Do you REALLY want to be a nurse?

Posted by Brian on August 2nd, 2008 at 12:12pm

Many nurse hopefuls are drawn to the nursing profession for the money. While there is no doubt this career pays well income alone is no reason to enter into it. As you have surely heard nursing is somewhat of a calling., just like preaching and teaching. If this is not what you truly want to do (deep down in your heart) find something else. You will be spending a great deal of time and effort in the educational experience. Nursing school is not a push over – it is demanding. It would be a shame to go through all this and determine within a years time its not for you. Surveys of nursing graduates are showing 10 -30 percent of all new nurses leave this field within two years. How can you keep this from happening to you?

1. Take a summer job as a nurses aid – This is the absolute best way to determine whether or not you are cut out for this field. Just remember nurses aids are the backbone of the health care industry. They, while not being compensated much for their work, are worth their weight in gold. You may be thinking as an RN or LPN you will not be doing this same type of work but don’t be fooled. You will do plenty “nurses aid” type of work mostly due to being under staffed. The difference here being that as an RN or LPN you will be the one with the nursing license and YOU are ultimately responsible for the care each patient is given.

2. Shadow a Registered Nurse (RN) – This advice is greatly trumpeted to nursing student hopefuls and for good reason. But what does shadowing mean. Its really a simple process. Find a nurse who is willing to let you follow them around during the day just to get a real idea about what a practicing nurse does on a day to day basis. All you will be doing is observing and possibly taking notes. Do this for no less than 2 weeks. This was one of my best experiences and really the one that hooked me. This is really a simple thing to do and extremely helpful but you will be surprised at the number of people who do not do this.

Under Getting into Nursing School