I have been keen to apply for a Bachelor of Nursing course for quite some time. I have a two year old, but feel I would be able to study part time. The only thing stopping me at the moment is the fear that I will invest so much time and money into studying - what if I don't like the job? I would love to hear from nurses about the highs and lows of their profession, and honest opinions as to whether someone with not a lot of patience could enjoy/succeed in this role? TIA
5 Replies
The good news is...nursing isnt just one job.
There is post operative nursing. Nursing in aged care. Neonatal nursing......well the list is endless....and the environments. It doesnt lock you in, in many ways it unlocks you. I have a number of friends who have studied nursing and while none of them are working in nursing currently none of them regret studying it and they all love the job when they are working in nursing.
I'm a nurse and have been for nearly 20yrs...
Whilst I will never encourage people to be nurses - there is only so much you can be spat at, sworn at kicked at before you get a bit over it - I wouldn't change my job for the world.
There is something special about being let into people's lives when they are at their worst and their most vulnerable.
It's also one of the few jobs that can take you around the world and also varied situations. I know people who are currently traveling on a cruise ship as a nurse, it let me spend 5yrs in the UuK..
You will know if the job is for you after your first placement.. So if it's something you want to do then go for it:)
Go do some work experience. You are allowed to apply for work experience even if you aren't a teenager in high school :)
I was in the same position about 10 years ago, except I had two little ones at home. I did a six month aged care course first. I did this because I thought it would give me a taste of nursing but if I didn't like it, I'd only studied for six months and cost me a couple of hundred dollars. My plan worked brilliantly. I got a job at a nursing home where I did my placement; after about 6 months there, I enrolled into bachelor of nursing via external education while still working in the nursing home. I was able to claim heaps of my uni stuff on tax because I was working in the field. I did the degree over 7 years, having 2x six month breaks to have two more kids. Now, I've just finished a grad year and am Woking in the ED and loving it.
The worst and hardest part of it all was juggling the kids while doing the unpaid placements.
It can be done! All the best.
You'll get an idea of whether you'll like it or not when you start doing placements. It can be a real eye opener, especially for the young school-leavers. But I'm guessing you're past that age, and having a 2yo you've probably been a patient in a hospital before so you have an idea of what the environment is like and what nurses and midwives do. Go for it - if you've been thinking about it and keen for it for a while, you'll be so proud of yourself when you put it all into action. And like so many people have said, there are sooo many different roles in nursing. If you don't like one area, you're able to try something else. In my first year after graduating, I rotated through several different areas and started to get an idea of what I did and didn't like. I still see some of the nurses from my grad group - one does community nursing, one is in ED, one is in the 'pain team' who works with the anaesthetic team to ensure that post operative patients have adequate pain control in their recovery period, one works in a medical ward, one is taking a break from nursing, and I have since done a Masters and work as a midwife. Some friends from uni have ended up in varied fields also - one went pretty much straight into research and has now just completed a PhD, one is in oncology, one is a midwife, and one is a cardiac nurse. Just to give you an idea of where you can head once you graduate. There are advantages and disadvantages to the job - shift work can be very difficult but it really suits some people. And if it doesn't suit you, there are many nursing jobs that have regular business hours, like day surgery, community nursing, GP and outpatients clinics. The most challenging part of nursing and midwifery for me is the workplace politics involved - the rostering, the recruitment decisions, the management and people in high places who make decisions that directly affect your working life. It can be very frustrating. At the moment, I work casually, which has taken away a lot of that political drama. I love it. I say when I'm available, and the hospital books for some or all of those shifts. Being casual, there's no guarantee that I'll get any shifts, but in the last 2 years of casual working I've never gone a fortnight without a shift. And I love the pay rate of casual work - at the moment I'm on over $50/h plus shift penalties. For a Saturday shift, 6.30am to 3pm, my gross pay is over $600. My husband looks after the kids on those shifts so I only usually need childcare one afternoon a week while I do a 2.30 to 11pm shift. My mum does the school run on those days and babysits them until my husband gets home. It works for us. Good luck xo