Teaching vs nursing?

[Infofreak411]

As I am sure you know from my previous post I have a teaching degree and am looking to get into nursing.

I find the medical profession and healthcare so fascinating and take pride in putting others first and helping them. I realized my interest for nursing once I was already in the teaching program and have been debating going back for nursing. I was so interested I found myself reading my friends nclex book and studying her pharmacology notes when I should have been grading papers and making lesson plans haha.

The reason for my switch is I just wasn't passionate about teaching. I felt like I was not challenged enough, didn't use any critical thinking and it quite frankly bored me and overall just lost my passion for trying to education todays disrespectful youth. I felt like dealing with 25 kids at once just made me feel dumb and drained any intelligence from me because of how todays youth are. History (which I taught) just seemed irrelevant to me and had no significance. In addition I got burnt out with bringing hours of work home with me each night (sometimes 5 hours of grading and lesson plans) and putting in all of this effort to make my class "engaging" for the students only to have them careless and not pay attention to whatever I did and then have administration and parents complain that their test scores were down.

I'm ready to do something more fulfilling and meaningful. I know that in nursing you with deal with a lot of tough patients and some of them won't appreciate your help but at the end of the day just the idea that I possibly saved someone's life despite not getting a thanks from them means so much!

With that being said for any former teachers out there, what were the biggest changes from teaching to nurses that you had to adjust to. In what ways did you find nursing more stressful than teaching and what made you go into nursing?

[ksuheather]

I could have written your post. God willing I will start nursing school in the fall after teaching for 9 years and staying home for 6. I just couldn't continue in the classroom. I work as a can now and have loved it.

[vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN]

Follow your passion.

But keep in mind that nurses often face similar challenges regarding having lots of patients to care for and pressure from the admin and patients families to do things that aren't what you feel are in the patients best interests.

Nurses don't bring their work home (though it can be hard not to worry or think about work after you get off).

I used to teach preschool and had my heart set on becoming an elementary school teacher or high school science teacher.

I still envy teachers hours, but I don't envy their pay. I do think I'd find teaching a little more fulfilling, but I enjoy my work as a nurse, especially the pt teaching and long term care because I like getting to know my residents because I feel I can help them better when I know them better.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

I combined the two - nurse educators are NEVER bored, your students are smart and challenging and you get a great sense of accomplishment when your students excel. I work in a hospital and enjoy the ever-changing duties of a nurse educator.

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

Teaching hours were no different. I brought work home. The biggest difference between teaching and nursing is that you are responsible for someone's life. In theoretical way, teachers are responsible for their lives, but a nurse can be the difference between literal life and death.