Deciding to become a nurse is a courageous act. If you want to be a nurse, genuinely understanding what healthcare and nursing are all about is definitely a smart preliminary step before taking the plunge. Once you learn more, this career decision may set you on the road to becoming a highly valued nursing professional if the choice truly aligns with your desires, goals, and personality.

The Draw of Nursing

One question to ask yourself if you’re contemplating a nursing career is why nursing attracts you as a career choice. What is it about being a nurse that captures your imagination?

When I speak with those aspiring to become nurses, I often hear the following:

“I want to help people.”

“I saw a nurse care for my family member, and I was totally inspired.”

“I want to contribute to society.”

“My mother/sister/aunt was a nurse, and I want to follow in their footsteps.”

“I need a career, and it seems like there’s always a need for nurses.”

If someone says they want to help people, I try to guide them to dig deeper into their motivations. You can help people through many careers, and I want those drawn to nursing to be realistic about the profession and its challenges.

The Reality of Nursing

Most nurses would agree that the reality of nursing sometimes differs from non-nurses perceptions. Yes, we definitely help people, but the path to helping our patients can be challenging.

Staffing: Some of the realities of 21st-century nursing involve understaffing, high nurse-patient ratios, and not being able to provide the care we know is necessary. This is a common complaint in hospital settings.

Bullying and incivility: Bullying and incivility are scourges on the nursing profession. There are plenty of theories about why bullying is so rampant, including internalized oppression, low self-esteem, or other factors. It’s simply a reality that some nurses will need to face. Luckily, resources like The Healthy Workforce Institute

were founded by Dr. Renee Thompson, one of the foremost experts on nurse bullying. It’s sad, but if you want to become a nurse, you’re likely to experience or witness bullying, and you’ll have to decide what to do about it.

Burnout and compassion fatigue: Due to staffing issues, high ratios, bullying, and other challenges, burnout and compassion fatigue are too common in nurses. This can lead to poor self-care and compromised mental, physical, or spiritual health.

Maintaining boundaries: When we get close to patients and their families, keeping our professional boundaries can be challenging. We have to learn to give just enough but not so much that we cross the line into unprofessional behavior and compromise our well-being.

Despite these challenges, many nurses are happy in their work and careers — you have to want it badly enough to wade through any problems that stand in your way. I know a great number of nurses who’d readily say it’s totally worth it.

Nursing can certainly tap you on the shoulder and choose you. You can also consciously pursue nursing with a clear idea of what you want out of your future career.

Whether it’s a family legacy of nursing, the attraction of projected job growth, or the desire to be of service, nursing is a choice many of us can’t ignore.

The Joys of Nursing

Many nurses would agree that the joys far outweigh the challenges. Our profession offers a variety of specialties and areas of professional focus. Whether it’s clinical care, academia, research, or entrepreneurship, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. After all, there are even Members of Congress who are nurses.

If you’re a person who gets bored quickly, changing specialties and trying novel things can be inspiring, fun, and intellectually stimulating. Nurses can work in critical care, med-surg, telemetry, labor and delivery, and other clinical specialties, but they can also work behind-the-scenes informatics and many other non-clinical areas.

Truly transformational nursing care is based on love and compassion. When you open your heart to your patients and their families, deep connections can be made. Navigating those feelings is something all nurses face throughout their careers.

Satisfaction is also a very positive by-product of being a nurse. Nursing is great work, and nurses can feel good about their contribution to society and the individuals and families they touch.

Nursing is not necessarily an easy career path; some nurses find themselves miserable and burned out. On the flip side, many nurses love their careers and are fully committed to nursing as part of their life’s mission.

For whatever reasons you choose nursing, know that any profession or career will naturally have its challenges. The operative question here is whether you feel that the allure of becoming a nurse outweighs the potential negative aspects of this career path.

Do your due diligence, talk to those in the know, shadow a nurse at work, and gather as much information as possible before making this key life decision. Nursing certainly isn’t for everyone, but it’s a hand-in-glove fit for many who try it on for size. Follow your head and heart, and you’ll hopefully find a satisfactory path to a career you can be proud of.

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