I'm a sophomore in college right now and last semester I declared my major as health sciences and pre-occupational therapy. I'm now having second thoughts and considering these careers: registered nurse, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, and anesthesiologist assistant. I just don't know what to do. The reasons that I'm having second thoughts about becoming an OT is that I've been told that it can be boring at times and that you have to have a lot of patience. I'm the type of person that likes to see results quickly and I just don't know if I would like this job. What job do you think would be best. Any tips or information you can tell me about these careers would be great! Thanks!
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
I can't decide what to choose. Please help
- Thread starter medapop10
- Start date
I'm a registered nurse and an NP student. Years ago I was looking heavily into PA school. One career you should immediately scratch off your list is AA. They practice in a handful of states, and do so with greater restrictions than nurse anesthetists. If you are fine with that, then it may be an option, but as a sophomore, you probably don't have the kind of insight as far as what kind of latitude you want to have in your location, etc. Theres just no guarantee that AA will take hold elsewhere, and anything that isnt strong at this point is by default fundamentally weak. The nursing lobby is large and powerful, and AA has many fewer providers.
An RN can work in a very diverse settings. I saw a list once of 40 distinct roles RNs practice, from school nursing to occupational health, to public health, to hospital nursing (which itself has many different roles). Ive only worked in roles on hospital floors (ER, critical care, medical surgical), and although the pay is decent, and I can get a job anywhere in the country, floor nursing wears me down. Much of what I do really is manual labor. There can be a lot of walking, lifting, and rushing from place to place.... The rushing around is what stands out most to me. Other hospital roles are more tame, but for flexibility in my schedule, I stay put working the floor. Ultimately, for me, being an RN was never going to be a long term role for me, and I've already been in it longer than I have planned, but much of that had to do with making a quick transition from pursuing becoming a PA to deciding to become an NP, and not knowing I could quickly go to NP school right after getting my RN. I had an Associates degree in nursing and thought I needed to get my BSN before I could get into an NP school. But right now I'm making close to $90k in a low cost of living state and not working a tremendous amount of overtime. If I were in an easier role, I don't think id be making this much, but my stress level would certainly be much lower. I hate to steer someone away from nursing because it opens up a lot of doors, and is really flexible, but ultimately it's not for me. I was always going to move on to be a medical provider with prescriptive authority.
PA is a really good option if you aren't already a nurse. I had specific reasons that I wanted to go to the effort of becoming an RN and then an NP, and those reasons probably don't matter to most folks that want to be a non-physician medical provider. You would probably be well served by pursuing becoming a PA. It's a shorter route, and the education of PA school is high quality. The role and the money is pretty much the same between NPs and PAs. If you want to work for a surgeon, PA is a good way to go for sure, and every other realm that an NP practices can also be where you'll easily find a pas jobs as well. Some specialties have more PAs than NPs and vice versa, but it can vary by region. But if you know you want to prescribe, there's really no reason to go through all the crap associated with nursing when you can just get good grades and become a PA.
I have a friend that is a occupational therapist, and there are plenty of threads here in SDN focused on that field. You can explore those, they may help you decide. I think you can make a decent living doing OT. My exposure to the OT world is limited to working near OT aides who come in to work with patients I have. I don't know who is an OTA and who is an OT, but it doesn't seem to be as tedious as nursing at all.
As far as seeing success, I almost think you'd see more change in your patients in OT than much of what the rest of us see in our realms. Hospitals want to see a lot of throughput, and that means moving patients out as soon as they show the smallest of imroovement. You really won't see quick and dramatic changes vs what you might see in OT. In fact, due to the long term therapeutic relationships you may develop with your OT patients, that might even be a more satisfying environment where you will see lives become more impacted by the work you do than the urgent care patient that comes in to have you write them a prescription and send them on their way to recover. And you will need tremendous patience no matter what you do in healthcare. It's a people centered industry, and people will find ways to test your patience no matter what role you have.
An RN can work in a very diverse settings. I saw a list once of 40 distinct roles RNs practice, from school nursing to occupational health, to public health, to hospital nursing (which itself has many different roles). Ive only worked in roles on hospital floors (ER, critical care, medical surgical), and although the pay is decent, and I can get a job anywhere in the country, floor nursing wears me down. Much of what I do really is manual labor. There can be a lot of walking, lifting, and rushing from place to place.... The rushing around is what stands out most to me. Other hospital roles are more tame, but for flexibility in my schedule, I stay put working the floor. Ultimately, for me, being an RN was never going to be a long term role for me, and I've already been in it longer than I have planned, but much of that had to do with making a quick transition from pursuing becoming a PA to deciding to become an NP, and not knowing I could quickly go to NP school right after getting my RN. I had an Associates degree in nursing and thought I needed to get my BSN before I could get into an NP school. But right now I'm making close to $90k in a low cost of living state and not working a tremendous amount of overtime. If I were in an easier role, I don't think id be making this much, but my stress level would certainly be much lower. I hate to steer someone away from nursing because it opens up a lot of doors, and is really flexible, but ultimately it's not for me. I was always going to move on to be a medical provider with prescriptive authority.
PA is a really good option if you aren't already a nurse. I had specific reasons that I wanted to go to the effort of becoming an RN and then an NP, and those reasons probably don't matter to most folks that want to be a non-physician medical provider. You would probably be well served by pursuing becoming a PA. It's a shorter route, and the education of PA school is high quality. The role and the money is pretty much the same between NPs and PAs. If you want to work for a surgeon, PA is a good way to go for sure, and every other realm that an NP practices can also be where you'll easily find a pas jobs as well. Some specialties have more PAs than NPs and vice versa, but it can vary by region. But if you know you want to prescribe, there's really no reason to go through all the crap associated with nursing when you can just get good grades and become a PA.
I have a friend that is a occupational therapist, and there are plenty of threads here in SDN focused on that field. You can explore those, they may help you decide. I think you can make a decent living doing OT. My exposure to the OT world is limited to working near OT aides who come in to work with patients I have. I don't know who is an OTA and who is an OT, but it doesn't seem to be as tedious as nursing at all.
As far as seeing success, I almost think you'd see more change in your patients in OT than much of what the rest of us see in our realms. Hospitals want to see a lot of throughput, and that means moving patients out as soon as they show the smallest of imroovement. You really won't see quick and dramatic changes vs what you might see in OT. In fact, due to the long term therapeutic relationships you may develop with your OT patients, that might even be a more satisfying environment where you will see lives become more impacted by the work you do than the urgent care patient that comes in to have you write them a prescription and send them on their way to recover. And you will need tremendous patience no matter what you do in healthcare. It's a people centered industry, and people will find ways to test your patience no matter what role you have.
I would really suggest you shadow professionals in each of those fields if you can. That may not be as feasable these days like it has been in the past due to liability and privacy concerns, but at the very least, try to talk to folks in those fields (I know, that's one of the reasons you posted here). Don't just go off of your initial perceptions of the roles. Before I became a nurse and got in on all the "action" of running resuscitation codes and the nuts and bolts of keeping people from dying, nothing else seemed to appeal to me. People watch shows on TV where nurses get to step away from tasks long enough to have other drama. Folks see me walk in an ER room in sharp scrubs, awesome bright shoes, and interesting gear hanging off of me and combine that image with what they know about nurses traditionally working 3 days a week. They saw me wrestling with a combative patient in the hallway and directing the effort and can't imagine that I'd much rather walk in to work a slower paced job wearing business casual to talk to people about their chronic problems. But that's where I am at this point. I am more focused on how I get to spend my free time and how much income I have to support my family, as well as how good I physically and emotionally feel when I'm outside of work. It's tough to run an unsuccessful code on a guy with his family in the room having the worst day of their life and then go hit a picnic with your inlaws that remind you of the folks you just saw that were so upset at the loss of their loved one. So while the OT may seem like the "boring" option, I'm sure they find ways to thrive on their work, and that slower pace might be the path to job satisfaction. But find out firsthand if you can. People that don't wear scrubs all day seem to want to wear them, and if you don't know about all the cruddy details of a job, you tend to go off of what you see that appeals to you and you fill in the gaps with assumptions.
Similar threads
- Replies
- 15
- Views
- 1K
