Do you like it? How did you get into it? There's nothing wrong with my job now, I just always thought about it and don't know anyone in nursing school, etc. What's the pay like? How do you pick your specialization? Enlighten me...

3/30/2008 9:42:12 PM

i can tell you that nurses are always wanted. some hospitals are paying you 20K-30K upfront to be hired. there is a shortage.

lots of good schools around here.

3/30/2008 9:54:36 PM

paging brainysmurf

3/30/2008 9:57:05 PM

someone is an alias

3/30/2008 10:42:31 PM

oh hell no, you're too mean.

3/31/2008 3:06:44 AM

Is the communication degree not working out? Serious question.

3/31/2008 3:29:02 AM

No, comm degree worked out and I love my current job, it's just something else that I've always thought about as a career option and been interested in.

^^ You can kiss my butt. I brought you all kinds of fun shit when you were laid up the first time I'm nice

3/31/2008 12:35:06 PM

Nurses are in high demand and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

The nurses that get paid are CRNA's but I wouldn't go into nursing with that being the sole possibility of what you can see yourself doing.

At the end of the day you are taking care of people. Can you see yourself doing that?

3/31/2008 2:44:33 PM

Yes, that's why I was curious about it.

3/31/2008 3:40:41 PM

i can def. see you as a nurse

3/31/2008 3:41:35 PM

are you a male nurse fokker?

3/31/2008 3:46:07 PM

Yea I know my ex-gf had the last two years of her schooling paid for at UNCG by moses cone in exchange for working there for two years (at regular pay of course)

3/31/2008 3:51:06 PM

its the hardest job you will ever love

but first of all are you tough enough to stick it out


nursing school is hard as hell.

Not so much the academics(but even those can be difficult for some), but the instructors will ride your ass and expect perfection

be prepared to triple check and second guess everything you do because people's lives depend on it.

its not just about carrying out doctors orders, because sometime doctors order the wrong shit and you have to be able to catch it and question it because the answer i just carried out orders isnt good enough in a deposition.

In my program you had to maintain a test average of 78 or 79 a high C in order to pass the semester. If your test average wasnt high enough the rest of your grades didnt matter. statistics show that students that cant maintain a test average of a high C or better dont pass the NCLEX.


The programs around here are competetive... ALL of them... dont expect to get into wake tech, they are rather biased against state grads and a lot of your state classes will not transfer.

i would recommend vance granville but they have been on probation.

nc central, durham tech, watts, duke (absn), unc ch, vance granville, and wake tech are all local programs with clinicals in local hospitals.


as for your specialization: you will have a variety of clinical experiences, precept or extern(whatever your program calls it) in an area you are interested in

I knew i wanted to do critical care, i had 2 options the ICU at franklin regional or the neuro icu at duke, well i picked duke(duh) and spent two months there with a preceptor. at the end of 2 months i had a job waiting for me as soon as i passed the nclex.

Now assuming you get through school and the gut-wrenching nclex process. you still have to survive your first year of nursing


and it is HELL. no one has a good first year to 18 months. you are still learning so much and you realize that you know nothing at all, and you make stupid mistakes. you go home at night hearing alarms and such and you replay your entire day trying to figure out if you missed something important or wondering if you should have done something differently.

after about a year you find your stride and then you stop wondering if you picked the wrong career.


as far as $$ pm me, im not talking about that publicly



nursing isnt for the faint of hear, or the timid.

nursing is full of alpha females. the saying nurses eat their young.......its true, and it sucks, but its a fact of life.


but in the end knowing that you saved a life, comforted a dying persons family and helped their loved one die with dignity and respect and as painlessly as possible, and just generally helped another person out makes it all worthwhile.


how many people can go home and say that? How many people can go home completely exhausted and feel GOOD about what they do for a living?



oh and as for being mean--- sometimes you have to be. Sometimes patient need a stern talking to. Im not there to be their friend... im there to get them better and get them home, OR im there to keep them from having to go on life support. sometimes the drill sergeant approach is the only thing that gets through to them.. nice nurse nancy approach isnt always effective.

[Edited on March 31, 2008 at 6:50 PM. Reason : just call me nurse ratched]

3/31/2008 6:48:19 PM

no

3/31/2008 8:27:10 PM

Quote :

"its the hardest job you will ever love"

this is very true

Quote :

"The nurses that get paid are CRNA's"

this is also very true

3/31/2008 10:04:27 PM