Thinking About Starting Nursing School at age 50

Blackheartednurse · Oct 16, 2009

I think you should go for it. My mom is 49 and I'm encouraging her to become a nurse,she always had have passion for medicine...I think age doesnt matter when it comes to educating yourself,as they say "it is never to late to achieve your goals and reach for the stars. BTW my mom was the one who was helping me to understand some of the difficult concept I encountered in Nursing school,she also helped me with some nursing skills like she showed me easy way to bandage a leg,change dressing etc..so I think she got what it takes to be an awsome nurse,if she only had enough motivation and strength to actually apply...dont let your age hold you back,I'm sure you will be an awsome nurse who can bring her past experience to the table!Good luck!

CharlieT · Oct 16, 2009

Candyy,

Why not???? I am 43 and there are older pupils in my class. The older students are much more stable and don't have the drama and nervousness of some of the younger ones.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Oct 16, 2009

Before you take the plunge, I suggest you shadow a nurse for a full 8 or 12 hour shift to see if it is something you'd really want to do. People get completely incorrect ideas about the nursing profession from watching television shows, hearsay, and other erroneous sources, so following a nurse around during the course of his/her day would be an optimal experience to assist in your decision-making process.

If you have only six more years until full retirement, I'd personally stay at your present company of employment while attending nursing prerequisite classes part time at a local community college or state university. Six years passes by so very fast. Another idea is to attend classes part time to become a CNA (certified nursing assistant) while you remain at your current workplace. The CNA course is short, typically affordable, and will teach you basic bedside nursing skills such as obtaining vital signs, repositioning patients, bedmaking, and so on.

I feel unfulfilled and would like a job where I can contribute more.

Many nurses feel unfulfilled. Many nurses do not feel like they are contributing more. Mountains of paperwork, unreasonable management, abusive visitors, condescending physicians, insubordinate aides, and other entities might serve as obstacles to providing the type of care you really want to provide. I'm only painting both sides of the picture, as it is unfair to only emphasize the positive aspects.

mag_new · Oct 16, 2009

If you have a very good paying job with great benefits now, and you can retire in 6, 8 years. I would suggest you go to nursing school part-time and keep your current job for security reasons. I didn't quit my job while going to nursing school, and now I'm lucky still have a job that pays bills while I cannot get a nursing job.

systoly · Oct 16, 2009

Please read The Commuter's words of wisdom very carefully. There's nothing wrong with your age, but I'm afraid you may have a case of "the grass is greener". You state, " I have a very good paying job with great benefits". Right now that is a big pot of gold you're sitting on and unless you're independently wealthy, I'm inclined to suggest that you protect and treasure it.

This board is full of posts from new grads having trouble finding work, full of posts from frustrated, even burned-out nurses. Those nurses who find nursing a rewarding and fulfilling carreer have spent much time and effort to get to that point. It does not happen just because you passed the boards. Perhaps you could let us know specifically what awakens your desire to be a nurse and what do you expect, again specifically, to bring you satisfaction while working as a nurse.

MedSurgeMess · Oct 16, 2009

Many nurses (young and older alike), cannot find a job. I would stick with your sure thing for now, and take prereqs at night or weekends, or even online. And yes, nursing can be very physically demanding, much lifting, and not much sit down time, at times. Follow the excellent advice of shadowing and researching before throwing your retirement away! I'm really trying not to be negative, but just letting you see that it's not all a rosy picture!

llg, PhD, RN · Oct 16, 2009

Notice the ages of the people who say "go for it" without any reservations. They do not know how it feels to be 55 ... or ... 60. Nursing can be VERY tough on the body and that is not something you should under-estimate. You are already seeing signs of aging in your body as you say you get more easily than you used to. Multiple that by a few times to anticipate how you will feel after a long hard nursing shift in 5 years.

If your other job is going to provide you with a good retirement in 6 years, don't throw that away. It is a precious gift that most of us don't have. Most nurses do not get "retirement" in the form of a pension or health benefits. They have to live on Social Security and whatever they were able to save in IRA's, 403-B's, or whatever -- and don't get any health benefits after they retire except for Medicare at age 65. Don't throw away your current retirment benefits until you are sure you have enough saved on your own not to need it!

If your current job is unfilling, then find some fulfilling volunteer work to nourish your soul. There is plenty of that needed by our society. You can have your early retirement (at 56) and fulfillment both by sticking with your current job, volunteering -- and then increasing your volunteer work to perhaps a part-time job that helps people after you retire at 56. OMG -- I wish I could retire at 56. I am jealous of your ability to do that.

I suggest you spend some time in a hospital or nursing home volunteering to get a "close up look" at nursing -- volunteering for some long shifts on your days off (or in the evenings, and/or on weekends) to see how you like it and to see how your body handles it before making a final decision. "Try out" as much as you can before quitting your job and throwing away any benefits there. Go to nursing school part-time if at all possible so that you can keep your old job while you give it a try.

Yes, some people become nurses at your age and don't regret it. But I have also known many older new grads who have expressd regret at their choice -- saying they didn't realize how hard it would be. I've also known some who regretted the student loans they took out that they might never be able to pay back before retirement.

I would recommend against it -- unless you are in excellent health and phsyically strong -- and have lots of money so that you can afford to go to school without student loans and still have plenty of savings left for your retirment. You don't want to find yourself at age 60 with little saved for retirement and having a hard time finding/keeping a job that you can handle physically.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

llg, PhD, RN (age = 54)

nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN · Oct 16, 2009

You sound like me. I started LPN school at 43, graduated at 44, and I'm over half way to the RN now, and my birthday was Tuesday -- I'm 46. I'd spent 20 years in computers, but grew disillusioned with the complete and rampant stupidity I saw everyday. Here we'd be doing out best to turn out a good program, or design and install a system that actually worked and stayed up, and some idiot who's primary qualification was an MBA and "executive hair" would come in and tell us we had to do twice as much with half as much money for no other reason than he was "sure we could do it." And then would freak and scream because his promise to management (something along the lines of "the internet for 5 cents") didn't work. Well, duh. And then we'd be outsourced to another group of clueless idiots. Their management skills would be like someone telling me to hang blood today, but handing me a funnel and a spoon since that would be "cheaper" than what you actually needed to do the job. *getting back down off my soapbox*

It's going to be hard. I've got a masters in computers, and I swam in a sea of math of 20 years, and you've really got to bend your brain around "nursing" -- it's a unique animal. And I still see overwhelming stupidity from some nurses who are "Miss Do No Wrong" -- not checking APTTs before hanging that 2nd bag of heparin, blowing off treatments and dressing changes because the person's demented and combative until someone's tush is sloughing off. You'll see families who want to code someone until their heart explodes when nothing this side of heaven is going to save their 103 year old great grandma. You're going to see a lot of things that make you want to beat someone's head into the wall -- the patient on dialyisis who won't stop drinking gallons of water, the family member who brings your patient alcohol to "calm his nerves" and you will spend your first months sure you're 30 seconds away from killing someone. You'll go home after your shift and stare at the ceiling and ask yourself, "did I do something wrong? What did I miss? Why did that patient end up in ICU, was there some slight signal that they were about to go bad and I didn't notice it?" When you work "behind the scenes" you may become disillusioned with healthcare in general, when you see how a bad doc or a bad nurse can kill someone who would otherwise have went home, if just someone else had been the doc or nurse. You will see that.

Nobody's going to give you a break on the physical side, the pulling, turning, etc. You need to be in the best shape you can get into, and a trip to your doc to ask him if he thinks your health will take it isn't a bad idea. Mine told me that since I was no meds, no high BP, no diabetes, and was generally healthier than my biological age, he thought I could do it. I still have days where I drag home, feeling like I'm coming down with the flu because I've been wrestling a bipolar schizophrenic who's broke out of restraints again and it trying to rip the clothes off my CNA or a fellow nurse and I'm worn out. Nursing is a contact sport, make no mistake.

What I would suggest is volunteering as a pink lady in the ER on a Friday night. See what comes in, see how the nurses are treated. If you shadow, people tend to show you the glossy stuff. If you're sitting in the ER watching the same drunk you've seen show up every Friday night throw urine and fecal because the nurse isn't giving him the narcotics he wants, or the little folks coming in with bed sores you can stand in, or the kids who are dying because mom and dad didn't put the kid in a car seat, or vaccinate them, or just plain old look after them...it can get really sad and really depressing, and you can feel like you're trying to stick your finger in Niagra Falls to stop the water.

But you can do it. And in this economy, I wouldn't bet you'd get the years to retirement. One place I worked, they let people go 2 weeks away from retirement because we were "downsizing." I'm sure the fact that they didn't have to pay the retirement those people had planned their lives around had nothing to do with it...

Fiona59 · Oct 16, 2009

I'm glad the voices of reason posted before me. I'm 50 and work the floor. I've been called a "naysayer" for telling posters in my age group to think it over very carefully and that more than likely it's not a good choice.

Let me tell you why. On my unit there is four of us over 50. The rest are no more than 30. None of us work full time. Luckily I work in a country where nurses do get a pension after a certain number of years of service and age is met.

We all have some form of injury. Bad shoulders, knees, elbow, from transferring patients and being injured over the years. It takes a while to heal at our age. The ones who work 12s are looking for 8s to work because they are exhausted.

It's always the young ones who are "gung ho" on nursing. Yes, in a few years you will have a good pension. You can volunteer, travel, study. Or you could be in debt for a student loan, trying to work full time to pay that loan off.

Yes, there are lots of options in theory for nurses but reality says without some floor/hospital experience those jobs are just not an option.

Dream Girl · Oct 16, 2009

I just wanted to add one more thing to the valuable advice the others have given. I'm 53 years old and in the process of completing my CNA. I'm also in the process of taking my prerequisites, and am planning on applying to the Nursing program afterward. I'm still working as Administrative Assistant, however, and don't plan on quitting my job, since it's great pay and has excellent benefits. That is my safety net, so to say, that I plan on keeping until I can see whether Nursing is something I want to go into full time at a latter date.

The reason I'm interested in pursuing a change of career right now, is that I've always had the desire to work in the health care industry with the elderly, disabled and sick. For the last 25 years, I kept thinking about this, and I finally came to the conclusion that I would at least try it and see what it entailed. Even so, before I take the plunge, I want to make certain I truly do want to pursue this path. Thus I'll continue to take classes part-time and work per diem as a CNA to acquire hands-on bedside experience. I'm in great physical condition, and have lots of energy, but I'm also aware that I may not be able to handle all the extra work. But if I cannot handle the extra work, or discover that Nursing isn't for me after acquiring more insight and experience, I will still have my current job.

I do want to encourage you and just say to pursue this if you're passionate about it! Also, you may want to volunteer as it's been suggested. I volunteer about 4 hours a week for Hospice, and that has been very fulfilling to me, and has given me great insight into many things. But I think it's essential to keep your current job and your retirement if you decide to pursue Nursing.

Good luck on whatever you decide! :redpinkhe

**canoehead, BSN, RN** · Oct 16, 2009

I'd echo the recommendations to take a CNA course and get into the nitty gritty of nursing. You may love it or hate it. If you can make it through a CNA shift you'll be fine as an RN, CNA's have the most physical jobs but I think they have the most 1-1 contact with patients, and can make or break their RN, and the patient care.

If you want to be a nurse the only issue would be the physical drawbacks, it's hard to do 12 hours on your feet. As a 17yo doing 7 hours in nursing school I went home and had leg cramping all night. The older nurses you see have mostly been doing it for awhile and have every shortcut and efficiency worked out, where you'd be starting fresh.

I would hesitate to throw that retirement plan away, however you are the one that has to live with the choice. Nursing is like every other field, we have turkeys in management and some days we are getting through the day in spite of their bright ideas. Don't think that will change anytime soon.

Bottom line, if you want it, got for it. You can find out the reality of nursing as a CNA, and then upgrade as you wish.