A Mother Seeking Healthcare Career Advice for High School Junior

[Psata]

My Daughter who is a Junior in High School is not sure what she wants to do, except that it should be in the Healthcare field. Initially she wanted to be a Nurse, but lately seems to be wavering a bit.

She is currently enrolled in a Dual Enrollment (DE) Program at her High School and so far is doing 3 courses (9 credits) at a Local Community college. For the Winter Term she will be doing 11 credits and for her senior year, she plans to spend the entire year taking classes at the Community College full time (They call it Early Admission). If all goes well, she will probably have close to 60 credits and receive her Associate Degree through the DE. Her current Educational Plan is setup to complete all her prerequisites for a BSN program, which will have her enter directly into a BSN program at one of the State University and complete her BSN in two years. There is still time to change this to a more generic program that would be applicable to other fields. I'm just trying to avoid her going to College and doing a degree that is not marketable and have her spending more funds to finally get a career that is meaningful/rewarding.

My question is: What other career options are available in the Healthcare field for her apart from Nursing, coming out of high school? What are some of the hidden gems that a lot of students are not aware of (Healthcare wise)? If you could do it over, would you pursue nursing as a career or something else within the health sector and what would that be? Thanks in advance for your thoughts/suggestion.

[wooh, BSN, RN]

Unless after whatever education daughter pursues, mother comes along on job interviews.

[UtErRnEmt]

PT, OT, or medical billing. no night or on call duty.

If you could do it over, would you pursue nursing as a career or something else within the health sector and what would that be?

As someone who left an engineering career to become a nurse at the age of 45, my only regret is that I didn't do it 20 years sooner.

Of note... I know at least two young 'uns at work whose parent(s) are docs and who were directed into nursing by said MDs.

I know a couple of MDs personally who've told me privately that they feel they should have chosen nursing instead of medicine.

Me, I wish I'd gone to med school but I am pleased to be a nurse in favor of being an engineer. What I should have done, however, was become an airline pilot.

It's her life. How bout you let her choose?

Sure... but how 'bout giving her some guidance along the way?

So far as I can discern, the OP is simply trying to help gather information for her daughter... totally appropriate in my book.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

It's her life. How bout you let her choose?

Wow, cold.

OP sounds to me like a mother who cares about and is involved in her dtr's life. I think it is too much of an assumption to paint her as pushy, bossy, or trying to force dtr to do something in particular. Mom is rightly concerned about the wisdom of a particular course of action, not trying to dictate what her dtr should do.

Not to be rude, but did loriangel 14 and/or those who "liked" her comment have overbearing or worse mother-child relationships? How can you read the OP and decide Mom is trying to run her dtr's life? No insult intended here, I just don't comprehend the view of loriangel14 and don't comprehend why the likers agree.

For Psata: I applaud you for being informed, for being involved in your dtr's life, for caring about your dtr's choices. To answer your query - do look into Allied Health fields, such as lab tech, respiratory therapy, speech therapy, physical and occupational therapy, Radiology Tech, Cardiology Tech, and I can't think of others just now but they probably exist. How about Medical School? Registered Dietician? Social Worker?

Nursing is a love-hate situation. There are many avenues an RN can choose, which is good. Your dtr might love working with children, infants, sick newborns, she might prefer geriatrics and make the last days or years good for the elderly. Maybe be a jail nurse, a cruise ship nurse, a doctor's office nurse, an ICU nurse, ER, Surgery, or she might dislike the clinical (direct patient care) arena. She might want to be a Health Care Administrator, an educator of nursing students, a nurse anesthetist (lots of money in this), a nurse practitioner, or a school nurse (she'll be off all holidays and vacation times that the school is closed, a real plus if she would dislike working holidays, night shift, evening shift (really hard if she ever has kids with sports games, concerts, plays, and who need parental involvement while growing up), and weekends.

Nursing bedside care positions require nurses (and some of the other technician positions as well) to work at all hours, every day of the year. That means working on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, etc. This is no small problem.

Most of us don't mind too much if we don't have good families that we enjoy being with or don't have young children or want the overtime that SOME employers squeeze out for working major holidays. But if children are in the picture, if Grandpa is ill and it might be his last TG or Christmas with the family, it becomes very, very painful to have to leave the family and miss the event so you can go to your job.

Weather is also not an excuse for calling off. The shift she will be relieving wants to go home. Yes, serious ice, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards MIGHT be an exception - but not really. She'll have to go to work pretty much no matter what. And if she is hurt or her children are ill, she will not get much sympathy from the job in many cases. Even in emergencies, like being an innocent victim in a car accident. Some bosses are really cruel. Their job is to staff their unit, stay in budget, not be nice to staff.

Then there's the whole nurses as second class citizens issue. That is, doctors are still catered to - they bring patients in, they bring $$$ in to a hospital or clinic. Nurses are an expense. Yes, nurses keep your loved ones alive, clean their bodily wastes, do all the direct bedside care, notice changes to report to the doctor (pain, fever, pus where there was none earlier, mental status changes, new swelling, things your doctor won't see because she or he is not there). But doctors get the glory. Nurses just do the dirty work. It's honorable work, it's just not highly esteemed by anyone who isn't sick.

Nurses catch the wrath, usually unwarranted, of patients' family and other visitors - people who are quite self-controlled and respectful toward doctors are sometimes totally rude to nursing staff. We know it's stressful seeing your loved one sick or having to be outside your normal routine, but it's the nurse who catches the anger, the unreasonable demands for food for the visitor, blankets and chairs for visitors (at a time when there is a crisis on the ward), child care, care of elderly visitors, like dropping them off all day and expecting the nurse to give the visitors their pills, take them to the toilet, and feed them while they are "visiting" the patient and the son or dtr who has dropped them off goes to work or wherever.

Oh, and then there's dealing with nurses' aides. Oh, God, that's a miserable aspect of bedside nursing. Aides can be wonderful. Some, though, are tired because they work 2 or even 3 jobs and then go home and care for their kids. So they tend to disappear from their work assignments. They tend to think RN's don't want to help them with their work of changing diapers, bathing, feeding, and otherwise providing heavy physical care. Well, gee, who is going to give out the nurse's medications and do all of the other work that only the RN is allowed/required, by employer policy and by law, to do? This is a never-ending class struggle. It can be very draining and wearisome.

There is Occupational Health (like a school nurse, except it's for employees of a business), Continuing Education/Employee Health for a hospital (hard to come by these jobs), Wound Care/Ostomy Specialist, medical missionary, Hospice, owning a staffing agency (temp agency for nurses), home health care, just so many choices.

If you haven't already done so, look up the Occupational Outlook Handbook by the US Dept. of Labor. States might have similar publications. I think it's bls.dol.gov or something like that.

I might not have answered too many questions, might have opened up some worm cans, but I hope I have been at least some help and do applaud you for caring about your daughter's future.

As others have said, even if she decides she doesn't care for Nursing after a while, she can choose something else. Nursing Informatics (tell her to really explore this), for instance. Many people change careers, no shame in it at all.

New graduates have trouble finding work these days because employers are not hiring, so she might not get work right away except maybe in a nursing home, which some consider not real nursing. No, it's not the ER or the OR or the dramatic stuff you see on TV. It is an income and it does help older or disabled human beings. Blessed are the nursing home patients/residents who have a good nurse. Universities might need nurse researchers.

I urge you to explore all you need to, check out the posts here on Allnurses. Thank you for being an involved and loving Mom. Bless your dtr for using her high school years wisely.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

Unless after whatever education daughter pursues, mother comes along on job interviews.

If my mom came with me, they'd have hired her, LOL. JK.

Are you really saying that a parent should have no concern, no interest in what career her very own dtr chooses? If so, why are you saying this?

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

AGREE!! I see a number of my friends whose children have completed their Bachelors degree and now back home unemployed with degrees that pretty much useless as far as the job market is concern. These days, it is very critical that students pursue the "right" degrees or risk be unemployed or having to pursue advanced degrees before landing a decent job.

I firmly believe it is important that parents offer career advice, since a lot of our teenagers do not have any sense of what the real world is about when it comes to career choices. The Guidance Counselors at these high schools are stretched to the limit and have very little time to devote to their students. The market-place is changing rapidly and career options available 10-years ago are no longer relevant. There are "new" fields evolving every day that our high schoolers are not aware of and this topic touch on a number of them. I see individuals on this site who have completed both a Bachelors and Masters degrees and are now pursuing a nursing degree after exhausting their financial aid. More than ever, students have to be very selective in the choice of their first degree, given the cost of tertiary education today and the competitive nature of the job market.

My high school guidance counselor chose to focus on the students who knew they wanted to go to college. There was no time left over for those like me, who weren't sure what to do after high school.

Has Psata's dtr thought about becoming a Director of Human Resources? That's power.

Has she thought about employers? There are private firms, there are state, federal, county, parish, and city governments. All hire nurses and various other workers.

Best wishes, Psata.

[canigraduate]

I think it's good that the OP is looking out for her daughter. There's nothing wrong with that. However, I hope she isn't one of the moms that are so prevalent today that is doing it FOR her child instead of WITH.

That being said, I love nursing. It is my third? fourth? career and I will probably stick with this one for many years. There is a lot of versatility. I started in Med-Surg (which means taking care of post-op patients and people who are ill enough to be in the hospital, but not sick enough to be in the ICU). Now I am in ICU (where we take care of people who would literally die without the care we give). I liked Med-Surg, but I am LOVING ICU.

I have met RNs who work in Urology (dealing with urinary issues) offices, Pediatrics, Oncology, family practices, Interventional Radiology (where lots of cool stuff happens), etc. It's like teaching - while the basic job is the same, the options (like subject/grade) are endless.

If she is losing interest in being a nurse, there are a lot of good suggestions already posted. I would like to emphasize the need for shadowing. In my Med-Surg job, I often hosted high school students for an afternoon and showed them the G-rated version of what I did. You can contact area hospitals and find out what shadowing opportunities there are for various disciplines.

Good luck to you and your daughter!!

[Psata]

I want to thank all of you for the feedback and learn about a number of areas of healthcare I was unaware of. I'm in no way dictating to my daughter what field she should pursue or steer her in any specific area. The ultimate career decision will be hers and I want to be in a position to offer her alternatives, more along the lines have you thought about X or Y or Z? I will not be doing the research for her on any of the areas she might be interesting in, nor impose by views beyond look at other options as you make your final decision. I'm not a "pushy" mom by any stretch of the imagination. My daughter was the one that wanted to pursue Dual Enrollment and Early Admissions and I supported her decision. A lot of the Juniors/Seniors at her high school participate in this program.

BTW, I chose this forum because I wanted real world feedback from professionals who have first hand knowledge as oppose to reading some generic writeup on various fields. I will "suggest" to her to shadow some Healthcare professionals at one of the local hospitals and possibly volunteer at one of them. Again, I truly appreciate ALL comments, suggestions and will pass on the information to her.

[itrust]

It's her life. How bout you let her choose?

The operative question is, "who's paying for it?"

[wooh, BSN, RN]

If my mom came with me, they'd have hired her, LOL. JK.

Are you really saying that a parent should have no concern, no interest in what career her very own dtr chooses? If so, why are you saying this?

Because these days there is a ridiculous amount of helicopter parenting going on. And while she may just being helpful, she could also be doing the work FOR her daughter. Which isn't good for her daughter. Hopefully she's just being helpful. But these days, I wouldn't automatically assume that or accuse anyone who suggests otherwise of having horrible mothers.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Ok....I am in this process with my daughter. While I allow her to navigate the process you bet I'm hovering in the corner making sure she meets deadlines feel she is supported during the process. It is a frightening time for kids. It is overwhelming to them. My daughter LOVES high school and in many ways would like to stay another year.

My children's school is very college aggressive.... even I find the process overwhelming at time. Her applications for early decision have already been turned in. In this competitive aggressive market every good parent is looking for that edge for their child. I have been told by many BSN programs that they like proactive parents for their high school entry students for the parental involvement in that freshman year leads to sucess.

While I agree there is a lot of hovering that goes on....it is my job as a good parent to explore possibilities for my child's sucess and guide them to the right decisions.