58 years old - Am I too old to start nursing school??

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Age is how you feel and your overall health. I am much older as well! However, I should have my RN some time next year. But, I also have other credentials under my belt so lots to lean on there.

Anyone concerned about nursing school due to their age just needs to consider their overall health and stamina. I, for one, feel that I cannot endure the strenuous physical requirements that I have already gone through as an LPN, BUT REALIZE that LPNs (in my state) have less opportunities - usually end up in long term care and the workload is horrible. I had a couple of slight injuries but overall, the 12-hour shifts on my feet constantly with no breaks are what concerned me.

Now, having said that.....think of it this way. Nursing is very DIVERSE! Have you ever done a nursing Job Search and seen all the opportunities available to you? And if you get a BSN or beyond, there is no stopping you regarding opportunities! But even at the RN level, you could find jobs that are less strenuous than direct patient care - quality management positions, etc.

I hope it works out for you!

If you believe you're too old to do it, then you are too old. What I answer everyone when they ask me about RN school is go get a CNA job (hospitals where I live train for free) to see what its really all about. And, keep that job or ED Tech job all through school to give yourself documented healthcare work experiencing.

No do-overs, no regrets. Things work out the way they are supposed to work out, it can not be any other way. I'm an old fart and cause of death isn't going to be CHF in a SNF.

Specializes in medical surgical.

This can be done. HOWEVER, I would not do hospital nursing. BUT I would not do hospital nursing even if I was in my 30's. I graduated with my accelerated BSN very late 40's. Worked a few years on a busy med-surg floor and then became a traveler in hospitals. I believe I came on at the end of the good times of hospital nursing. The pay was still good but conditions were beginning to deteriorate for the nurses. I did this for about 2-3 years and completed a travel assignment while doing my MSN and NP program. I might also add that I was a single mother with 3 teens. I am done with corporate hospital jobs. I do not like the mentality but that has nothing to do with age. Many of the CEO's/CFO's are in their 60's and 70's so I do not buy completely in to the ageism factor. Today, I am back in school but it is for a post masters program. I am now old as the hills. I also NEVER lack for a job. I carry myself well, am well spoken and have a can do attitude. I also work well with multi generations. BUT AGAIN, no more corporate!! EVER. I will teach, do local hospice, mentor, ect before I ever step into a hospital environment again.

Honesty, I think so. Why? Because bedside nursing is for the young and generally healthy, and you would have to start out in some sort of direct patient care position. Young nurses with only a few good years of experience are clammering to get out move up into less physically and emotionally taxing positions --- and can, because they at least have working experience. Being a nurse is a lot more physically demanding than most (even students) realize.

As a newer grad, 12 hr. shifts easily turn into 14 hr. shifts. And, just yesterday I went nine (9) HOURS at work without one drink of water. Or anything. It was 1530 before I took my only break. That was my first and only opportunity to hydrate myself at work. I was that busy with a zillion calls, an admission, a discharge, patients coming back from surgery... more calls, more demands... an end of shift discharge. It's really physically difficult to tolerate and I cannot recommend it.

I graduated with my ADN at the age of 48, I followed up and finished with my BSN a little over a year later. I have been working bedside since graduation, BUT, I was the last of my cohort to be offered a job (we were fellows and owed the hospitals 3 years for putting us through school). The position I got was 34 miles from my home, rush hour traffic both directions. I always wanted to be a nurse and this is when the opportunity and timing was right.

Would I do it again? Not sure. Even though my classes were paid for, I had to take out student loans to pay the bills. Those loans seem to last forever.

I love being a nurse. I work 12 hour shifts and sometimes I feel much older than my age at the end of the night. This job does age you, it is a lot of stress, regardless of the area you work in.

If you really want to work in healthcare, I would suggest you become a medical assistant. Doctors are not hiring nurses much to work in offices anymore. It would be less hours a day than the hospital, and may be (?) a shorter program than an ADN. Will you make as much money? Not likely.

If you simply want to help people, and don't need to work, you could consider volunteering at a hospice or similar facility. Many places train volunteers to assist their patients.

Whatever you decide, remember what has been written here over and over again. No job is worth losing your health over.

Best of luck to you!

Blessed be

I'm about 20 years younger than you, and I'm having a tough time landing interviews at hospitals. As much as I don't want to believe that age is a factor, all of my classmates who've landed jobs almost instantly are at least 10 years younger than me, in their mid-late 20s, so it does make me wonder.

If nursing is something you're truly passionate about, and you really want to learn to be a nurse, then go for it. I'm sure there are folks who are able to make it work. But, if you're only looking into this to *maybe* land a sweet job, the deck is stacked against you. Age discrimination is so hard to prove, but it's real. :(

Specializes in Family Practice, Med-Surg.

I am 62. I planned to work until 66, continue to add to my retirement fund. Over a year ago, it became abundantly clear to me that I could not continue to work. I was working full time as an NP. My employer was all about production and patient satisfaction. I devoted my life to my job, basically because I no longer had the energy for work and life. I had to choose. Devoting my life to work didn't work. I was no longer refreshed after time off and at end of the week, I found myself crying at work when things did not go well. I was doing a good job, my patients loved me. My employer would not reduce my hours. I resigned 11 months ago. Nursing school at 58? I would think long and hard. Will you be able to pay back your loans if you don't get hired? Maybe you need to let go of the dream. Nursing is a strenuous profession.

Specializes in ER, Med-surg.
Cola89 said:
Honesty, I think so. Why? Because bedside nursing is for the young and generally healthy, and you would have to start out in some sort of direct patient care position. Young nurses with only a few good years of experience are clammering to get out move up into less physically and emotionally taxing positions --- and can, because they at least have working experience. Being a nurse is a lot more physically demanding than most (even students) realize.

As a newer grad, 12 hr. shifts easily turn into 14 hr. shifts. And, just yesterday I went nine (9) HOURS at work without one drink of water. Or anything. It was 1530 before I took my only break. That was my first and only opportunity to hydrate myself at work. I was that busy with a zillion calls, an admission, a discharge, patients coming back from surgery... more calls, more demands... an end of shift discharge. It's really physically difficult to tolerate and I cannot recommend it.

^^^ This is so true, and it does not necessarily get better with time and experience. Even with experience, in many hospitals, staffing and acuity is such that it's not uncommon for there to be no time for lunch or breaks. You will see many people on this board saying things like "You must MAKE time for self-care" and that is true to an extent- but it's also possible to be in a situation where you have a list of tasks none of which you'd be willing to say before the patient, their family, your boss, or the BON "that was late/missed because I was in the bathroom/getting a drink." Gotta get that EKG in under ten minutes, hang that drip, answer that call bell before your confused patient falls, and "self-care was important!" is not a good enough reason for why you were off the floor when things on your assignment went bad. And under Joint Commission policies, you usually need to be able to get to a breakroom or elsewhere off the workfloor to take a non-policy-violating drink, because they aren't allowed in work spaces. If all that sounds miserable and unreasonable- welcome to modern hospital nursing.

I had a hellacious shift last week where despite working flat out for hours, I also didn't get a drink (because we're on high alert for TJC and I couldn't have one at my desk, and I COULD NOT get off the floor for even a moment until eight hours in to my shift). Two ICU holds, two floor holds, and a "regular" ER bed (so constantly admitting and d/cing patients), prepping one patient for surgery, another on multiple drips, everyone was total assist, two of them had diarrhea, and we had no tech, and the rooms were spread across the department (because we were too short-staffed to keep assignments in just one area) so tons of running. I covered more than six miles of walking between clock in and clock out, and lifted/turned/changed/repositioned cumulatively thousands of pounds of patients, mostly by myself. I was dehydrated and beyond physically miserable by the end of the day, and the cold I thought was gone resurged and turned in to bronchitis in the following days. Again, I'm a basically fit, healthy thirty-something. And this was a bad shift, but it wasn't a shocking/unimaginable shift by any means- conditions similar to this are not uncommon, this was just an exceptionally bad combination of acuity, census, and understaffing.

I'm actually pretty damn good at time management, but there are days when the work assigned goes beyond what anyone of any experience level can "manage" in the time allotted. There is a reason so many nurses are clamoring for non-bedside jobs, and it's that many bedside jobs as currently structured wring you out and leave you with no physical reserves.

I just really wouldn't recommend it for someone who is stressed and exhausted to the point of unhealthiness by study alone. And I don't mean that in a bad way at all- I don't REALLY recommend it for young, healthy people, either, but it's one thing to go through a few years of it in your youth in order to get access to saner jobs later. It's entirely another to sign up for it when you're in your sixties.

My opinion and experience says nursing school at any chronological age is a personal thing that should be rigorously and honestly self-assessed. That said, I went to nursing school at age 59 and worked 50 plus hours a week and attended FT day school and it was not a challenge for me. I was under-challenged. My Grandmother was a veterinarian surgeon and clinical instructor who performed her last equine surgery at age 87. She stopped when her horse fell over a jump on a hunt course, crushing her hip. While I was in nursing school, I met a nurse who was 74 and had just returned from climbing Mt Hood. She looked like she was 40 and had more energy than an 18 year old. I am 61 and have more energy than I had when I was 30. My cog processes have improved and not declined. In addition I bring years of experience as a CNA and PCT, Phlebo., and so on. The real hands on care. And...because I have observed many years of learning exactly how I will not be as a nurse and exactly how I will be as a nurse I didn't feel a huge transition from being a real bedside nurse into med pass nurse. My work days are much easier physically and less demanding than when I was PCT or CNA. It's a different kind of stress that I refuse to let get inside of me. And....being older and not having children at home....I fill in every shift every parent calls in because of needing to meet the needs of children. And, as many new parents are struggling financially, I often pick them up for shift work as well. And....sad as it is....I also feed CNA's and PCT's on occasion because they are paid an unlivable wage for doing 90% of nursing work. So having an older nurse around is a smart move for thinking management, and a really smart move for those nurses who tend to want to destroy someone's life.

Some employers seem to enjoy initial investment in new nurses regardless of age as their staff turnarounds are so high. I am becoming more and more less sympathetic when I hear things like employer investment pay off and one mistake and out, in an ever changing environment where impossible workloads are condoned behind the hand. Chronological age is not an accurate measure of personal fitness for any job. I will outrun you, I bench 225 easily, and out work you. I am 61 and getting stronger and have more endurance as time goes by. It is about how I take care of my body and mind. It is how I deal in a resilient way and how I have dealt with life experience in the past. It is some genetic inheritance that allows all of my family to work up into their 80's and 90's. If they are still breathing they are unbelievably able to still work and work well.

If you smoke, drink, take drugs, don't follow written mobility care plans, eat a lot of crap food, wear crap shoes to work, wear terrible socks or stockings, don't work out, don't think positively, don't have a Spiritual life, sleep around, gossip, don't see impossible workloads as personal challenges that excite your creativity, if you have no sense of loyalty to a facility or any work ethic, then at any age, or if you are _itch....its time to get off the nurse wagon and go work someplace else, at any age.

I think some nurses are bringing on their own burnout. I see the obese nurse right now...not more than 15 feet from me, filling her mouth with cheese puffs at her work station on a patient unit in the hall. She's eating in the hall on a designated infectious disease unit. She has her bottle filled with pepsi. She is sitting because she is so unconditioned and overweight that she cant stand. She is 26 years old, single with no children.

What the heck, chronologically challenged person going into nursing is probably juggling 12 hour shifts with 4 nurses yelling at person at the same time, lifting bariatric with no equipment, doing all the blood sugars, most wound care, all hygiene, all mobility, all feeding, all room and transportation, all,EKGs, OXygen equipment and masks, answering call lights, running all the errands and crap jobs that RNs would never do, and in some places that person is probably doing assessments for the nursing staff, checking IV sites, and even passing oral meds.....and making a hefty 10 an hour if lucky.

The median age of PCT's where I work is 57.

Why wouldn't the PCT or CNA want to make more money.....its less physical work and frankly med passes and a little different documentation, assessments are not more demanding.

Before anyone is a nurse they should do time as CNA and PCT and go on a back training program.

Whether underpaid aids living on sub Welfare wages, or nursing, we are today's SEAL team in healthcare!

We need to train as such!!!

I am a 63 year old RN and I can tell you, yes, you are too old to begin a nursing career. Nursing is hard, physically and mentally. If you can't make it through the nursing program you will not stand up under the 12 hr. shifts and holidays in addition to the ungodly hours themselves and sometime with no break. Not trying to be mean. Just realistic.

Specializes in LTC and Pediatrics.

Why is is that everyone replying on here assumes that a nurse will be working 12 hour shifts in med/surg? I can tell you that some of us have never worked med/surg since school. I have many friends who have done other things as well as not working 12 hour shifts. If we want to base all nursing based on a 12 hour med/surg practice, then we are not representing nursing well at all.

This is why the potential student asking the question needs to evaluate what she wants to do with her nursing. In what areas she is wanting to work. Full time or part time? That is important too. For some of us, it isn't about the money believe it or not. Especially when we are older.

Another thing, I know of grads in their 20's where it has taken them several months get a job. It took me about 2 weeks.

I am one who says if someone wants to return to school at an older age, then go for it.

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