What you know now

Editorial Team / Admin · Sep 27, 2005

This is a question for people who started as nurses before AIDS, MRSA, HBV, etc. If these diseases were around when you started, would you have considered nursing as a career?

Yes, Maisie, I would do it all over again. I have known about them now for years and it has not served as a determent. Still chugging along.

elkpark · Sep 27, 2005

I was in nursing school when people were just becoming aware of AIDS (in fact, I predate the "AIDS" name -- I remember when it was officially called GRID ("gay-related immune deficiency")). No, it did not make any difference in my career decisions, and nothing that has been discovered since then would have, either.

I'm always surprised by the number of people in healthcare that speak as though this (the last twenty years or so) is the first time in history that anyone has been asked to care for people with a communicable, potentially fatal disease (not that I found your question offensive at all). Nursing schools must not be teaching anything about the history of nursing any more.

Throughout history, there have always been fatal communicable diseases, and doctors and nurses have cared for the people who had them -- in most cases, with much less protection and treatment available than we have today -- and thought nothing much of it. They were doing their jobs. We don't pick and choose our patients by diagnosis -- it's part of what you sign up for when you go into nursing.

I know there are some older threads here with discussion/debate on how willing different nurses are to put themselves at risk to provide care for patients -- you may be interested in searching and reviewing them.

DutchgirlRN, ASN, RN · Sep 27, 2005

I was a nurse before AIDS, HIV, MRSA just about everything but the bubonic plague and I still would have chose nursing. You have to know how to protect yourself. I go by the theory that I could step off a curb and be run over and killed tomorrow so I'm not going to worry about death while I'm alive and healthy.

Maisie · Sep 27, 2005

I was in nursing school when people were just becoming more.
Throughout history, there have always been fatal communicable diseases, and doctors and nurses have cared for the people who had them -- in most cases, with much less protection and treatment available than we have today -- and thought nothing much of it. They were doing their jobs. We don't pick and choose our patients by diagnosis -- it's part of what you sign up for when you go into nursing.
Disease would not stop me either although it is a consideration. I have looked at the history of nursing. One thing that stuck out in my mind was that in the past (19 century) nurses were poor people who did not have many job prospects. I find this situation is applicable today. During the economic boom, our school reported that not many people were interested in being nurses. Now schools have waiting list. It is scary to think of the number of people who are just there for the money and hate the profession. I hear people talking about how much a nurse can make before anything else.
It is nice for a 1st semester nursing student like me to hear from nurses like you. Thanks everyone for the replies.

llg, PhD, RN · Sep 27, 2005

I'm always surprised by the number of people in healthcare that speak as though this (the last twenty years or so) is the first time in history that anyone has been asked to care for people with a communicable, potentially fatal disease (not that I found your question offensive at all). Nursing schools must not be teaching anything about the history of nursing any more.
Throughout history, there have always been fatal communicable diseases, and doctors and nurses have cared for the people who had them -- in most cases, with much less protection and treatment available than we have today -- and thought nothing much of it. They were doing their jobs. We don't pick and choose our patients by diagnosis -- it's part of what you sign up for when you go into nursing.
QUOTE]
Great post!
llg

Tweety, BSN, RN · Sep 27, 2005

It was during the crises part of AIDS when people were dying by the tens of thousands that I decided to become a nurse, it was a big influence on my decision.

Although when I finally got my nursing license many years later we knew more and universal precautions was instituted. SARS didn't scare me from nursing either. It's just a matter of time before another illness comes around and I'm not going anywhere.