i am graduating in may after waiting years to become a nurse. i have always, since the tender age of about 9, wanted to be a nurse.
i simply cannot express how much it :angryfire burns my hide :angryfire that everyone and their mother wants to be a nurse now. what's with the sudden enthusiasm and interest in nursing??? particularly in ca, in seems that everyone is telling me that they are doing pre-req's for nursing. ***?? my friend (also graduating with me in may) pointed out that it seems more and more men are coming into nursing. now, maybe she and i will get raked over the coals for this one, but before the $$ spike for nursing pay, men would be laughed at (a la ben stiller in meet the parents) for being a nurse.
i just find it so frustrating that everyone wants to be a nurse now, especially since nursing has become quite the lucrative career. what happened to wanting to be a nurse because you (*gasp*) care about people and like (*gasp #2*) helping others???????
this is all boiling over with me because i see quite a few of my classmates that clearly are in this for the money. i, personally, would rather die than be their patients - that's how greedy, selfish, money-hungry some of my lovely classmates are.
sorry - i just have to vent.
**please note: i absolutely do not mean that men should not be in nursing - i think it's great. i am generally frustrated at seemingly everyone (both men and women) being interested in nursing, now that it pays so well (esp. in ca). please do not accuse me of being sexist**.
because if it was my family member laying there, i would want the best nurse to be taking care of them, and i would want to know that their heart is in it 150%, and that i don't have to be there 24/7 to make sure that they're 'faking' good care only because i'm there, as you said some classmates fake to the teachers. now with that being said, the perks that go along with the job of course are nice. the salaries are great, but damn, for the work all of you do, it's well deserved and hard earned (by the ones who work hard to earn it).
Thank you, Future. I appreciate your comment. And, yes, nurses do deserve the salary for what they do!!!
Specializes in private duty/home health, med/surg.
The point I was trying to make is that you can't "suddenly want to be a nurse" and there you are taking the NCLEX-RN. You still have to go through the waiting lists, prerequisites, nursing courses, fighting despite the clinical instructors that for whatever reasons want to see you fail...it isn't a "suddenly" type of decision.
No matter what the original reason there is for someone wanting to be a nurse, there is something very compelling keeping a student there beyond the original (seemingly shallow, per the OP) reasons to becoming a nurse.
, becuase as much as I do feel I was born to do this work, there is no way I would do it for a pitiful salary.
I totally understand you, phila. I do. I know one needs to make a living and we all know nurses work harder than most. I just hope people are in it for the right reasons - that's all. I don't want a money hungry witch taking care of my sick children, husband, or father. The thought of my classmates caring for another person's wife, mother etc. terrifies me....
Have you run a survey on doc to assume what is on their mind..?Anybody can have big inspirations and tremendous aspiration,but is it within their intellectual capabilities to to full fill it?
No surveys. But I know quite a few doctors and aspiring doctors. They are people committed to a professional ideal, they have a lot of focus but they are also human beings and they certainly do think about money.
BTW in a way I can see your point but it is not your place to judge your classmates or their motivations as long as they aren't breaking the law. As someone posted earlier if they're as bad as they appear to be they probably won't make it in nursing anyway. There is your dream that you've had since you were a child and now you're in the process of actualizing it - that's a great thing - congratulations for making it this far coz not everyone does. But keep in mind that different people come into any given field for different reasons. With regard to nursing - the need is there and if the only people who took up nursing were the ones who felt called to it as children there would be a whole lot of sick people in dire need of help who would not get it.
The point I was trying to make is that you can't "suddenly want to be a nurse" and there you are taking the NCLEX-RN. You still have to go through the waiting lists, prerequisites, nursing courses, fighting despite the clinical instructors that for whatever reasons want to see you fail...it isn't a "suddenly" type of decision.
No matter what the original reason there is for someone wanting to be a nurse, there is something very compelling keeping a student there beyond the original (seemingly shallow, per the OP) reasons to becoming a nurse.
Yes. It takes a lot to become a nurse, especially if you make the decision as an adult when you already have a family. So far it's taken me three years of jumping through hoops and red tape just to finish my PRE-REQS, and I'm not even in nursing school yet. Nobody dances into school and dances out as a licensed RN.
No matter what the original reason there is for someone wanting to be a nurse, there is something very compelling keeping a student there beyond the original (seemingly shallow, per the OP) reasons to becoming a nurse.
However, if you knew some of my classmates you might know that the "compelling" reason is the sound of "ka-ching" in the distance. Trust me - not all of my classmates belong here EVEN though they made the hurdle of pre-req's etc.
I may very well come off "holier-than-thou" for saying that, but so be it. I don't have the energy to go into all the stories, but I am not the only one in my class that feels this way about these certian classmates (even instructors have made comments about their "ambitions").
I sympathize with the sudden spark of interest - before I decided to go into nursing I didn't even know there were waiting lists, entrance tests, and so on. Competition for slots is crazy, my mother, a nurse of 30 years told me of how when she started nursing school all you had to do was sign up for classes.
I agree to a point over the craze, really my beef is with people who throw on a Florence Nightingale cape and say it's their 'calling'. That may be so for 'some' but really, I hardly doubt this is true for most - even worse when they use their so-called 'calling' to demean other students for their reasons to choose this career. I can tell you it isn't my calling, but I figured since i'd been admitted i'd give it a try to see what it was like, and for the most part I can see myself doing it as there are much worse things, I don't love or hate it, it's a job, if I was so into caring for others i'd do it for free as a nun (yeah I see your calling conveniently requires you get paid for it lol). I really only hear this in school, and never on the floor, must be a newbie thing.
As for the generalization about more men joining, well, i'm a guy and I joined because my mom likes being a nurse and said they need them, thus, voila. The assumption that the amount of money made drawing us in is jacked though. You don't have to have loads of estrogen flowing through you to care for someone, and often I have male patients request a male - would be hard for you to fill that department. We don't need to prove we belong here to anyone, nor do we have to preface our decision to be a nurse with anything other than that is what we chose to do.
The assumption that the amount of money made drawing us in is jacked though. You don't have to have loads of estrogen flowing through you to care for someone, and often I have male patients request a male - would be hard for you to fill that department. We don't need to prove we belong here to anyone, nor do we have to preface our decision to be a nurse with anything other than that is what we chose to do.
Very true...point taken. Again, I said in my OP that I like that there are men in the field - I don't like ANY job having a dominant gender in it - I love equal parts, I sincerely do. I love equal race and gender, no matter what job.
I wasn't trying to say that estrogen = caring. There are definitely guys in my program that are way more compassionate and caring than some of the women. I wasn't implying that men are in it for the $$; perhaps my phrasing was a poor choice. My bad....apologies.
Very true...point taken. Again, I said in my OP that I like that there are men in the field - I don't like ANY job having a dominant gender in it - I love equal parts, I sincerely do. I love equal race and gender, no matter what job.
I wasn't trying to say that estrogen = caring. There are definitely guys in my program that are way more compassionate and caring than some of the women. I wasn't implying that men are in it for the $$; perhaps my phrasing was a poor choice. My bad....apologies.
I pretty much knew what you were saying and that you didn't mean all of that, i'd say my post is more a defense against certain attitudes i've dealt with so far from some females who feel we don't belong - to which I say, you have L&D, what more do you want?
i, personally, would rather die than be their patients - that's how greedy, selfish, money-hungry some of my lovely classmates are.
JoblessRN
103 Posts
Thank you, Future. I appreciate your comment. And, yes, nurses do deserve the salary for what they do!!!