Please help - Continue w/ Nursing or go w/ Resp Therapy, XRay Tech, Healthcare Admin?

[pctech]

I currently live in NYC but am planning to move whenever I finish my degree, maybe to Florida possibly.

I have 6 years of experience in the health field, working as an Emergency Medical Technician and now a Patient Care Technician. I'm almost done with the pre-reqs for nursing and I honestly don't know if I'm studying for the right profession anymore. One of the classes I'm taking at the moment is Pharmacology Computations where you calculate the dosage, etc.

Here's the kicker... Forget about the fact that 12/4 = 3. You can't write that, you have to PROVE it as well. If you don't do it, you fail the question, whether you got it correct or not. This is done on purpose to increase our chances of failing. Now I have no problem converting oz to mL, etc. but this is crazy. All the students have begun complaining about this.

Should I just stick it out until the end of the semester and see how well I do with it? Or should I just finish my semester and switch to a different health major?

The three I've been looking at are:

1) A.S.S. in X-ray tech

2) B.S. in Respiratory tech

3) Masters in Healthcare Administration

I heard that hospitals, facilities, etc. hire more of nurses than they do of #1 and #2.

As for #3, I like the idea of being a Healthcare Administrator or being involved in the management side of healthcare, but I understand that I would need experience in addition to the degree. I've heard that clinical experience does help. But clinical experience in what exactly? Nursing? X-ray tech? Resp therapy? Any kind of hospital clinical experience?

Also, does the school you go to matter for #3? I know for #1 and #2 it doesn't.

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

I'm voting for you to stick it out. Nursing students go through some frustrating stuff that feels pointless. That ends up being great preparation for an actual career in nursing, where you will do a lot of frustrating stuff that feels pointless. In the end, you just learn to take the bad with the good. You'll end up with a solid career that can offer a lot in terms of flexibility, opportunities and challenges.