re: Daily career change mid-career thread: Male Nurse

School is VERY demanding. And when I say very, I mean it. Studying every night. Clinicals at 6 in the morning. Little sleep, hard exams. But it's worth it.

To support your family, Discover has decent rate student loans. You can borrow up to your schools cost of tuition. It's usually a pretty high #. When I was in school, I worked as a PRN employee as a nurse tech and made $10 an hour. The small paycheck helped. The rest of my expenses I unfortunately had to take loans out. It sucks, but school is so demanding it's impossible to work full time.

If loans aren't an option, I would continue working in the plant for savings until you can support for a year or so.

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Filipinos and Nigerians. NEITHER of which are gonna frick a white boy

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This made me because it reads funny. I have no experience in this matter.

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I knew I forgot to put them in there.

CRNA is definitely nice money wise. But not being able to work while in school is tough.

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I think Anesthesia Assistants make around the same money with less school and practicums. Pretty sure it 6 figures. Downside is that each state is different on what they can do.

Yea, that's another aspect of why I'm going through with it. I don't want to raise a family in Louisiana.

Nothing against the people who do, but I've had the opportunity to travel and Louisiana is one of the worst states in the U.S. for employment opportunities.

Been doing it for 6 years now, I'm starting to get burnt out because I deal with New Orleans finest citizens on a daily basis. I work in the ER and maybe save a life 5% of the time, otherwise I'm just pushing drugs and increasing the opiate addiction crisis.

If you can do travel nursing after getting 2 years of experience, I definitely recommend that. My wife and I went out to California for 1 1/2 to save up for a down payment on a house. We made good money find that plus being in California enabled us to take min vacations monthly. You could also use the 13 week assignments to see if it would be worth moving your family to a new city without making a huge commitment. Louisiana nursing pay is starting to get better, at least in New Orleans it is.

I didn't think nursing school wss as hard as everybody makes it out to be. You only need C's to pass and your degree won't have your GPA on it. Of course if you half arse school, you might not be as knowledgeable when you are taking care of patients. I did not have to study day and night like everybody says is required of nursing school. I read the textbook before class and showed up to every lecture, took notes, and would study the night before exams. A lot of nursing school is busy work and papers, at least that's what the BSN portion of school is.

LSU and SELU both have accelerated BSN programs that are 18-24 months. I went to SELU and passed boards easily and felt prepared when I graduated to start working. My last semester, I spent entirely in the ER, so i gained lots of experience. If you're going back to school might as well try to get your BSN now instead of having to go back and get it. If you plan on being an NP or CRNA you're going to need your BSN anyway.

Try to get a job as a nurse tech while in school if you can. Pick a hospital and try to talk to a manager in person and you'll be more likely to get hired. If you need more money to pay bills and support your family, try getting a job as a bartender or waiter. Service industry gives you more flexibility for school and clinicals. You can also work the pole like most "nursing students."

Not a male nurse, but I work in an oncology clinic. From my understanding and experience, I think MSNs typically go the education/ clinical mentor route and engage in research or admin responsibilities or work for big Pharma. It seems like if you're a NP, you almost exclusively see patients. Both can net you a serious bank acct, though.

So I went back to nursing school and did the 3 year program and luckily tested out of some classes. Didn't mean I graduated any sooner, but a few less classes. Not going to lie school was a bit hard at times, but if it's hard it will only prepare you even more for the NCLEX. Clinicals were a good learning experience. I recommend get a nurse tech job if you can. You'll learn a lot. Buddy up with fellow students to compare notes, studying groups, etc. once you finish you can't beat working 3 twelve hour shifts and then off 4 days unless you grind and get OT. What's great about it is when I need extra money I juat pick up shifts and when I feel burned out I just do my 3 shifts.

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Hope you enjoy cleaning up patients' vomit, urine, and other bodily fluids, cleaning bedpans, wiping old peoples' arse, and getting bitched at by grumpy old people who think you took too long to bring their medicine.

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Pretty sure only the ICU nurses actually handle the cleaning bedpans part. Techs or "hospitality assistants" do them on the regular floors.

With that said, male nurses are highly sought after by most floors( great for dealing with unruly patients/ visitors and handling large patients) and can usually choose which floor they want to work on. My main problem with nursing is its inflexibility of scheduling. It's either 7a-7p or vice versa or you take a pay cut and work at a doctors office.

My wife does Respiratory Therapy and that career seems to be a nicely kept secret out there. Their job can be very intense while in the ER working with ventilators, but they mostly just go around giving breathing treatments and they make just as much as the nurses while in a more specialized field. RT's will never have to clean bedpans or urinals, and they don't have to answer the patient's call button. They do have to deal with snot though.