Should have gone to nursing school for BSN

[Rang1234]

I'm a 2nd year biochem major at UC Davis. I was wondering how feasible and whether I should transfer to a nursing school(ex: UCI, SF State, etc.) to get a BSN. I had plans to go for PA, so I know having nursing experience would definitely benefit me. If I happen to not get into PA school on the first time, at least I have nursing experience. Biochem job prospects are not that good and require grad school. What attracts me to nursing is I can get a job straight out of college. I'm regretting so much that I didn't apply to a nursing program earlier. I don't want to pay for more money for an accelerated BSN 1 year program after a B.S. Too much time and money wasted.

Thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[NYCGuy86]

As long as you have the pre-requisite courses completed you can apply to transfer. I assume that as a biochem major you've already taken Bio I and II, Chem I and II, etc. Nursing schools typically require chemistry for health professionals, however taking higher level chemistry courses obviously covers that prerequisite (that's what I did). Look into the courses needed for the schools you're interested in apply to. You may have to take Anatomy and Physiology I and II and Microbiology if you haven't already done so.

 

[pamac]

If you get your RN, you definately will want to further your education. By the time you get your RN, and then your NP, you'll have almost put in as much as just the medical school portion of medical training. I'm counting the time it would take to pick up some obscure prereqs for nursing and get everything settled to then go on to school. You could do an accelerated BSN and cut off some significant time.

Once you become an RN, you will certainly want to do NP school rather than PA. It's considerably cheaper, you have a crack at practicing independently in about half of states with more added every year vs no states with independent PA practice, and you can work through much of your NP program. If you go to PA school, you'll more than likely be surrounded by folks with little or no decent health care experience either, as that's becoming the new norm. There are NP programs out there that are direct entry, which means lots of newbys as well, but they are very expensive and not really common.

But nursing wI'll definately give you a job right out of the gate.

 

[abc245]

Nursing is probably the most financially smart move. I get the whole medical training portion, but hell what other profession can provide you with a decent salary with just a bachelors? Becoming a physician is all or nothing approach while nursing you always have something to fall back on in case life doesn't pan out the way you like. Jobs are plentiful, but hell I would hate my life being a nurse. Nursing to me would just be working purely for money.

 

[pamac]

Nursing is probably the most financially smart move. I get the whole medical training portion, but hell what other profession can provide you with a decent salary with just a bachelors? Becoming a physician is all or nothing approach while nursing you always have something to fall back on in case life doesn't pan out the way you like. Jobs are plentiful, but hell I would hate my life being a nurse. Nursing to me would just be working purely for money.

There are pretty nice jobs out there like engineering, and things like that where you can make pretty good money out of the gate, but overall, I've found nursing to offer some rad perks. 3 days a week, outstanding mobility, lots of demand, flexible schedule, overtime whenever you want some extra cash. I've picked up shifts where the hospital was offering RNs essentially $1000 for folks to come in and save the day so they could get admits. Comparing nursing to an office job that takes months to learn and get accustomed to, and makes you show up during the best hours of the day, 5 days per week. It can be boring as heck sitting down all day and taking trips to the water cooler. I can think of much worse.

Yeah, the job can be challenging or ultimately crappy, but so can sitting in a cubicle trying to tackle the minutiae of an engineering project, or putting together a sales plan, or solving accounting puzzles for clients, or sitting in a patrol car, or washing and inventorying a fire rig every day. Pretty much anything selling something would be worse for me than just about anything I do as a nurse that bugs me.

Incidentally, I know a lot of nurses that have a dream career on the side that they can actually build on because nursing is always there paying the bills. I know folks that farm, sell real estate, online businesses, build houses, etc. When they want to step away from nursing to dabble in something and see if it takes off, nursing is right there to jump back to if they ever want to. Some folks do. I know a nurse that has gone to several different cities on a whim, and he and his wife always land jobs quick that pay well. Not my thing, but its there. You can go live in Hawaii on a moments notice if you want to make it happen.

 

[Rang1234]

Thank you so much for the advice guys! I really appreciate it. I'm going to try to finish the prereqs to transfer as soon as possible. If I have to do 5 years for BSN, I won't have to pay as much as opposed to a BS in biochem and then an accelerated BSN program. I know nursing is very intense and should not looked lightly upon. I definitely want to work a few years as a RN. Getting that healthcare experience while being paid and having the opportunity to move up to other positions like nurse manager really interest me. I'm very open minded and do have PA school in the back of my mind. If I apply in the Spring 2018 cycle of my junior year(hopefully have all the prereqs done by then), then I'll be entering the program in senior year. I think it's still worth it because I don't have to be in even more debt with accelerated BSN. Plus, I can save a lot of money if I transfer to SF State, since I'm from SF. If I can fulfill prereqs for CLS at the same time(probably not since nursing is really intense, but if I have empty space and need enough units for financial aid, then doing the BSN in 5 years is actually ok) What do you guys think?

 

[pamac]

Nursing isn't as intense as biochemistry, that's for sure.

I'm not you, but my advice would be to get wherever you want to go as quick as you can. Time is money, within reason. If you can get into PA school quicker than it would take to become a nurse, do that. Nursing is a good job, but a terrible career. It's getting so regimented and micromanaged that anyone with any amount of ambition gets out as soon as they can. I wish I had done NP school as soon as I got my RN and my first RN job. Now that new hospital requirements for nurses are kicking in, it's adding more work for less and less staff. There really is a staff shortage, but a lot of that is because hospitals don't want to hire enough employees as they need to to do things right, and often it's hard to keep people. Nurse burnout is a huge thing the industry faces, and the solutions they have don't involve improving working conditions, but instead they want nursing schools to churn out more graduates every year to simply replace people.

Bluntly speaking, nursing management is also basically what losers aspire to. Most of them lack leadership skills, and to do the job, they basically have to demonstrate to their bosses that they are adept at pushing staff to do unpopular things. If they stand up to their bosses on things they know are bad ideas, they don't advance. It's typical management issues like any industry has, but the true amount of impact or control you have over something as a manager is almost nil. I make almost as much as my manager, and work 3 days to a manager's 5 days, and I don't carry a cell phone I have to answer in the middle of the night. I have had great bosses, but I wouldn't want to do their work. If you want to be a manager, skip nursing and just go work in any other industry, because it won't be worth going to nursing school. And like I say, you don't become a nurse to become a PA, you do it to become an NP. It's overkill to go from nursing to PA. It's more expensive, and time consuming, and there are tons and tons of PA schools you can get into with no healthcare experience.

 

[Rang1234]

Since I most likely will stay at UC Davis and continue with biochem, due to nursing school's competitiveness, I'll keep taking on prereqs for physician assistant and clinical lab science. I think being a clinical lab scientist has a lot of perks, including low debt(around 20k for only 1 year) and high wages after graduation, and being more prepared for PA school in terms of the knowledge gained. Although CLS has very little patient conact, I still want to make a good amount of money so that when I apply for PA school, I can handle the debt. The cons to this is that my prereqs such as bio would expire since it would be around 5 years or so and by making a lot of money, I won't qualify for financial aid for PA school. Usually how many tries does it take to get accepted to PA school? I could try EMT, scribe, etc, but those are not as good as CLS since they're low pay. Also, by the time I finish these healthcare experiences, my prereqs for CLS may expire soon as well, so I think I should just go for CLS first. I want to pay off my debt from undergrad early, so that's why I want to try CLS first. EMT/scribe are pretty much unpaid healthcare experiences, but with CLS, it's a win-win situation. I learn and get paid a lot. What do you guys think?

 

[NYCGuy86]

Nursing isn't as intense as biochemistry, that's for sure.

I'm not you, but my advice would be to get wherever you want to go as quick as you can. Time is money, within reason. If you can get into PA school quicker than it would take to become a nurse, do that. Nursing is a good job, but a terrible career. It's getting so regimented and micromanaged that anyone with any amount of ambition gets out as soon as they can. I wish I had done NP school as soon as I got my RN and my first RN job. Now that new hospital requirements for nurses are kicking in, it's adding more work for less and less staff. There really is a staff shortage, but a lot of that is because hospitals don't want to hire enough employees as they need to to do things right, and often it's hard to keep people. Nurse burnout is a huge thing the industry faces, and the solutions they have don't involve improving working conditions, but instead they want nursing schools to churn out more graduates every year to simply replace people.

Bluntly speaking, nursing management is also basically what losers aspire to. Most of them lack leadership skills, and to do the job, they basically have to demonstrate to their bosses that they are adept at pushing staff to do unpopular things. If they stand up to their bosses on things they know are bad ideas, they don't advance. It's typical management issues like any industry has, but the true amount of impact or control you have over something as a manager is almost nil. I make almost as much as my manager, and work 3 days to a manager's 5 days, and I don't carry a cell phone I have to answer in the middle of the night. I have had great bosses, but I wouldn't want to do their work. If you want to be a manager, skip nursing and just go work in any other industry, because it won't be worth going to nursing school. And like I say, you don't become a nurse to become a PA, you do it to become an NP. It's overkill to go from nursing to PA. It's more expensive, and time consuming, and there are tons and tons of PA schools you can get into with no healthcare experience.

A lot of this is region and facility specific though. My institution is great for nursing at all levels and settings. They have implemented staffing ratios for each unit (with input from clinical nurses), and have hired more RNs to fulfill those ratios. There are so many opportunities to be involved in your career outside of bedside practice, with a host of councils and committees. We have nursing grand rounds, symposiums, etc. They have created partnerships with a number of universities (including our affiliated Ivy League nursing school) for nurses to advance their education, as well as a competitive 2 year research fellowship for bedside nurses with that nursing school. Not everything is perfect of course, but I'm grateful for the culture of respect for nursing practice and nursing input to clinical decisions at my medical center.

I would say nursing is a great career choice, if you're in the right area, and if you're doing what you're actually interested in (I'm moving away from the NP route that everyone seems to be doing).

 

[pamac]

I was a CLS for a while, and the wages are decent, but lower than nursing by about $10k for the base wage. However, where I was at, there were downsides to CLS as far as lifestyle. I know a lot of CLS's that work 7 ten hour shifts in a row, and get 7 off. 12 hour shifts that nurses have are rad, though. 12 hour shifts in a lab aren't that common because of the fact that you are on your feet running around the whole time. Its busy. Also, the shifts tend to be stacked weird as well. I know folks that roll in to work at like 3 in the morning, and they do that 5 days a week. Its harder by far to get a schedule that you actually want to work, especially as a new person. Sometimes you have to wait for someone to retire, and even then, seniority is a huge thing. Those kinds of hurdles aren't a big deal for nurses because they just work 3 days per week, and there really isn't a "better" schedule than another that you feel screwed by working unless its a day you absolutely want off every week, and yet you have to show up for that day every week. With time, a better spot opens up that works. A really bad deal is if they don't have you scheduled 3 in a row when that's what you want, or if you want to be on nights and are stuck on days and they wont let you move. It seems to balance out better for me than when I was in lab. Some folks like days, some folks like nights, others want to work weekends... but in lab, it was them telling folks "yeah, you are stuck working in a department you hate and coming in at 2 in the morning until Estelle retires in 2 years and you can have her 5AM shift. I liked the work of a CLS, and didn't think I minded the schedule until I got out of it, and then realized it was crazy. 7 on/7 off burned me out, getting up to go to work at 4 AM every day for 5 days a week sucked because I couldn't stay out late if I wanted.

CLS is getting a lot more interesting with all the automation showing up, so its changing to something that is pretty interesting if you get into the right lab. But make sure to be vague about your future plans when applying and working or else you will have people tossing you aside because they know you are using it as a stepping stone. You'll get your shift requests denied, and overall it will complicate your life.

 

[pamac]

A lot of this is region and facility specific though. My institution is great for nursing at all levels and settings. They have implemented staffing ratios for each unit (with input from clinical nurses), and have hired more RNs to fulfill those ratios. There are so many opportunities to be involved in your career outside of bedside practice, with a host of councils and committees. We have nursing grand rounds, symposiums, etc. They have created partnerships with a number of universities (including our affiliated Ivy League nursing school) for nurses to advance their education, as well as a competitive 2 year research fellowship for bedside nurses with that nursing school. Not everything is perfect of course, but I'm grateful for the culture of respect for nursing practice and nursing input to clinical decisions at my medical center.

I would say nursing is a great career choice, if you're in the right area, and if you're doing what you're actually interested in (I'm moving away from the NP route that everyone seems to be doing).

I don't doubt that there are exciting things going on in nursing, especially at research hospitals. But the daily grind in the typical hospital goes on. Nursing is nursing, and at its core, its a tough job. I think I'd still be ready to move on away from the bedside, even if the ratios were better (and they aren't terrible where I'm at either). Many of the hoops I have to jump through that complicate the care I provide to patients were conceived in research hospitals where there were resources and ambitious future nurse leaders that were putting together their thesis papers. They needed to publish, so they threw together shoddy projects that floor nurses rushed to implement carelessly so they could just get on with their daily patient care. I have so little faith in the quality of most nursing research, because its often so poorly designed to be evaluated as an afterthought to the typical work being done by RNs. I carried out those kinds of studies, and I can tell you that no RN wants to come to work and find out they are helping out with a research project that a masters degree nurse wants them to do in addition to all the work they already have on a typical shift.

I can go find 3000 studies on hand washing, and no studies on other subjects that are more difficult to examine. Why is that? Because its easy and cheap to do a study on the easy and cheap stuff, yet difficult to do a project on expensive and involved interventions. And controlling for sloppy nurses or nurses that have to cut corners tends to cast a shadow over the data that is obtained. And I can't tell you how many tasks in nursing that lately we've been implementing based on case studies alone... one of the lowest quality evidence sources out there. That's nursing. There are not a lot of double blind, randomly controlled trials with nursing interventions. When they are, they come from the third world.

Improved patient/staff ratios is probably the best proven way to improve both patient safety and satisfaction, and staff safety and satisfaction. Almost every problem associated with patient care can be significantly eased by throwing more people at a problem. Trace back just about any safety and satisfaction issue to how rushed the staff are: People don't wash hands because they don't have time. They don't clean wounds properly because they are rushed. Mistakes happen because staff is busy and overloaded. But there is an industry feeding off of the mistakes made by overworked floor staff, and its the folks who make careers out of developing solutions....managers. Every other solution will be entertained before improving staffing. I've seen managers make names for themselves and get promotions by making staff miserable during their "research" projects. Magically, all the research findings point to staff working harder to fix a problem caused by the solvers a step or two above them. The nurses are just not documenting enough minutia, or rounding on patients to ask them things they don't need to be asked, or not answering a call light quickly enough while smiling. So then we get over-mandated, and a timer gets slapped on you to track how often you go into every room to see a patient, and another sensor you wear detects how long you stood at the sink. Now you are an RN... a Robot Nurse. And make sure you do all your typing in the room with the patient and family sitting right there distracting you, because St. Elsewhere in Wisconsin found that their nurses that take 4 patients at night discovered that patients like that. Don't make decisions that deviate from the one size fits all solution that someone who will never work the floor again has determined from a case study that you need to perform.

Being an RN is changing to something we never thought we would be.

NP can't come fast enough.

 

[NYCGuy86]

That sounds horrible. My experience at my hospital has been very different, I'm grateful.