How Do I know Nursing is For Me?

When I first enrolled into nursing school - I will be honest to say that I had no idea what it entailed. I never truly knew what the role of a nurse was and did not interact with many. All I knew is I loved studying medicine and I wanted to help people. At the time, I was not able to have the means to attend medical school and so I went on to apply for nursing school. It proved to be the best decision I've made. On occasion, I get questions from nursing students or people considering a career in nursing whether it would be the right career choice for them. I want to first explain that no matter what characteristics you may possess - I believe that you can be a great nurse as long as you have the passion to help others and some self-awareness. That is, you are willing to work on yourself to become the best version of yourself for your profession.

As a second-career, I did not initially go into healthcare as I thought I was not detail-oriented enough, was socially awkward, and lacked leadership skills. However, I knew that I had an unrelenting passion for studying the sciences and human body. Even more so, I knew I wanted to help others. These are skills that I developed through my journey in nursing school and so can you! Of course, helping people is not only in the healthcare industry. You may be wondering if nursing is for you. I'll list just a few of the reasons nursing may a great fit for you.

1. You Have a Lot of Interests

Growing up in an Asian household, my parents gave me three career options: Doctor, Lawyer, and Engineer. After seeing how terrible I did school, they settled for lawyer because they thought at least I could argue back (if you know, you know lol). My parents were always highly concerned about me as they felt that I had too many interests whilst mastering none. For the longest time, I thought this was my weakness as well. I thought that my lack of commitment to a passion was my downfall. I love journalism, anthropology, medicine, sciences, policy, finance, art, etc. However, this is truly my superpower especially in nursing as there are literally over 100 specialties in Nursing! Nursing is a broad field - allowing such flexibility in career choices. If you don't like working in your specialty, you truly have so many avenues to choose from! Future post on the existing specialties later. Some examples are working in biotechnology, sporting events, hospital, outpatient, medical devices, policy, research, home health, hospice, public health, government, leadership and management, etc. The list is endless! We are even having a rise of nurses doing content creation and entering entertainment. That being said, your role within those industries are still nursing-niche focused. You're not a software engineer as a nurse, but perhaps you can help guide software engineers into creating software that aids in nursing practice.

2. You Want Flexible Work Schedules

There is a nursing work schedule for everyone! With so many specialties, there is bound to be a work schedule for you. Everyone is on their own professional and personal time-lines, and this profession can absolutely fit to your needs. Hospital shifts are frequently 3 shifts a week, 12 hours each. Although there is even per-diem (as-needed basis) and part-time positions as well. To keep in mind though, many direct patient care roles also work on holidays! You'll frequently see outpatient care being your typical 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday. There is even travel nursing where you do working contracts lasting from two weeks to about thirteen weeks.

3. You Prioritize Job Stability

Following the pandemic, there is a great nursing shortage and so the demand for nurses are only higher as more nurses are nearing their retirement age. Our population is also just simply growing! Nurses are well compensated, have so many opportunities for career advancement, and are truly never out of options for work. Furthermore, they typically enjoy benefits such as employer 401K plans, health insurance, maternity leave, paid time off and annual raises. It is also a career where you can negotiate your pay with your experience/value.

4. You Want a Meaningful Profession

Nursing is absolutely a profession that gives so much meaning into your professional life. Of course, the meaningful impact you do for the lives for other people is across different industries and in healthcare. I will say though that bedside-care nursing is so profound in the sense that you are seeing people with their vulnerabilities. You experiences the highs and lows with the patient and their loved ones. Even for non-bedside nursing roles, you will be doing meaningful work where you know lives will be improved and benefit from. In other words, this is the career for those who want to make a difference.

5. You Enjoy Collaborative Framework, but Also Enjoy Some Independence

Nursing is a career which follows a collaborative-framework model. The human body is really a collaboration of the organ systems. Even outside of that, our health is impacted by our environment, finances, social interactions, etc! As nurses, we will collaborate with other professionals to maintain health and wellness for our patients. This is really a great career for those who like collaborative framework, but still value independence. View the collaborative and Independence as a practicing spectrum. From specialty to specialty, you will have more or less of collaboration and independence. As a nurse practioner, you may have more independence as you will have the scope of practice to diagnose and manage patient treatment plans. As a bedside nurse in a hospital, you will have some independent in following treatment plans set out by the practioner. However, you got a whole army of nurses on the floor to have support and keep in touch with other members of the healthcare team. As a home-health nurse, you would work collaboratively with others but primarily go care for patients alone when coming to their residence. In an occupational nursing setting, you may be the only nurse in the entire building/unit. Really, independence and collaboration fall in a spectrum for this occupation! You will never really have one without the other though.

In Conclusion,

I hope this blog post helps you see a bit into how nursing may or may not be the profession for you! All love and keep on being happy and healthy! Peace and Love to you all.