What is it really like to be an RN?

What is it like to be an RN? How hard is the RN program at a community college?

• Wanting to know what its like to be an RN. I have taken alot of the prerequisites for the RN program at a community college (I have 3 classes left). I have a 5yr old and a 2yr old to ...show more

• Answer:

  No matter what anyone tells you about nursing, do more indepth research for yourself first if you really want to know what its like. Sure, you can make decent money but the work is no bed of roses. It is EXTREMELY high-stress and sometimes downright dangerous. As a nurse you will work harder than you possibly could at almost any other career, running back and forth between many patients and their families, many of whom will be very rude and demanding. And if you want to know what 'rude and demanding' really means, just wait until you have to deal with some of those arrogant physicians. They will abuse you over and over again, and there's nothing you are able to do about it because they are the gods of the medical system and everyone worships them. Nursing is an important job, and the entire health care system would collapse completely without nurses. But, you would never know that by working as a nurse. The abuse, politics, and foolishness that you have to deal with everyday as a nurse is not worth the money to a lot of people so they quit, and that's why there is such a shortage of nurses in most places. There's really no shortage of nurses in the US, just a shortage of RNs who are willing to continue working under existing conditions. There are more than a half a million licensed registered nurses in America who are no longer working in the nursing field because they are burnt out and tired of it. Most registered nurses now are approaching retirement age, and when they are gone the shortage will get much worse because according to a CNN survey a few years ago, the average nursing graduate leaves the profession after only about 5 years. I won't discourge you from becoming a nurse if that's what you really want to do. But, if you do you will one day find yourself remembering what was written in this post. Not a bad way to make a living for a few years, but don't plan to stay in it much longer than that. Continue your education so that you can move on to other things later on if you want to. Nursing is nothing like what it appears to be to the average non-nurse. Please take my advice and do more research before you go into nursing. Talk to more registered nurses, and you will soon see that I am not making any of this up!