If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time in nursing it’s that you have to be doing it for the right reasons, otherwise there is an even greater chance that you could suffer from burnout and compassion fatigue. Personally, I went into nursing after having spent a lot of time in doctor’s offices and hospitals due to health problems I was born with. I spent a lot of time around nurses and was in awe of what they did, and it made me want to be a nurse when I grew up. In my opinion, the following are wrong reasons to enter the nursing profession.
The Money
This is perhaps the most commonly given reason for a person to enter nursing. It is a common misconception that nurses all make huge amounts of money. Anyone who enters the nursing profession for this reason is in for a serious and bracing reality check when they enter the working world. While, yes, some nurses are paid very well for their services, most jobs are paid on the scale of difficulty. Nurses working the worst hours and the hardest jobs most often make the most money. Pay is also determined by years of service and level of education. Most nurses do not start out making an excellent salary. Even though I wasn’t going into nursing for the money, even I was shocked at how little registered nurses make when they first start out.
Easy Job
Believe it or not, there are really people out there who think nursing is an easy job. I’ll ask them again after their first night with six patients who are incontinent. Nursing is definitely not in the category of “easy jobs” when it comes to ranking careers from easy to hard. The physical difficulty of the job is one thing, but there is also the emotional difficulty that comes with it. As nurses, we do get attached to some of our patients, and unfortunately as nurses we also lose some of our patients. No matter how long you are a nurse, it never gets easy to lose a patient.
Always Guaranteed a Job
I know many people from my class in high school who went to college and earned degrees in a multitude of different fields who have been unsuccessful at finding good jobs that utilize their education. While some of them have settled for working at banks or as secretaries, many of them have decided to go back to school to earn their Associates Degree in Nursing. They feel that by doing this in just a couple of years, they can have a job security. Well, that’s partially true. There are many jobs available across the United States, but no one is guaranteed anything. Ever since I graduated five years ago, the nursing job field has become infinitely more competitive. I finished school at the very end of a huge nursing shortage and hiring spree. I luckily found the job I wanted immediately, but by the time the next class graduated, things had changed significantly. The economy has made a huge impact on the profession, drastically reducing the number of jobs available to nurses. This is not necessarily because the shortage is getting better but because hospitals are cutting their budgets to reduce spending, thus cutting the number of nurses they are allowed to hire.
Nursing is an amazing and honorable profession. It’s something I personally love doing, and even people who go into it for the “wrong” reasons often learn to love it simply for how satisfying it is to know you’re making a difference in someone’s life. There is no more rewarding feeling than being able to make someone feel better, physically and emotionally. However, people need to be aware of the realities of the profession and pursue this career for more reasons than just earning potential and job security.
Do you think there are wrong reasons to become a nurse? What are they?