Nursing With Cerebral Palsy

[Valry91]

Hello everyone,

In the next two weeks I am going to be a freshman at university. I selected pre-nursing as my major and I have always had the desire to help people. My goal is to be a family nurse practitioner. I have mild Cerebral Palsy, which affects motor skills. For example I write slower than normal and after a while it gets little hard to hold a pencil. As far as other things, lifting boxes, people, etc, I'm actually fine with.

I don't really want to be in the hospital set, I much prefer to be in a Doctor's office setting as a NP. I know I still have to do clinicals and etc where I am doing hands on basics, IVs, catheters, injections and I'll have to do those as well for my license.

I would appreciate honest input: am I wasting my time pursing this degree and just do something else or could I actually make it?

I look forward to receiving insight and answers. Thank you for taking the time to answer a

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

Have you spoken with your school's disability office? I'd start there. The licensure exam actually doesn't include any skills checkoffs -- it's all multiple choice on a computer, so you wouldn't have to do any fine motor stuff "for your license." I'd think if they can make accommodations for students who need a quiet room for taking a test, they could accommodate your fine motor challenges. And actually it seems like a lot of schools today are spending less time teaching "skills" anyway, focusing on the exam and assuming that new RNs will learn those on the job, so that *could* work to your advantage.

And then as it sounds like you do, know your limitations as far as what kind of work is feasible. If you have trouble gripping a pencil, you probably wouldn't be a good fit for a vascular access (IV) nurse position. But something like a nurse practitioner, I don't see any reason why you couldn't.

I'd start with your school's disability dept though, since they're the ones who coordinate with faculty about necessary reasonable accommodations. Wishing you the best!