Why did you take up nursing? What's your story?

Every nurse has their own story to tell about how or why they chose to enter the nursing profession. Some may have been inspired by a personal experience with healthcare, while others may have been drawn to the idea of caring for others. Some may have stumbled upon nursing by chance, while others knew from a young age that it was their calling. Whatever the reason, each nurse has a unique narrative that led them to become a caregiver. These stories are a testament to the diversity and passion within the nursing community and the profound impact that healthcare can have on our lives.

Please be as detailed or as short as you wish. It'll be interesting to hear everyone's stories.

Very interesting thread. I am just getting prepared to starti the pre-reqs to even get in the nursing program after RSV season is over.

I was always somewhat interested in nursing, but never pursued it. Then I developed severe pre-eclampsia and had my daughter 9 weeks early. While the LDRP nurses were nice, I want to be a NICU nurse. The good nurses are not what motivated me, I can only hope to be as good as them. My motivation is actually the 3 bad nurses my daughter had. I know I can be a much better nurse than them, because if nothing else I can be nice to the parents (and not so rough with 2 lb babies--one of these nurses slammed a supply cart into my daughters incubator and didn't even respond to the A/B/Ds it caused, the charge nurse did)

I was tired of dating waitresses, thought I'd give nurses a try.

Specializes in CVICU, PICU, ER,TRAUMA ICU, HEMODIALYSIS.

I am 57 years old, been a nurse since 1975. When I was a little girl, my mother ALWAYS impressed on me the importance of going to college and having a career with which to support myself, "in case anything happened to my husband". (This was the 1950's you see.) I loved science, biology, and in 8th grade, my science teacher had us learn all the bones of the body. I was hooked. I wanted to know more. My parents weren't rich, student loans were rare, and only the Valedictorians got things like the National Merit Scholarship (one was given to each senior class.) I didn't even consider becoming a doctor back then although I might have if I had been born 10 or 20 years later. I decided to become a nurse and once I made that decision at around age 12, I never considered doing anything else. I had no idea how much money nurses made and I didn't care. I knew they got paid something and that was all I cared about that. I can honestly say that the first 24 years were great; I am truly one of the best nurses I know (NO BRAG, JUST FACT!) I always left my patients cleaner, happier, more comfortable, in less pain, or at least solved some minor problem that had been driving them nuts. My personal goal, my ethics if you will, that I lived and worked by were to find at least one thing each shift, with each patient that I could fix, resolve, make better in some way. My patients and their families loved me and so many times I would hear the words, "Will you be back tonight?" or "You really love your job, don't you?" or just "Thank you so much, dear". Unfortunately, in 1999, my nursing career began to deteriorate. I still don't really understand what I did or did not do. First, one nurse who had 10 years less experience than I but was an excellent nurse, began to complain about various things I did. Once he said I failed to answer a light and walked past it. Then he said I left an empty syringe on a patient's overbed table (I had been using 30cc syringes to irrigate a TURP patient's clotted foley catheter and the entire night had been one disaster after another.) I FORGOT. Then I was working in the same hospital's ER where they did not have an MD in house; we had to call him in when we got a patient. (It was a very small hospital) I had a patient come in who told me she had taken 3 Vicodin and 3 20mg Paxil because she had had an argument with her lover and wanted to relax. Then she was afraid that she might have taken too much and came in to be checked out but SHE SAID SHE DID NOT WANT TO SEE A DOCTOR BECAUSE SHE KNEW IT WOULD COST HER MORE AND SHE HAD NO MONEY AND NO INSURANCE BUT SHE WORKED AND DIDN'T WANT A BILL. SHE SAID SHE WOULD LEAVE IMMEDIATELY IF I CALLED THE DOCTOR TO COME IN. I was in a quandary about what to do so I asked the Charge Nurse who had worked in the ER too. I had never worked in an ER where there was no doctor in house before and I was uncertain as to what was my liability. I said I thought it would be better to try to keep her there to observe rather than have her leave and have something happen to her later; the Charge Nurse agreed. The patient agreed to stay until we were certain she was out of the woods. She left 3 hours later with no ill effects and she was charged for a Nurse Exam. I was fired and it was turned into the State Board who gave me a Letter of Censure. Then in 2001 a doctor I went to see with new insurance as a new PCP to refer me to an orthopedic surgeon for a severe knee injury accused me of being drug seeking and wrote in my chart that I was an RN that was probably addicted to narcotics and since it was the first time I had seen him, I probably went to new doctors all the time getting narcotics. He did not turn me into the State Board of Arizona until ONE YEAR LATER WHEN I WENT TO SEE MY NEW PCP (after my knee surgery I did not require the services of a PCP for another year). IT WAS THEN THAT MY NEW PCP ASKED IF I HAD HAD A PROBLEM WITH NARCOTICS WITH THE PREVIOUS PCP WHO HAD WRITTEN SUCH IN THE MEDICAL RECORD THAT WAS SENT OVER FROM HIS OFFICE. I wrote him a nasty letter and it was then that he turned me into the State Board who could not find any proof either with any of my former employers for the past 10 years, nor with my previous doctor who I had had for 8 years. STILL THE STATE BOARD KEEPS THE COMPLAINT ON RECORD AND LISTS IT WHENEVER SOMEONE CALLS THEIR AUTOMATED SYSTEM TO VERIFY LICENSES. Now I wish I had become ANYTHING BUT A NURSE. NURSES HAVE NO BACKBONE. THEY ARE PETTY, THEY ARE JEALOUS OF EACH OTHER, THEY WILL TURN ANOTHER NURSE IN WHERE A DOCTOR WOULD RARELY IF EVER TURN ON ANOTHER DOCTOR. EVEN WHEN I WROTE A FORMAL COMPLAINT TO THE ARIZONA BOARD OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS ABOUT *************, THEY DID NOT ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF HIS RUINING MY CAREER AND DEFAMING MY CHARACTER. THE SIMPLY SAID THAT HE COULD PRESCRIBE PAIN MEDS IF HE WANTED TO OR NOT. (I HAD TOLD HIM THAT THE ONLY PAIN MED THAT I CAN TOLERATE IS PERCOCET WHICH HE REFUSED TO PRESCRIBE SO I WENT HOME WITH NOTHING TILL I WENT TO THE ER 3 DAYS LATER WHERE THE MD DID GIVE ME PERCOCET AND IN FACT OFFERED ME MORPHINE OR DEMEROL BUT I CAN'T TAKE EITHER OF THEM.) I have seen many, many nurses turn on each other; I have seen many nurses treat each other poorly while they "suck up" to all the doctors, something I have never understood, since the doctors are not their employer, and since no doctor would ever put HIS license on the line to defend a nurse's license.

IF I HAD MY DRUTHERS, I WOULD BE AN ATTORNEY; I HAVE EXCELLENT CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AND CAN EASILY SEE ALL SIDES OF NEARLY ANY PROBLEM OR ISSUE. I am sorry for everyone who goes into nursing today. It is not what it used to be. The people who go into nursing often go into it solely because its a guaranteed job and there are so many different fields one can choose. Recently, my husband had to get an injection in his doctors office. When he came out he was white and furious. When I asked him why, he said that the nurse inserted the needle VERY SLOWLY, CAUSING HIS MUSCLES TO SPASM AND THEN INJECTED THE MEDICATION SLOWLY AS WELL. I would have liked to have asked her where she went to school and who taught or did not teach her how to give injections. I THOUGHT EVERY NURSE WOULD KNOW THE BASICS OF GIVING AN INJECTION. I GIVE MY HUSBAND INJECTIONS ONCE A MONTH AND HE NEVER FEELS THEM. Also, after having a cardiac cath, a nurse came in and told my husband to sit up so she could listen to his lungs; I wasn't in the room at the time, but he knew that he was not to sit up or bend his leg and he refused. When I got back, he told me what she had done and I went and found her and explained why she could have had him hemorrhaging to death. Another time, after spinal fusion, my husband had a foley catheter in place. A nurse came to take it out and WAS NOT GOING TO DEFLATE THE BALLOON FIRST!! My husband told her "don't you have to let the air out or something?" She then went and got a syringe and removed the saline before pulling the cath.The quality of nurses has deteriorated tremendously over the past 10 years or so. Please don't think I am going to be one of those OLD NURSES who thinks I know best, but I have seen so many errors by nurses in the last few years that I worked that I have a living will stating that I am not to be taken to any hospital under any circumstances, for any reason. Just let me die.

Heck some days I don't remember. But to be honest I started as an aide and thought it was a cruse course in high school Yeah right!:uhoh21: Doctored my dolls when they were small.

My first day as an aide consisted of the hugest decubeitus I ever saw on no joke a 700 pound women could put my elbow in it .I worried every time she rolled over and bent the side rail all the way down to get on her side to use the bed pan.

Then the ward nurse's played a mean joke on me by sending me in to take vitals on a dead man, got in the room and he had no pulse anywhere no BP no breath fog against the mirror. We used to carry a mirror .So I Put on the call bell and told the nurses the PT appeared to be deceased; they may want to come check this out. They were laughing.

Then my 3 patient had a double mastectomy at age 24 the cancer had gone all the way though to the lungs all ready really gross looking.

I figured if I could get though this day I could get through anything and got into nursing.

Diane

not to sound korny but reading your story gave me a bit of hope. i find myself in the same boat that you've been in. it's taking me forever to finish the pre-requisites. i'm trying to get through it...slowly but getting through it! i work a full time job at a doctor's office & i'm married. so, nursing school is a bit hard to fit in to my life. i finally got into a good nursing program but had to stop because of ...well...as you said "life got in the way." i should have never stopped. i'd be an rn by now..:( well, i'm going to try again. its what i want more than anything. i'm going to do it. lol...thanks!

when i was a kid i wanted to become a doctor...my father told me that to become one i need to take preparatory course..one of the choices is nursing and i said to myself..a nurse i would be...however when i was in high school nursing job boomed..and almost everyone wanted to become a nurse with almost the same reason..a greener pasture..to earn dollars..so,i said to myself i wanted to be different..i won't take up nursing..i wanted to be a mass comuunication student..whether a journalist or broadcaster..(i'm not sure):roll ..but under a certain circumstance i ended taking up nursing..but it doesn't matter anymore..even if this is not my choice..im enjoying being a student nurse..i love to go on duty in the hospital and even in the community..i feel good if i'm able to help anyone..and i like doing return demonstrations..and they say..nurses have the TLC..tender loving care..:nurse:

Specializes in pure and simple psych.

Dear Celest. I'm so sorry that that jerk of a sorry sort of doctor started you on such a hard path. Speaking of attny sorts, how about calling one to charge the doc with defamation of character and jeopardizing your income??? And you are right, many new nurses don't have the basic skills that we were taught. (Grad 1968) Seems that they have theories and not practice.

Also won't let the "nurse" in my doctor's office give me in injection. She's a PA, not a nurse. Petty, probably, but I take an Rx home to my partner, a real RN. (Canadian Diplomat). Hope all works out with you. You are right. You have a clear reasonable thought process, laid out your story in a clear and succinct manner. Take your blog entry to an attny.

Specializes in pure and simple psych.

Forensic nursing is the psychiatric sub-speciality working with those who have broken the law and are mentally ill, or the area of nursing that collects evidence from crime victims in order to find the person who assaulted them. I'm in the first field.

Specializes in Combat Support Hospital; Geriatrics.

Growing up, I either wanted to be a soldier like my Grandpa or become a doctor. I tried joining the army as an infantryman, but since I wanted to become doctor as well, I ended up becoming a combat medic (medical specialist) and figured I would jump start my life using that route. Well, I only got up to becoming an LVN :chuckle and will probably become an RN sometime soon (2 classes away from getting into the RN program).

Hmmm maybe I can still get into med school, but I'd rather buy a house, get a wife and a bunch of ankle biters instead.:rolleyes:

You know that saying: "Shoot for the stars, you'll atleast end up in the moon" or some crap like that.

At age 14, I was diagnosed with scoliosis. Wore a back brace for 3.5 years, but ended up with having back surgery anyway. The nurses were super-nice to me, especially since I was an 18 year old stuck in a children's hospital!

Orginally went to college as a pharmacy major, but lasted 6 whole weeks - math and chemistry just weren't my things. My best friend and my boyfriend's sister-in-law were involved in nursing, so I though I'd try that. My dad and a family friend gave me grief about it and I had a nursing instructor tell me to get out of nursing; all of which made me try all the harder.

Anyway, it's almost 20 years later and I'm still an RN. I've worked med-surg, OB, public health, school nursing, and now I'm in home health. Wouldn't trade my career for anything!

Cindy

I knew from the time I was very, very young that I wanted to be a nurse. I can't tell you why, except I knew I wanted to take care of people. Maybe it was because my mother was very ill from the time I was about 2 1/2 years old until she died at the age of 25 and I was 3 yrs old. She knew I wanted to be a nurse and so did my father when he was killed 2 yrs later in Vietnam when I was 5. So that desire for becoming a nurse, and being an excellent one, has never left me. Being a nurse is such a huge part of my identity, I just love it. I know from experience that there are always ups and downs in any job, but mostly I can say my experiences have been good ones and I wouldn't ever choose any other career. Nursing is in my blood!

Specializes in Neuro Surgical ICU.

To be honest in high school I wanted to work with computers since I loved them so much but once I realized how much math I'd have to take and I saw how I struggled with math in high school I thought about another career. My dad knows a lady in my church who is the dean of nursing and she spoke to me about nursing and I must say after talking to her I realized that nursing is for me. I just felt this tug at my heart that I need to go and help people even if it means just sitting and talking with them I want to help others. So here I am about to finish my BS in June and I'm actually hoping to get a job in March and work my way towards flight nursing. So sure I haven't started working yet and I'm not in th real world but soon and very soon is what I keep telling myself I shall be there.

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