Unfit for career?

Sour Lemon · Jun 20, 2018

Well, most of us aren't seeing things quite so dramatic. A patient in s bad accident will go through a first responder and an ER before that actually make it to me. You typically won't see a brain herniating or an arm being torn off on a med/surg unit. Real gore is a lot less gory than what we see on TV and in movies.

beekee · Jun 20, 2018

What is it about nursing that interests you? If you hate gore, the ED and trauma floors may not be your thing, but there are a lot of other avenues in nursing.

Guacamolee · Jun 20, 2018

I have always been interested in working in a medical / health related field. I am drawn to patient care, as to why nursing specifically interests me.

slauren · Jun 21, 2018

Maybe you could work as a CNA to see what parts of the medical fields would interest you? Nursing has a wide variety of opportunities. You could do patient care floor nursing, you could work in a doctor's office, do school nursing, case management, or even be a nurse manager. Other careers you could like is speech pathology (helping people get better with speech/eating), physical/occupational therapy (getting people walking and doing activities of daily living again), respiratory therapy, radiology tech, ultrasound tech, medical assistant, etc.

Another suggestion would be to volunteer at a hospital so you can see how the hospital functions and meet people/ask about their careers. There are so many options out there. :)

slauren · Jun 21, 2018

So my question; I am interested to know if anyone has become a nurse who was afraid of not being able to handle what they will see, if that makes sense. Needles, gore, poop, blood, pain, death? Thanks :)

To answer your question, I never had a problem with gore, blood, death, etc. Like Sour Lemon said, a lot of it is more dramatic in the movies than in real life. Part of being a nurse is you see someone that needs help and it doesn't matter if they are covered in blood, vomiting, or anything gross you are so concerned with helping them that what's going on doesn't gross you out. I've had patient's die before and it sucks, but you see them as a person who deserves respect, they still need end of life care and have people who love them. I think it's something you get over quickly to be honest.

Mavrick, BSN, RN · Jun 22, 2018

Not everyone is cut out to be a nurse. There are plenty of other jobs in the healthcare fiend.

I sometimes wish I had gone into radiology and specialized as a nuclear medicine technologist.

Mavrick, BSN, RN · Jun 24, 2018

Not everyone is cut out to be a nurse. There are plenty of other jobs in the healthcare fiend.
I sometimes wish I had gone into radiology and specialized as a nuclear medicine technologist.

I suppose I meant to write " field" but, if nobody notices ........

Leader25, ASN, BSN, RN · Jun 25, 2018

Always working in the unit of your choice is a bygone era, today all positions are floaters but they do not want to call a duck a duck, if you are in Medsurg they might send you to ER step down areas,if you work in Peds they might send you to peds er, depends what depts they have,some include detox etc.

Work as a CNA to see if this is for you ,it is a serious commitment of time,money,effort.

decotes · Jun 29, 2018

When I first considered nursing, I loved the idea but all of what you were saying freaked me out. Even when I was a child my mom would reprimand me for being "skeeved out" by sickness and the like and she thought I was being rude, but all of those things made me nervous. If my mom or sister were to ever throw up, I would hide in my bed and avoid the bathroom all day.

Today, I'm an RN, I've caught my dog's puke in my hands, poop doesn't bother me at all, etc.

You never know how you might change!

Kallie3006, ADN · Jul 16, 2018

Does your high school offer any shadowing health care providers opportunities? We would get current HS students that would stay with us for like 2 hours or so and the students didn't just shadow the nurses, they had the oppertunity to follow repiratory, physical and occupational therapy, house supervisor ect. This would give them a more realistic view of the field vs reading something about it on the internet or learning at school.

You would be suprised the things that you think would bother you now, but not think twice about them when you are in practice taking care of patients. Think about why you want to go into nursing and what you think you can bring to the field. You could amaze yourself on what it is that you really can handle when push comes to shove and you are taking care of someone that needs you. Good luck to you in whatever field you ultimately go in to!