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How did you know you wanted to be a nurse?

How did you know you wanted to be a nurse as someone who has no medical experience and is a first generation?

nursing healthcare nurse spring26 firstgen
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Brent’s Answer

Hi there Banessa! Great question.

The best piece of advice I got when I was in your position, was to become a nursing assistant (CNA). I am currently one, and there is simply no replacement for the experience and exposure that it provides. I know many people who after becoming certified who decided that nursing just wasn’t for them- and many others who just wanted to “try it out” and are now going to nursing school because of it! I hope this helps.
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Jennifer’s Answer

Sometimes it can be very difficult to make a decision about a career when you may not have friends or family that have experience in that job that you can talk to about the pros and cons. If you want a career that will always be in demand, nursing is one of those careers. During the pandemic, healthcare workers were considered "essential" and that meant job security, while others lost their jobs during COVID. Many people felt the calling to go into nursing after COVID for a number of reasons, one of which was job security. Many people experienced a lot of trauma and stress due to the challenges from COVID-19, and decided to leave healthcare. If you are not sure you want to be a nurse, you could start out in the medical field either volunteering or getting a certification as a Medical Assistant or Nurse's Aid, first, to get some hospital or doctor's office experience, and go from there if you feel you would like to proceed to the nursing degree. Understanding what nurses do in a shift might help you decide. Nurses spend most of their shifts on their feet and those are usually longer shifts of 10-12 hours at a time. Time sitting is spent charting and there is a lot of required charting. As a nurse, you should be okay with exposure to body fluids, including blood, urine, emesis and mucous. You could be doing any number of tasks such as emptying urinals and catheter bags, placing catheters, cleaning tracheostomies, cleaning patients and helping them with self-care, administering meds, both oral and IV, turn patients in beds, assist ambulating, feeding patients and transporting patients to other areas of the hospital for tests. A nurse should be good at teaching patients and their families about health conditions and diseases and be willing to explain what certain medications do, what side effects they may cause and when they may not be recommended for certain people. A nurse has to be able to prioritize important tasks over ones that can wait, because you may have up to 5-6 patients, and when you have multiple patients with needs, you have to be able to know how to respond to those in the appropriate order, all while keeping your cool under pressure. You will be working with many different people and disciplines in the hospital on a daily basis, such as Physical Therapists, Respiratory Therapists, Medical Residents and Physicians, Nurse Managers, Social Workers and Radiology techs, among others. A great way to get a good idea of what a day in the life of a nurse is like, is to ask around for someone who may be able to allow you to shadow them for a day or a half day, to give you a front row seat to the career. It would require you to get approval from the hospital.
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