I am feeling very conflicted about making a decision in the near future about this, and I would appreciate reliable and honest advice. I am finishing a very difficult 5 year degree, and have wanted a job in healthcare for a long time. I still want to pursue a career part time in what i am studying, which is to be a band and music teacher, and am considering going to nursing school part time during the year and taking summer courses while i teach. I think nursing would be a very rewarding profession, and I think that I would be very happy to be a nurse. I do feel a calling toward a job in the medical field, and I am still young, I am 23 years old, and I feel that if I am going to devote so much more energy, time, and money into a second career I need to decide now.
With everything going on in the United States ( I live in Canada), I am extremely concerned about whether I would actually be able to work as a nurse by the time I graduate or not. I am unapollogetically pro-life, and would never have anything to do with abortion whatsoever. This to me even includes post abortion care. How much trouble will I have? It seems that every hospital that is not a Catholic hospital runs into this situation. I have friends in nursing that tell me that you would jsut work in a different branch of the hospital but then I hear stories about nurses still having to walk away from certain situations having to do with abortion. I would actually really like to work in Cosmetic surgery, but I am not sure how the job market is out there for that. I feel something telling me I should go ahead with it because this is something that I feel I really may be meant to do in my life,, but I will NOT participate in anything to do with abortion ever. My husband has a good career here in Canada, so the chacnes of us moving to another country are slimto none until retirement,
I do not want to start up a debate, I am just an exhausted student who is trying to make a really big decision and is increadibly overwhelmed at what i should do. I really appreciate your responses!
why did this thread turn into a debate? i thought the yound lady was asking whether or not her views would conflict with her being a nurse...and the simple and short answer is: no, they should not. there are ways to avoid and reject patient assignments that have to deal with abortion.
It's easy: just don't work in an setting that does abortions. You'd want to stay out of an OB/GYN floor/office and Planned Parenthood type clinics. Other than that you will be fine. You have ER, ICU, Med-surg, Psych, PACU, OR, Tele, etc to choose from. I work at a non-Catholic hospital and they don't do abortions. Don't let your this hold you back from being an RN.
That pretty much sums most of it up: If you're pro-life and looking to avoid dealing with abortions, then you need to know that OB/Gyn and L&D are definitely NOT the areas you'd want to go into. There's no way you could be in them and not encouter abortion in some way, shape or form.
As far as participating in care for patients who have had abortions...clients can NEVER be abandoned because of your personal beliefs. The rules can vary with each BON, but for the most part: if you have a moral or ethical objection to a patient, it would be your responsibility to decline the assignment AND ensure that someone with similar qualifications can care for the patient. Because once you accept assignment, you then have an obligation to care for that patient regardless of what you think of them and what they're doing/have done. And if you're the only nurse around and there's no one that can replace you...guess what: you've got to care for the patient.
However...IMO, you need to ask yourself if you are able to put your personal beliefs and judgements about abortion aside to provide ANY patient the quality care that EVERY patient has a legal right to. Because there's a wide spectrum of people in this world, and the odds are likely that no matter how you try to avoid it or what field of nursing you go into, you will come across an abortion patient...or a patient whose beliefs or practices may be contrary to your own. And no matter what you may think of them, what they may have done, or how hard it may be for you to do it, they still deserve care.
So if you can't/won't set aside your beliefs and be nonjudgmental...then in all honesty, nursing--at least hospital nursing--may not be the best career choice for you. You may be able to find work in schools, research, etc., or with specific patient populations (such as men's health) that would make you less likely to encounter abortion. Still, that's no guarantee that you won't come across a patient who is recovering from abortion, or whose beliefs and practices directly oppose yours.
In the end, the only person that can decide if you are able to go into nursing is you. Good luck with your decision.
Not intending to start a war here, but "pro-death" is a label that is in fact beginning to circulate as a response to all this health care reform talk. Perhaps you need to do a little reading yourself. I UNDERSTAND what palliative care is all about, in fact, I volunteer for hospice. I understood the choice of words (i.e. - pro-death), and I am aware of mine. You should also think of the context of the conversation before you make such a comment.
Thank you.
I'm sorry to get off track with this discussion (though any thread related to the big "A" is inevitably going to navigate many conversations). But I am curious about what you mean by this Jahna? As far as I know, "pro-death" is not being introduced as a mainstream term to describe those who support comfort measures, quality of life and death, and appropriate end of life care. Do those you work with in hospice feel that "pro-death" adequately describes their position? Do patients in hospice feel that they are pro-death?
If you do a google search of "pro-death" most finds are "pro-death penalty". That's the only place I can find pro-death in mainstream language. If you are referring to "death-panels", that term was invented by Sarah Palin and acknowledged by well-informed people to be an inaccurate description of the measure that was formerly included in President Obama's healthcare plan. "death-panel" was a fabricated, political statement which DID in fact end up having an impact on the healthcare plan, in that it frightened people into believing that healthcare personnel and the government want to kill elderly people. Discussing end of life measures with terminally ill patients is no longer included in the plan.
"Pro-death" can only be a derogatory label which is intended to skew the compassionate work provided by pain, palliative, and hospice care-givers, or those who would not take away the abortion option for those that need to terminate a pregnancy.
Taking the literal meaning of words, I am pro-life. Hopefully all of us are. I also believe that men and women have the right to choose to end a pregnancy and die with comfort and dignity.
OP, sorry for getting so off topic. You will have the right to choose not to participate in abortion procedures. If you find a place in healthcare where you are not likely to be put in that position you will avoid having to make that choice.
No, the surgery definately was not a seed, although i can totally see why you may have thought that. I actually have been thinking about becomming a paramedic for years now, think about it every day! and just these past couple of months i have thought, why not nursing? I really do think that i could be great at it, would find it a very rewarding career, and that i could really make a difference out there. I can assure you that the plastic surgery had nothing to do with why im thinking about it, just that after I had it done i had considered since i already wnat to go into nursing, maybethat would be an area i would liketo work in, But that of course i would have years to decide, ,, that's all. I would agree with you on other things in life though as far as that goes, like not career wise but hobbies and things like that. And as far as being a band teacher, i wanted to do that since grade 7! and have not changed my mind in the past 11 years.
Good point. While I have empathy and respect for those who are against abortion, I am pro-choice and have seen a lot of distortion about the reality of third trimester abortions. They are not, as some assert, done for the convenience of the mother but most are done in extreme cases in which, as you say, the birth defects are incompatible with life.
I don't know what things are like now, but one of my pharmacy preceptors worked, back in the 1970s, at a hospital that did third trimester abortions. Most of them were not done on dying women with fatally deformed infants, but rather on teenage girls from middle- and upper-class families whose parents had just discovered they were pregnant and were making their daughters get rid of it to spare the family embarrassment (in their minds). They had to stop doing them because of people like my colleague who refused to dispense the meds for them, plus they couldn't keep nurses for this reason.
Although my colleague was very strongly pro-life, she had no issue with dispensing post-op meds for women who had early abortions because they were in a safe, sanitary place with a competent practitioner, which was and is now not always the case.
Yes, i would feel comfortable with this. It would be really sad, ( i am really emotional) but that would be okay. Euthenasia on the other hand, i completely disagree with as well, but i think that would be less of an issue than abortion forsure. The situation you just described is very different than abortion, where the unborn has no say.
I do not mean for this to sound snotty at all, i really am not, but what was the point? that it is unfortunate that third trimester abortions where babies can live outside of the womb were not longer being done because nurses and oharmcists refused to help out with them? (sorry that is just kind of how it sounded to me, im not saying that that is what you were saying... just wanted to clarify)
I do not mean for this to sound snotty at all, i really am not, but what was the point? that it is unfortunate that third trimester abortions where babies can live outside of the womb were not longer being done because nurses and oharmcists refused to help out with them? (sorry that is just kind of how it sounded to me, im not saying that that is what you were saying... just wanted to clarify)
That's exactly right.
I don't understand something like that; why not continue the pregnancy another month or two and put the baby up for adoption? Guess those families didn't think like that.
As for your interest in being a paramedic, that might be more compatible with your goals. EMT training doesn't take very long - you could do it over a summer - and then you could work part-time literally anywhere. There are EMTs and paramedics who post on these boards.
Yes, thats true, and i do still consider it. But, thats not to say that they will not encounter anything having to do with abortion either right? why would that be more compatible with my goals though do you think? I like to idea of so many areas that i could work in in nursing, and am also considering leaving canada to move somewhere overseas to work one day, and with nursing i would have many opportunities for work to do that.
Thank you ! I actually live in canada, i am not sure how it currently differs from the states. But that makes alot more sense. I do not think i should let my views stop me either, as i am sure there are MANY pro life doctors and nurses who are out there making a huge difference in people's lives for the better :)
Well i am one day off from being a gemini haha! but no i am a taurus, and i do have a ton of interests, but most of them are jsut hobby or other life goal things like learning to fly a 4-seater plane or travelling to Tahiti..those sorts of things! :)
Yes, thats true, and i do still consider it. But, thats not to say that they will not encounter anything having to do with abortion either right? why would that be more compatible with my goals though do you think? I like to idea of so many areas that i could work in in nursing, and am also considering leaving canada to move somewhere overseas to work one day, and with nursing i would have many opportunities for work to do that.
You wouldn't participate in abortions, but you might - no, you will - deliver some babies. In addition, you might be called upon to pick up a woman who's experiencing post-abortion complications, whether she had it done legitimately or not. That's the extent of it. You would transport her to the hospital, and they would take care of her from there.
The EMTs and paramedics in my area carry oxytocin in their ambulance bags for this reason.
CaribMuslimah, RN
53 Posts
why did this thread turn into a debate? i thought the yound lady was asking whether or not her views would conflict with her being a nurse...and the simple and short answer is: no, they should not. there are ways to avoid and reject patient assignments that have to deal with abortion.