I'm an RN (33 years) and I have known that I wanted to be a nurse ever since I can remember and no one in my family was in the medical field - so I'm unsure of how I came to be so enthralled with it.
Anyway, I absolutely LOVE nursing. I have spent most of my career teaching and working parttime in the hospital to keep up my skills. Now however, I teach exclusively (in a doctoral program so I don't have to keep up my skills) and I do research which I absolutely adore.
There are many things that I love about nursing, but one thing that I think is important is that there are so many things that you can do - hospital, clinic, public health, home health, hospice, teaching and other settings, and then within each setting there are so many different things that you can do, adults, geriatrics, pediatrics, maternity, direct patient care, management, or upper administration - you can ALWAYS find something that is interesting and rewarding!
Of course, there are "down" sides to anything. Nurses carry a tremendous responsibility. Those that work in acute care settings can easily cause major harm or death to patients, if they make a mistake. That is a tremendous responsibilty. Hospital nursing is also very physically taxing. However, the rewards are so worth the risks and responsibility. Assisting someone to learn to live fully within the restraints of illness is just the BEST.
Even with the "downs", there is nothing else in the world that I would want to be doing.
__________________  Rex & Rowdy's Mom  |