Surgical Assistant

[Solteris]

Just a quick background, Im 18 years old and am in the process of getting my GED. It's been a big dream of mine to always want to help people and get into the medical field because I myself have been in plenty of hospitals and surgeries throughout my life and I decided that i would ultimately like to end up as a Surgical Assistant. Im studying a lot into what direction I should take with this and where I should go. I plan to fill out an application to attend Johns Hopkins School of nursing but im not sure exactly for what type of degree.

So in short, I was just wondering what I should pursue exactly to achieve what I want. I respect nurses and all of the work that they do but I would like to eventually become a specialty nurse.

[GOMER42]

Well, if you are applying to Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, you would obviously be applying to get into the program to work toward a nursing degree. They don't offer an ASN, so that would mean you would be pursuing a BSN. That program (as many other nursing programs) are HIGHLY competitive. Get your GED. Once you get into college, study your butt off, and apply to different nursing schools.

When you say you want to be a surgical assistant. What do you mean? Aside from assisting with surgery as a nurse, you can assist as a Surgical Technologist. I don't know if you have ever considered this career, but it is worth looking into as well.

Good luck to you and great job working toward your GED.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

Like Gomer, I also wonder what it is you are really looking to do: OR nurse? Scrub tech? Vastly different scopes.

It might not be a bad idea to meet with HR, see if you can speak to a couple of the people whose positions sound interesting to you. Normally I'd recommend job shadowing, where you'd follow someone in their hour-by-hour job, but given the fact that there's sterile fields, ORs and privacy issues abounding, it's unlikely that would be permitted. But it'd be a great opportunity if you could just meet two or three people who seem to be in the kind of field you're interested in, so you can find out IF you're barking up the right tree :)

Good luck!