live4ward

Love this answer!! Thanks so much. Boy, reading the allnurses forums has been an education! All of the myriad things you guys navigate. Wow. Also have to say that the cameraderie and eagerness to help that is so evident on these forums is another part of the appeal. That said, I get it that it would be a whole new world and might not play to my strengths :-) Certainly something to think long and hard about and maybe shadow some nurses if I could. I am going to take A&P I and II just for my own education, and as my sister the PT says, "everybody's got a body." And I'll probably keep lurking around here reading and learning because you guys are an amazing bunch. Thank you again so much for your feedback, Nurse Beth. Nurses RULE

Appreciate all of you so much for taking the time. This forum is enough to make me want to be a nurse just because you guys show such great interest and camaraderie with each other (even when calling each other out lol)......and yes, the other things I'm reading have helped me see all the mighty challenges. It's pretty fascinating. I realize I'm being drawn by the notion of more job options, but I also need to look at the factors working against me pretty honestly. (This work is truly fulfilling; the downside is the lack of demand in my field if I want to change jobs at some point, and I probably will...I've got a pretty long commute and I work in a system with a WHOLE lot of cumbersome bureaucracy). These forums sure help me remember the saying "the grass is always greener" :-) Again, thank you guys. Once again, my respect for nurses if validated 100 times over ---

Absolutely fantastic feedback; thank you!!

Thanks so much for your feedback! I absolutely agree that I wouldn't get credit for past experience, and shouldn't............nursing would be almost an entirely new skill set, and a field I would enter with great humility. Yes, I would be starting at the bottom of the totem pole and would not get too far up in the relatively short time I'd be doing it. Very good advice. Thanks so much -----

I'm a licensed psychologist working for a federal agency. I've been thinking about lack of job flexibility as I get older, with plans to work a long time because I'm in great health and have no reason to stop. I've also developed a great love for working with mind/body condtions (board certified in biofeedback and lots of experience now with chronic pain, insomnia, and all kinds of stress-related disorders), and I've begun to really thinking about a career change to nursing. If I got into school in the next couple of years (and truly left my other career behind), I'd have an Associates and be starting as a new nurse in my late 50s. It's a late start and a big pay cut. But I think I'd love the work (probably in a local hospital setting depending on what opportunities are there) and would be in it for the long haul. I've been a psychologist for 22 years. Any thoughts? Will a brand new baby nurse get hired at age 57 or 58? Can I keep up with this younger generation (whom, by the way, I deeply respect and find to be so very smart and resourceful)? Will I even get a chance to try?

Wondering what it is about the healthcare climate that you mention? thinking about career change late in life from psychologist to nurse and curious ----