Should I pursue my dream?

Nurses General Nursing

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Hi there! I am about to turn 33. I have a wonderful husband and 2 precious little girls ages 6 and 9. I have an associates degree in business, and I am an office manager in a telecommunications office. Every since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a nurse. Back then, I wanted to be a neonatal intensive care nurse. BUT.....time and life goes on and sometimes leaves our dreams left in a dark corner locked a way seeming virtually unattainable. I still take little glimpses of my dream and rays of hope, that one day it may become reality, shine. The spark of obtaining my dream has rekindled, and it is almost a consuming fire. I really want to go back to school to become a nurse, but I also need to work a full time job and raise a family in the process. I am scared I will fail either in my college studies, or fail my family...or BOTH! Has anyone else went through these same feelings?? Any insight from nurses and nursing students would be greatly appreciated!

I agree with what others are saying. Make sure to talk it over with your family. However, I totally believe you should pursue your dream! It is your life, make the best of it. Many people go back to school to be nurses and even though it is hard with a family, I know it will be worth it in the end.

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Specializes in ER, Med-surg.
So here is the voice of truth. I preface it all with, I love nursing, there is nothing else I would want to do. That being said, furthering your business degree is far more lucrative in terms of return on investment. The pay difference between new and top of scale nurse is far less than a new anything and top of scale in any other profession. This means that comparably, new nurses make more than most new professionals, but your peers will quickly bypass your earnings. Hospitals are the employers who pay the highest in most instances, read up on the push for customer satisfaction, these are really the worst change for hospital employees. You will be terminated if a pt doesn't like you and makes a complaint, whether founded or not. The push to get those high customer satisfaction scores means that the truth doesn't matter, only that the customer is happy with the outcome, no matter what. Most procedure policies have an immediate termination clause for patient complaints. I really do love nursing, but I would like to give you an honest assessment of what you are getting into. Good luck on your career choice, whatever you may choose.

Wait, what? In a decade in healthcare I've never seen this, ever. I've seen people let go over some petty things working in right-to-work states, but never, ever have I seen an employer with an "immediate termination clause" for patient complaints. I can't imagine most hospitals would be able to operate under this system. And I have had patient complaints and not been terminated.

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Specializes in ER, Med-surg.

Strongly seconding everyone who said both to read these forums carefully and get a realistic picture of what nursing school and modern nursing employment, especially in the early days of a career, is like, as well as running the numbers very carefully and interrogating WHY you dream of being a nurse. Really crunch the numbers in terms of how much you can realistically make in your area as a nurse vs what you make now, and don't forget to factor in student loans and the foregone income from the extremely high probability that you will be unable to work full time during most of nursing school. Consider that many new grads take 6+ months to become licensed and find work, and that some (myself included) had to move to a new location to find a new grad position in a timely manner, especially if there are a large number of nursing schools and not as many hospitals. Know that most of the jobs you see on a hospital website will NOT be open to you as a new grad- new grad training is more intensive than a typical orientation and most hospitals limit the number they hire at a time due to the expense and delay they represent vs an experienced employee, creating bottlenecks for new nurses even in places that appear to have a nursing shortage.

I don't regret becoming a nurse- it has been a financially rewarding career with flexibility that turned out to be important given that I married someone whose career involves a lot of moving around. But I came to it from no career at all, not retraining from an existing career, and it has also been hard, very hard at times. There have been moments of great pride and satisfaction but I cannot say they have consistently outweighed the terrible working conditions and enormous stress of most bedside nursing jobs these days. If I could have the same financial rewards and flexibility in an office job now I would probably trade with no regrets.

If your dream is based in helping people, and you are already making good money with reasonable prospects for advancement, I think there are much, much easier, more rewarding ways to help people, like volunteer work. Professional nursing is only a small part soothing and tending the sick and many, many parts paperwork, exhaustion, and making decisions based on too few resources for the problems at hand.

Nursing might be right for you, we can't know- it mostly depends on what you're actually hoping to get out of it and what you currently get from your career. But be very realistic as you make your assessment. It's unlikely that your idea of nursing as a little girl dreaming about a career has much resemblance to what it really is today, unfortunately.

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Specializes in IMC, school nursing.
Wait, what? In a decade in healthcare I've never seen this, ever. I've seen people let go over some petty things working in right-to-work states, but never, ever have I seen an employer with an "immediate termination clause" for patient complaints. I can't imagine most hospitals would be able to operate under this system. And I have had patient complaints and not been terminated.

These are fairly new in light of compensation. They may be clouded by mission statement lingo, but they are there.

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Right now I'm at a small company, like 4 employees small. My benefits include 1 day vacation per year of service (so I'm at 3 days), they pay half my health insurance, and they are super flexible. I also have no paid holidays and make $11.50 per hour. I love the people i work with but i feel like I'm throwing my life away and wasting my time and not helping my family enough financially. That said, financially i really don't think we can swing me not working and going to nursing school right now. I've pretty much decided to further my education and get my bachelors in health care administration. Later on, after I've worked in a health care setting and we get financially able, i may go back then and go into nursing.

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