58 years old - Am I too old to start nursing school??

[Farawyn]

What Jensmom7 said.

[jaggy123]

Love your attitude ConnieCanada! I'm a 48yo who will sit for the NCLEX in a week. I have so much to offer, experience, insight, maturity, discipline, and compassion. I will remember your comments when I interview. Thank you, and best wishes :).

[feelix, RN]

I would not discourage her, just because nursing iIs full of ageists.

I would tell her what I tell everyone. Go for it if you have nerves of steel and knees of a leopard, and the brain of a rocket scientist.

She could still get plastic surgery and look 20 years younger.

[RNrhythm, BSN, RN]

quiltynurse56 said:

I don't know if you have taken any prereqs or Gen Eds, but if decide to move forward, get as many of those out of the way before you start your nursing classes.

Yes! Do your pre-reqs before your start your program, ESPECIALLY if your program is accelerated. Make sure they are transferable into your program. Many people do not survive microbiology or physiology and the decision to become an RN (or not) will be made for you.

[NursesRmofun, ASN, RN]

CatHair said:

As someone who is 57 and completed RN Licensure last year I can tell you that age is INDEED a factor in the workforce.

When people meet me and hear I am an RN, they think I have 20+ years of experience.

When they find out I am a new grad with no work experience they start questioning why I became an RN at my age. That is what comes up in the few interviews I have been able to get.

As already mentioned, do you think a hospital is going to invest $50-$100K in training for you?

They would not for me.

There always seems to be a "hiring freeze" in effect but they will hire "from within", in other words if you are already working there in another capacity. (as PCT/CNA etc).

I couldn't even get a LTC facility to interview me.

Perhaps they are waiting for me to qualify as a Resident so I can pay THEM for being there?

I feel for you. I hope that after you went through the schooling that you do find something. That stinks.

[NursesRmofun, ASN, RN]

ConnielCanada said:

WOW is all I can say in regards to the continuation of perpetuating a serious issue. As a practicing midwife I see the same treatment of women having babies after the age of 26 by physicians. You are just too old to have a baby, and yet women are having babies "successfully" after the age of 30 every day.

The only way to change a wrong doing is by stopping the ridiculous rhetoric. I will have a job when I graduate, and I will be successful. I have a lot of life experience, wisdom, greater patience, and no children to keep me out of work, these are all very good marketable qualities. I would turn your statements around and say "Look at all I have to offer, over a 20 something that has no real work experience, doesn't already know how to play in the sand box with her co workers.

Ageism has got to stop, and all those who think they are doing someone a favor by "telling them the truth of the matter" is just feeding the myth. I have more stamina, business sense, and stability than most new graduates. I will be successful, as I already am successful, and I have a LOT of years left for anyone to invest their time in.

Seriously? Now this would be something I did not know. Docs don't like women having babies over the ripe old age of 26?

[NursesRmofun, ASN, RN]

TheCommuter said:

I'm 34 years old with a little less than 10 years of nursing experience. I'm already laying the groundwork to make a permanent exit from bedside nursing because I simply do not want to do it in upper middle age. I already struggle to work three 12-hour shifts in a row due to a health issue.

Bedside nursing is brutal to the body, mind and spirit. A person can only take so much, regardless of their youth or advancing age.

So true.

[NursesRmofun, ASN, RN]

Cola89 said:

Honesty, I think so. Why? Because bedside nursing is for the young and generally healthy, and you would have to start out in some sort of direct patient care position. Young nurses with only a few good years of experience are clammering to get out move up into less physically and emotionally taxing positions --- and can, because they at least have working experience. Being a nurse is a lot more physically demanding than most (even students) realize.

As a newer grad, 12 hr. shifts easily turn into 14 hr. shifts. And, just yesterday I went nine (9) HOURS at work without one drink of water. Or anything. It was 1530 before I took my only break. That was my first and only opportunity to hydrate myself at work. I was that busy with a zillion calls, an admission, a discharge, patients coming back from surgery... more calls, more demands... an end of shift discharge. It's really physically difficult to tolerate and I cannot recommend it.

Yep. Non-stop is Med Surg. I often don't stop for break until 4 (starting at 7-ish) I do manage to run to my water bottle once in a while. Not often.

[rhondaa83]

Yes........I said it........

[vanilla bean]

rhondaa83 said:

Yes........I said it........

Like, silently to yourself?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Knute said:

Sif you have no sense of loyalty to a facility or any work ethic, then at any age, or if you are _itch....its time to get off the nurse wagon and go work someplace else, at any age.

In an era where healthcare facilities and managers display no loyalty to nursing staff, I will never be loyal to any healthcare facility. Never. Ever. Absolutely not.

My workplace would terminate my employment, as well as anyone's job, the very moment management grows tired of me or any of my coworkers. My manager announced in a meeting that, "We can quickly replace anyone who wants to quit."

I will give my place of employment precisely as much loyalty as they extend to me, which is zero, zilch, nada.

[Knute]

....its who we are at the end of the day and how we come back from devastating experiences working under a corrupt and evil health care management that makes us count as Nurses and as people. Let me share a personal happening:

L was the worse _itch on the planet and DON in a facility that was beautiful on the outside and phoney on the inside. Patients were in thread bare clothing and always ran out of needed hygiene care and some other essential products and this was intentional.

Staff was frightened and bullied and the nurse educator taught that LPN's were basically nothing more than a CNA with med pass privileges, RN's were constantly chastised and set up to fail and that if we couldn't do the work we could always apply at WalMart.

.....so when floor nurses and aids huddled together after one particularly vicious verbal attack on all of staff the team decided to kneel in prayer and ask Heavenly Father to help us maintain a sense of well-being in a situation where anything but that was the case.

We, after all, loved our patients inspite of the best efforts of management to set us up to fail in the care of those we cared for.

We determined to remain loyal to facility and to patients and that no matter what they did to us.....we would be NURSES.

After we did this, the DON went out on sick leave and then she was fired. The new DON fought with upper management without fear as her husband was the primary wage earner and she had some leverage in not being overly concerned about her wage and therefore giving in to unrighteous and illegal demands by upper management (and in this case it was much more than just too many patients per staff...some bad things were happening).

After we huddled and prayed together, out relationships improved, and things got a little better for us. It took some time, but we came together as a real team. As well, inspite of someone not deserving our loyalty, we were loyal to facility and to each other...the backbiting and bullying stopped......we aren't just anybody, we are NURSES.