Protonprimary

I entered at 45, passed the NCLEX last week at 46 and a half (75 questions and all the tutorial and survey stuff in under forty minutes - yay. sorry, still doing that little dance.), and will complete my Direct Entry Master's program when I'm 47. This is my 3rd or 4th career, and I'm loving it. My age is such a non-issue at school and socially with my class mates - I don't party as late as they can, but they study better than I do and I feel very much part of the gang. The only real time my age is relevant is when it's time for trivia games and having been 'round the block' gives me some advantage. (That and 3 other previous degrees.) My path is a little different than some here, as I am studying to be a nurse practitioner - for primary family practice where some of the physical demands may be less than floor nursing, but the intellectual demand is there. I am delighted when all people feel comfortable planning and pursuing their interests and their dreams without letting either their gender or their age inhibit them from their goals - especially in a profession such as health care, where people with a true passion for helping others is what it's all about. --Thomas

First - good job. Second, you might think this out another way. What if that person had been a patient? Would your gonadal instinct to throw down have won out in that situation? Your "just say no to a fight" attitude will help you down the road when you need to exercise your good judgment muscles. When a patient is strong, aggressive, mean and swinging, you want to have the ability to NOT fight as your first gut response. Congrats on making that important step in the right direction. --Thomas

OK, that was a brilliant piece of work, both for the writing and for the observation and self reflection. I truly admire your attitude. I'm adding you to my list of people to learn from, for sure!

I believe that approximately 300 people applied, but that is not an official number and I'm not sure the veracity of that claim. The entire 3-year program all the way to the Masters is called Entry Level Nursing (it's an unfortunate name, since it sounds like we're always just getting started). This includes 3 semesters of pre-RN work and 3 semesters of Master's study, with some overlap. Our classes often introduce common threads in our courses now that we will tie together in our advanced practice while carefully delineating what is RN and what is APRN. Starting at the point we sit for our NCLEX (sometime in our fourth semester) there's strong incentive to work as an RN throughout the rest of the program, even if only part time during school hours. While I don't know specifics, I know there are different ways that people can approach the schedule of the program and I believe that it is possible to arrange a gap between second and third year. That would be a good discussion to have with someone at the admissions office, since they can talk with you about your specific goals (i.e. what you want to accomplish in that year). Given the admissions office's schedule, it might be something that you'd want to ask about sooner (before they dive into major application seasons). As for applying, the only thing I can think of is to be conscientious about gathering your application information, take your essay seriously - not as a Pulitzer candidate, but as an expression of yourself and what is important to you, and just as a kind of a general rule (true of jobs and schools), apply to several places since spaces are limited at all such programs these days.

I'm a first year in the MGH IHP direct entry Master's program (which they call Entry Level Nursing). There are about 80 students and it's a very fine, energetic and cooperative group. I'm proud to be part of such a great class. For a class this size, we work well together and everyone is very supportive and, surprisingly, we mostly all know each other's names and backgrounds. It almost feels like a small class. I do not know anything, however, about the Accelerated BSN program.

If I take the original poster's question, not as a personal statement about the abilities of any individual, but as a question about capacity planning for the nursing profession in general, I am reminded of a number of factors that would go into making that judgment. I don't know the answers to these, only raising them as an alternative way to approach the question. 1) What is the nature of the nursing shortage? Is it simply the number of nurses, or the right combination of nursing, interpersonal and time management skills to support an effective team? For instance, an older, second career student may bring good adaptive skills, self motivation, time management, team coordination and communication skills that take time to develop in any person and can be acquired in many careers. 2) Is it possible that older students' appreciation for their career make them more likely candidates for mentoring in the future? I have heard, but I do not know, that supportive mentoring has not been historically part of the culture in nursing, but it is in many other fields. Part of the lack of spaces in nursing schools is the availability of clinical instructors, and a supportive, informal mentoring environment can make all nurses more effective and will improve patient care over the long term. 3) What is the expected time working as a nurse for different starting ages? I'm sure there are some statistics somewhere. I haven't found details but I am sure that it is not just the number of years till 70. I would guess that it is much shorter. An article posted on Medscape (Factors Influencing Work Productivity and Intent to Stay in Nursing) a few days ago talks about job stress being a higher determinant of the intent to stay than retirement, and many of those factors contributing to that stress are environmental rather than age-related, but it's not a simple issue. When studies such as these talk about an aging workforce, it's unclear whether the important factor is the chronological age of the workforce, or whether they are using age as a proxy for experience, which describes the real problem: that there are not enough new nurses coming into the field to replenish the numbers leaving (or likely to leave in the future). One important exception to this is the increased risk of musculoskeletal injury in an ageing workforce. I think that questions about the economics of school admissions are important and extremely interesting. It would be interesting to ask the question to your school (minus the negative tone) about how they look at the future of nursing and how they're helping to plan for the long term. We're all responsible for investing in the future of nursing: through instruction, mentoring, cultivating interest, and working to make conditions better, safer and friendlier for keeping the workforce we have. --thomas full disclosure: second career, just starting direct entry program, 45

I've spent the last year working as a sitter. When I'm in the room with one patient for 8 hours and they keep asking (or, in some cases, accusing), I run out of diversions and sometimes have to fall back on "I don't want to discuss that with you." But I've been gay long enough to know that when someone's particularly curious, a dodge is as good as an answer. I don't advocate offering any personal information to my patients. Sometimes, however, it's not so easily avoided; with our without my intent.

Congratulations to all of you who've shown the courage to take such a large leap from the comfort ( and perhaps boredom and lack of fulfillment ) of a long term career to do something your heart calls you to. I started out in chemistry and computer science in the early 80's and got a Ph.D. in chemistry. That turned into technical software design/programming, which turned into systems architecture for retail and financial services. The interesting thing about that career path, to me, is that I repeatedly just took the next job or promotion, automatically. There was never a time that I stopped and said, "what do I really want to do?" or "what do i really care about?" When I finally did, 'Pow!' I knew immediately that it was time to take the career search seriously, and after some fair amount of study and reflection, I came to my current path: I'm entering a program toward a Family Nurse Practitioner specialty. I have not been this excited about a career move in about 20 years. Since that decision, I've taken all my prereq's, spent a year working a couple of days a week as a CNA and have gotten my long-lost study skills back into shape. Even with the significant reduction in pay in the future and the reduction in work flexibility that nursing will entail, the change in my mood, perspective and spiritual health are already worth it. --thomas