adamdm

I'm a 33 y/o male currently working in disability claims adjudication and have become very interested in taking a step into the medical profession. In high school, I was mildly interested in becoming a doctor and (more seriously) pursued pharmacy school. I ended up, though, with a business degree (of note: I had very few math/science classes) and a rather tragic and bumpy series of jobs that I've had absolutely no passion for. My current job is the best fit so far; but I don't want to spend the rest of my life being a low-paid government employee. (My supervisor has been here 10 years and is barely pushing $40K!) Not that it's all about the money, but...being my age with no retirement savings, etc. it does seem to be worth considering that I take steps to accelerate my earnings potential. More importantly, though, my personality requires something that keeps me busy throughout the day and that engages me mentally, intellectually, and emotionally. In my current job, I interact with physicians on a daily basis -- read medical charts, and make disability determinations based on what amounts to a couple of weeks of medical terminology training. So I'm very interested. I've tried to talk myself out of it in the past by thinking about things I might run across that could "gross me out" (blood doesn't bother me but...feces...giving sponge baths to fat ladies) but I STILL keep coming back to it. Each time more and more seriously. In spite of the roughshod government training, I've managed to familiarize myself with common medical abbreviations, common illnesses/signs/symptoms/treatments, common drug therapies, etc. and it all makes me feel even more engaged with the medical field. This posting is already way too long...I just want to add a few more things: * I anticipate that my ultimate goal would be advanced practice nursing (nurse practitioner, etc.) although I can't be sure. But I'm not the type of person who tends to get to one level and then stop. I do like the idea of working in a non-hospital setting, having shorter encounters with patients, assessing/diagnosing (from an "intellectually-stimulating" standpoint). * I'd also be interested in working alongside a doctor in an advanced specialty setting that I see in medical records a lot of times where an RN might dictate reports for the doctor, kindof act as their "right hand". * I'm also interested (possibly more-so than either of the above) in psychiatric nursing to possibly include psychiatric nurse practitioner, CNS-Psychiatry...with interest in both psychotherapy and medication management. As you can see, I'm all over the place. I've tried to be as candid as possible in order to allow the most candid responses. I really don't know where to go to start in A) trying to figure out what exactly I want to do and B) how to make it happen. Any and all thoughts are greatly appreciated! Thanks! Adam.