Nursing Careers: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Switching careers to go into registered nursing is all the rage these days. After all, the demand is high, the pay is great, and a career as a registered nurse comes with excellent benefits and a flexible schedule. It's the perfect career choice, right?

Perhaps, yes.

True, being a nurse is a great job. But it's not all sugar and spice once you get into this vocation. Outlined below are the things you need to seriously consider first before embarking on a nursing career:

The Good. On a daily basis, you get to help people get better or feel better. In this job, you are always wanted because you either take care of the sick and injured or else teach them how to do it themselves. You are also working in a field with such high job demand that many employers are offering thousands of dollars in financial incentive to work with them.

You can choose what shifts you want to work, what type environment you want to work in - elementary school? Prison? Travel nurse? Emergency room? Labor and delivery? Plastic surgery? Doctor's office? Research facility? Hospice? Long term care facility? You have the opportunity to work tons of overtime if and when you want to. Your employer will pay to further your education. You can work three twelve hour shifts and have that be considered full time in some facilities.

The Bad. As a nurse, you will have to be ready to handle emotional stress. Depending on your specific responsibilities, you may get to see patients die before your very eyes. This can be very heartbreaking especially if you've developed some emotional attachment to your patient, and even if you just watch family members cope with the loss.

You also have taken on a job with life and death responsibility, and must be on your toes at all time. You are giving your patients medicine, and monitoring desperately sick people for any change in their condition, and you could cause serious injury or death if you make a mistake.

The Ugly. The not-so-pleasant aspects of the job include the risk of lawsuits, dealing with angry and stubborn patients, and dealing with hostile families of patients. Anyone who works in the healthcare field runs the risk of being sued. You can minimize that risk by being careful, being competent, being prepared, following all procedures correctly, documenting everything that you do, and refusing to take on work in an unsafe environment where you know you are not able to give adequate care to patients, but you can never make the risk go away completely.

To an extent, you may also reduce the odds by securing personal medical malpractice insurance in addition to whatever protection the hospital is giving, but a lawsuit is always going to cause stress.

As for angry and hostile patients - you are dealing with people at the absolute worst time in their life, when they are sick, afraid, and in pain. And they may not react well to being in that situation. And then again, there are those who are just unpleasant and difficult to deal with even on a good day, but they need medical care too.

So before jumping into the nursing bandwagon, think of all these first. And don't forget that a lot of nurses do love their jobs, and are paid well for their efforts. Talk to some of these nurses, think about the risks and benefits, and then if you feel this is the career for you, contact your State Board of Nursing for a list of nursing schools near you.

If you are sure that a nursing career is right for you, visit us to see what the highest paying nursing jobs are right now. You'll also find information on all the nursing school programs and degrees that you can pursue to jump start your career.