Young Male considering nursing? :)

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Hello! I am from Alberta, Canada and recently have been considering pursuing nursing as a possible career choice. It's very foreign to me as very few family members have dabbled in it as a profession and I am fresh out of high school with many avenues I have considered exploring. If my questions come across as naive/uninformed, forgive me as they probably are.

1. I was looking into an RN program and a Psychiatric Nursing Program. What are the disadvantages to pursuing a psychiatric nursing career, if any? It seems to be the area that most interests me, but definitely seems to be the less popular route. Why is that? Is the pay less? Is it harder work?

2. What is the average starting salary for a nurse? I've googled it a few times and have received a variety of answers. Also, how much room is there for pay increase and what are the factors that warrant it?

3. How exactly do Nurse Practitioner programs work and are they worth pursuing? Why or why not?

These questions probably sound very silly, so forgive me. Thank you in advance for anyone who can help me out! :)

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

1. Psych nursing is less popular but I don't know why. If you go the RN route you could still work in mental health, as well as other areas. If you just take psychiatric route then you are limiting yourself. You may be surprised by what area of nursing you will enjoy once you become exposed to it in school.

2. Pay will depend on where you work. Most nursing jobs are unionized and pay and pay increases will be laid out in the contract. Otherwise it is at the employers discretion.

3. To be an NP you need your BSN and some years of nursing experience before you can apply to the NP program. Programs vary in regards to how much experience they want.NP programs are 2-3 years.

Bear in mind that since you didn't post this on the Canadian forum you may get lots of advice that doesn't apply to Canadian nursing.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Moved this to the Canadian forum for more appropriate responses

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Specializes in Home Care.

I suggest you read the many threads here on the dismal state of nursing jobs in Alberta

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Specializes in geriatrics.

Psych nursing offers many avenues within mental health if that's your main interest. However, your skill set is limited because aside from a few rotations at school you won't have much practice with medicine and related assessments.

This isn't an issue if your goal is psych but if you decide to apply to hospital jobs or even LTC it could be. A couple of friends are psych nurses. They say they aren't comfortable with applying outside of psych because they don't remember anything they learned from their medicine rotations.

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A BSN program would still give you lots of opportunity to explore psych nursing if that's where your interests are. I did general nursing but for my final preceptorship (where you work one on one with a nurse who supervises you) I chose inpatient psychiatry. I was offered a job on the psych unit, but ended up choosing medicine. I would recommend doing it this way, as I met a few psych nurses who were going back to school to get their RN for more opportunities

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