vented and agitated patient the doctors won’t order sedation for..... and if they self extubate it’s YOUR fault! Lol.

I could go on forever.

Cant forget the drug seekers. The ones that throw things at you (including urine) and all you names.

Hope you enjoy nursing. ❤️

We must have worked at the same hospital before ?

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Specializes in Adult Primary Care.
On 7/12/2019 at 2:13 PM, CardiacDork said:

I don’t want dissuade anyone from their dreams but I should intensely shadow nurses and get to know what real nursing is all about. It would be a shame for you to regret leaving your current position.

Nursing is HARD. Especially bedside nursing. What is your perception of nursing? If it is the Nightingale Fantasy, than you are in for a rude awakening.

As a nurse you will have so much responsibility and so little authority. All the possible things that could go wrong, YOU will be blamed for.

Housekeeping didn’t clean the room good enough? Your fault.

Cafeteria screwed up a tray of food? You fault.

Pharmacy is late with medications and your patients are in pain? Your fault.

Physician doesn’t order appropriate treatments and you don’t catch it? Your fault.

You catch it and inform MD? You fault for disturbing the MD.

You are busy doing chest compressions on patient A, and are unable to tend to patient B? Your fault. (I’ve had families actually walk into the room of a coding patient and DEMANDS attention).

For medsurg: You’ve got 7 patients to assess, medicate, and make comfortable. You’re being spread thin. Everyone wants something from you and usually at the exact same time.

Radiology on the phone, family on the phone, patient needs to pee, other patient in pain, family member mad because patient isn’t getting pampered enough, doctor on the phone, and charge nurse keeps nudging you about a transfer or discharge because you’re getting a new patient in that room.

ICU 2-3 patients. All possibly dying. You run run run run ALL shift. No pee no food no water. Family is pacing outside their room just waiting to complain or make comments about some small obscure observance they’ve made. They ask you why the patient is coughing every damn time they cough while the patient is on a ventilator (where they'll naturally cough). They ask you to suction every 10 minutes even though you’ve explained frequent suctioning can cause damage and irritation and you need to let them cough on their own.

Oh the best is having a vented and agitated patient the doctors won’t order sedation for..... and if they self extubate it’s YOUR fault! Lol.

I could go on forever.

Cant forget the drug seekers. The ones that throw things at you (including urine) and all you names.

Hope you enjoy nursing. ❤️

This caused some serious flashbacks!!!!!

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