Nursing Student With Severe Regrets and Feeling Discouraged

[cobrakyleena]

I am a current nursing student who is a year away from graduation. I originally transferred into my university's nursing program with the intention of being a CRNA... but I am now experiencing severe regrets for doing so. Nursing school has wreaked absolute havoc on my GPA (which is hovering around a 3.6), and I absolutely hate clinicals despite my interest in medical science. I thought that CRNA would be a faster and less stressful route towards becoming an anesthesia provider, but I now realize how misguided I was two years ago after transferring into nursing. CRNA schools are incredibly competitive due to the influx of nurses desperate to leave the bedside, and my GPA keeps going down semester after semester after taking all of these evil nursing tests that seem to be specifically designed to trick you. The thought of wiping ass and doing backbreaking nursing work for 3+ years while gaining the necessary experience for CRNA school is starting to feel unbearable to me now. I have always been a more academically inclined person, and I desperately wish that I had kept my liberal arts major to boost my GPA while taking the necessary prerequisite courses for medical or even dental school. Nursing school is already turning me into a s*** person, and realistically, I could probably only last at the bedside for 3 years tops before burning out.

In this moment, I am incredibly confused, depressed, and discouraged at this point in my education. I don't know if I should keep powering through for CRNA school, or if I should drop out of nursing now and start taking medical prerequisites immediately to save what is left of my GPA. At the end of the day, I just want a good work-life balance to help provide for my family, but I don't want to spend the rest of my career making 70K and taking orders from physicians and management. CRNA still sounds appealing to me, but I honestly hate the bull**** involved in nursing education and a lot of those programs will kick you out for getting even one grade below a "B" (trust me, I've checked). I am also in a very intense LTR with a person I hope to marry one day, and if I pursue the medical route, I am worried about being dragged across the country away from him throughout the long years of medical training. I am also considering dentistry because of the decent pay and excellent work-life balance, but I also lack people skills and hate small talk so I would probably have difficulty marketing myself/running my own practice.

I have no idea what to do anymore and I am in desperate need of advice. If I could go back in time, there is no way that I would have entered nursing school knowing what I know now. I wish I had the confidence to pursue pre-med from the beginning so that I could have more options available to me such as optometry, pharmacy, dentistry, and medicine. Without revealing too much about my personal situation, I'll just say that money isn't an issue and that everything is (and probably will) be covered. However, I would still feel like absolute **** for wasting my time on a nursing degree that I would not even use.

tl;dr At this point in nursing school, should I keep pursuing CRNA or should I jump ship to medicine/dentistry/other health professions.

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[Bobblehead]

...but I don't want to spend the rest of my career making 70K and taking orders from physicians and management.

I'll just say that money isn't an issue and that everything is (and probably will) be covered.

I have unfortunate news for you but you will continue to take orders from physicians and management even as a physician. You'll have to decide if sticking a 1, 2 or 3 in front of that 70k is sufficient to change your mind but if you say money isn't an issue there are easier ways in life to make a buck.

Unless you need the social status conveyed by being a life and death healthcare provider.

 

[Goro]

If you hate clinicals, there is no reason to become a doctor.

If you bail on nursing school now, how do we know that you won't do the same on Medicine?

 

[DOVinciRobot]

Just to be brutally honest, if you’re struggling with nursing tests then you’re going to have a really hard time with pre-reqs like Ochem. Not to mention the exams that you’ll have to take in medical school.

Too many people go into nursing with absolutely zero intention of being a nurse. This is a huge issue. We need good nurses.

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

I’m hearing that you’re frustrated. it might be worth thinking about what you want out of your career and staying open to alternate paths. Most of the things you’re describing that are causing you issues will be present in any healthcare profession. Everyone has to listen to admin and superiors. Everyone has to do clinical tasks. Everyone has to take hard classes and standardized tests.

If youre of the opinion that triple the salary will make it worthwhile, I doubt I can dissuade you. But there are lots of other lucrative careers that don’t involve all of these things you don’t enjoy.

 

[charleydogmom]

I get it. I’m a RN who is about to be taking pre-reqs for medicine. Unless you have taken nursing exams you don’t know what their like. They are not easier than medicine. I’ve seen very intelligent people struggle with them. A crude example would be ‘what do you do first when you enter a patient’s room? A. Wash your hands b. Introduce yourself. They are infuriating at times. You can’t over think them.
If money is no issue, start taking your medical pre-reqs but do some physician shadowing first and talk to some medical students to know what you are getting into.
CRNA schools love ICU experience and ICU nurses are very respected by physicians. Yes, it’s direct nursing care but there is more critical thinking than you probably realize (if you were to stick with original plan).

 

[Browns99]

’m a RN who is about to be taking pre-reqs for medicine. Unless you have taken nursing exams you don’t know what their like. They are not easier than medicine.

If you say so. Oh, btw, how do you know that they're not easier than medicine, I'm curious, since you are not in medical school?

 

[allantois]

I’ve taken some nursing classes in undergrad - they were easy. The reason they might not have been easy to nursing students is because the material wasn’t adequately taught and you didn’t really build on a solid science foundation

 

[DOVinciRobot]

I get it. I’m a RN who is about to be taking pre-reqs for medicine. Unless you have taken nursing exams you don’t know what their like. They are not easier than medicine. I’ve seen very intelligent people struggle with them. A crude example would be ‘what do you do first when you enter a patient’s room? A. Wash your hands b. Introduce yourself. They are infuriating at times. You can’t over think them.
If money is no issue, start taking your medical pre-reqs but do some physician shadowing first and talk to some medical students to know what you are getting into.
CRNA schools love ICU experience and ICU nurses are very respected by physicians. Yes, it’s direct nursing care but there is more critical thinking than you probably realize (if you were to stick with original plan).

My spouse graduated from the most highly regarded nursing program in our state that was known to be “rigorous.” I know what the exams are like. They are nothing compared to medical school exams.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Moving to pre med.

This is tough to advise. I would recommend that you gain experience via shadowing physicians/dentists/etc before totally jumping ship, but that’s probably impossible during school. And at the same time, I share others’ concern that if you don’t like the clinical aspects of nursing then there is no particular reason to think you would like the clinical role of being a physician.

If you’re positive that you don’t want to be a nurse and don’t think you can get into a CRNA program, then you may as well stop. If there is some chance you could be a nurse, then it would be best to just finish nursing school and figure out your next step later. But regardless of what you do, I think you should consider career paths outside of healthcare as well

 

[cjmurph14]

So I was in a similar situation. I graduated undergrad without a great idea of what I wanted to do, but I knew that healthcare was going to be the most-likely route. I went through undergrad believing I wanted to do physical therapy then got to my pathology and pharmacology classes and liked that more than biomechanics/exercise physiology stuff. I lacked almost all of the pre-reqs to go to medical school so I settled on nursing school. I applied and got into my state's best RN/BSN program. I took the exams that you talked about and I will say that they are easier than medical school exams. They simply just don't have the amount of material per test that medical school exams have. I scored really well on each exam, ahead of my class. My program was at a teaching hospital so we did a lot of interprofessional things where I could see pharmacy and medical students. I found myself staring at what medical students were doing more often than what I was supposed to be studying. I realized that my whole perception of nursing was completely off. I told myself "Well maybe I can just go for CRNA and I will be satisfied." I knew that wasn't going to be enough though. It came to the point where I was not willing to live my whole life around physicians while regretting not at least trying to get in.

I had some conversations with professors/friends/family/wife and decided to withdraw from nursing school after 3 months from starting the program and I waited the next semester to start pre-reqs at my old undergrad school. I needed Chem I, Chem II, Bio II, Genetics, Organic Chem I, Organic Chem II, and Biochem I to apply. I also had to study for and take the MCAT. I studied hard and worked at Chick-fil-A and as a medical scribe on the side. We lived at a cheap place so I could afford to make minimum wage and have enough time to study. I did well in all of my classes. It took me 3 semesters and a summer session to catch up and I took the MCAT. I applied to my state's MD program with a 3.95 overall GPA and a 509 MCAT. Those were above average for my MD school's admission, but not very high above. I interviewed and got rejected a few months later. I asked the school what I could do to improve my application and they basically said, "You're grades are great, your MCAT is competitive. The committee doesn't believe that you have completely committed to the MD route since you were PT, then nursing, then pre-med. Just apply again next year, get some more experience, and I believe you'll have a better shot." Now they couldn't see the guts that it took to withdraw and change paths, but I understood their point. I grabbed a job as a patient care technician in the ER, applied again next cycle, and got in.

I've had good friends that I was in nursing school with say, "You made the right decision quitting and going to medical school." And I tell them, "It was only the right decision because it ended in an acceptance."

I took a pretty big risk for myself when I quit nursing. I didn't have stuff paid for. I had 35k in student loans already and was married. I started medical school this year at the age of 27 and I have a 10 mo old daughter now. I was right at the age where I needed to settle on something quick. Thankfully it will be worth it for me to spend the extra time. I absolutely love medical school. I study hard, and I'm coming out above average so far on every exam. The exams are harder for sure. I think I would have finished top 5 in my nursing school at least. I am hoping to make top 25 in medical school, but that will be quite the challenge for me. I wake up every day very very very thankful that I made the decision to quit. Medicine is what I read about, it's what I watch movies over, I love the whole field.

I don't know what you should do, but I would make my decision a hundred times over. I would say that you really have to find out what you want to do on a daily basis. I absolutely loved parts of nursing school. I loved seeing and interacting with patients. I loved learning about the drugs. It was ALMOST the right fit. If you want more than what nursing provides, medicine is a great route. If you want to spend more time with patients, more time learning about disease processes, a deeper knowledge base, medicine is great.

If your primary concern is lifestyle balance and salary, I would say consider something outside of healthcare. You can have a great lifestyle and salary in medicine, but none of that matters if you don't like what you do day-to-day. Some people in my class would say, "I don't mind doing something sucky if it means I get a lot of time outside of hospital and plenty of money." I've had jobs that gave me a lot of flexibility and some money. Even though I had a lot of time spent away from my job, a lot of that time was spent thinking about how much I didn't want to go back to work. My bad job occupied my mind when I was supposed to be enjoying my day off. I believe that if you love your job, you'll love your time away from work as well. I would rather have a job I enjoyed coming back to.

Good luck. Whatever you decide to do, work hard, find the intrinsic value in what you do, find what gives you meaningful responsibility. If you have any questions for me, don't hesitate to reach out.

 

[YCAGA]

who is about to be taking pre-reqs for medicine.

They are not easier than medicine.

wut...? enough said there.

A crude example would be ‘what do you do first when you enter a patient’s room? A. Wash your hands b. Introduce yourself. They are infuriating at times. You can’t over think them.

That is not academically rigorous. That is what I would call "difficult exam theater." The actual material is not hard so the professors make the curve by asking crap questions.

Crude example of Step 1 question: what specific gene mutation is responsible for [presentation of osteogenesis imperfecta]? A) COL1A1 B) BCR-ABL C) FBN1 D) XYZ69 E) TSC1
Crude example of Step 2 question: what is the next best management step in a 26 weeks pregnant woman who presents for preterm labor? A) stat c-section B) steroids C) observation D) miso E) oxytocin F) magnesium

See the difference?

 

[YCAGA]

If you hate clinicals, there is no reason to become a doctor.

If you bail on nursing school now, how do we know that you won't do the same on Medicine?

To be fair, I and most medical students would probably hate nursing clinicals. No hate for nurses, in fact quite the opposite. But there is a reason I did not go to nursing school over medical school. Very different clinical responsibilities, even as students (I have never been a nursing student but I have worked in the same department as them before so I have a rough idea of what their clinicals are like).

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

wut...? enough said there.

That is not academically rigorous. That is what I would call "difficult exam theater." The actual material is not hard so the professors make the curve by asking crap questions.

Yeah I’ve taken nursing school exams. They are nothing compared to med school exams.

Crude example of Step 1 question: what specific gene mutation is responsible for [presentation of osteogenesis imperfecta]? A) COL1A1 B) BCR-ABL C) FBN1 D) XYZ69 E) TSC1
Crude example of Step 2 question: what is the next best management step in a 26 weeks pregnant woman who presents for preterm labor? A) stat c-section B) steroids C) observation D) miso E) oxytocin F) magnesium

See the difference?

And those are the straightforward gimme questions.

 

[YCAGA]

Yeah I’ve taken nursing school exams. They are nothing compared to med school exams.

And those are the straightforward gimme questions.

I agree. That was off the top of my head and I’m not a mega brain. Also no vignette. Almost no Step question is that straightforward

 

[Med Ed]

A crude example would be ‘what do you do first when you enter a patient’s room? A. Wash your hands b. Introduce yourself.

C. Introduce your hands

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I agree. That was off the top of my head and I’m not a mega brain. Also no vignette. Almost no Step question is that straightforward

Yeah that was my point exactly.

 

[Select All That Apply]

10/10 thread.

1. Nursing student who doesn't want to wipe asses for 70k.
2. Nursing student who wants to be a CRNA from the get go.
3. 3 years of ICU work = lifetime sentence.
4. Another nurse asserting nursing exams harder than other exams.
5. Hand washing question flex.
6. Obligatory knee jerk flex with step 1 first order questions.

There's a skilled nursing shortage and this is one of many reasons why it will still exist. I've worked everything from blue collar to white collar jobs and nursing is such a sweet gig it's almost criminal. A lot of people who have never seen the other side think that they can get a "cushy" WFH job working on Agile as a junior dev at Google for six figures or work as an attorney chugging through contracts/cases/leases for hours with less burn out. What a crazy world we live in.

 

[YCAGA]

10/10 thread.

1. Nursing student who doesn't want to wipe asses for 70k.
2. Nursing student who wants to be a CRNA from the get go.
3. 3 years of ICU work = lifetime sentence.
4. Another nurse asserting nursing exams harder than other exams.
5. Hand washing question flex.
6. Obligatory knee jerk flex with step 1 first order questions.

There's a skilled nursing shortage and this is one of many reasons why it will still exist. I've worked everything from blue collar to white collar jobs and nursing is such a sweet gig it's almost criminal. A lot of people who have never seen the other side think that they can get a "cushy" WFH job working on Agile as a junior dev at Google for six figures or work as an attorney chugging through contracts/cases/leases for hours with less burn out. What a crazy world we live in.

People are way too sensitive if anything I said comes across to them as a flex

 

[Select All That Apply]

People are way too sensitive if anything I said comes across to them as a flex

The entire thesis with nursing school being X degrees harder than other courses is something that will pan out over Y time for the poster who is just starting on their pre-med journey. Most nurses who take the premed rigor of a fifteen credit load of concentrated sciences will find out for themselves how difficult the road less traveled really is when it comes to different fields. Prompting them with uWorld or Anki prep questions are a poor example because those questions themselves don't illustrate why other fields are just as much, if not more so academically rigorous than anything related to nursing. I would redo any semester of my one year in nursing than some of my undergrad classes that dealt with batch fermentation engineering or advanced Calculus.

 

[YCAGA]

The entire thesis with nursing school being X degrees harder than other courses is something that will pan out over Y time for the poster who is just starting on their pre-med journey. Most nurses who take the premed rigor of a fifteen credit load of concentrated sciences will find out for themselves how difficult the road less traveled really is when it comes to different fields. Prompting them with uWorld or Anki prep questions are a poor example because those questions themselves don't illustrate why other fields are just as much, if not more so academically rigorous than anything related to nursing. I would redo any semester of my one year in nursing than some of my undergrad classes that dealt with batch fermentation engineering or advanced Calculus.

I do not disagree with any of that but medical school is much harder than undergrad, for a few reasons, so I would say pre-med vs. nursing is not really that relevant to the academic difficulty of nursing vs medicine. That is why it was funny that someone was saying medicine was not as hard as nursing and are about to start pre-med classes. They are multiple steps removed from making an accurate comparison.

 

[LizzyM]

I think that the complaint regarding the difficulty of the nursing exams is not that the material is difficult intellectually but that it is arbitrary and not always based on logic or science. It is somewhat like being asked the to state the theme of a newly published short story. There is no one correct response and it is open to interpretation and not an answer you'll find in a book or that you can figure out like solving for x.

 

[Talldoctor96]

My only advice is : if this is how u feel about nursing GET OUT NOW. It’s only gonna get worse when ur on the bedside…. Take it from someone with a nurse fiancé.

 

[charleydogmom]

I think that the complaint regarding the difficulty of the nursing exams is not that the material is difficult intellectually but that it is arbitrary and not always based on logic or science. It is somewhat like being asked the to state the theme of a newly published short story. There is no one correct response and it is open to interpretation and not an answer you'll find in a book or that you can figure out like solving for x.

That’s exactly what I meant. I completely understand that medicine tests at an entirely different level in terms of depth and breath of healthcare knowledge. I do know what I’m getting myself into. But I don’t expect medical students to do well in nursing exams unless they have been coached into how to take some of these nursing exam questions. For people who overthink and when the answer may be ambiguous they can be a nightmare. I can’t wait to start taking my prerequisites and challenging myself intellectually. I never had the confidence to go into medicine until now.

 

[Sn00pygrrl]

I am also considering dentistry because of the decent pay and excellent work-life balance, but I also lack people skills and hate small talk so I would probably have difficulty marketing myself/running my own practice.

tl;dr At this point in nursing school, should I keep pursuing CRNA or should I jump ship to medicine/dentistry/other health professions.

Please find yourself a profession where your lack of people skills and hatred of small talk is not a liability. I shudder to imagine what you're like with patients.

It sounds like you have unrealistic expectations about healthcare "work/life balance" as well as unrealistic expectations for how much you're going to need to grind and eat s*** for YEARS before you get any respect. Have you shadowed any of these roles at all? Most clinical roles in healthcare (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, etc etc) are largely experiential.

If you hate the idea of "wiping ass and taking orders," please quit nursing now. You obviously do not have what it takes. Unfortunately, you have to deal with the good AND the bad of healthcare in order to get to where you want to go. Save yourself years of misery and save the rest of us the hassle of trying to train someone with such an entitled attitude.

 

[Med Ed]

But I don’t expect medical students to do well in nursing exams unless they have been coached into how to take some of these nursing exam questions. For people who overthink and when the answer may be ambiguous they can be a nightmare.

Out of curiosity, are these national exams or in-house exams?

 

[candbgirl]

I am a current nursing student who is a year away from graduation. I originally transferred into my university's nursing program with the intention of being a CRNA... but I am now experiencing severe regrets for doing so. Nursing school has wreaked absolute havoc on my GPA (which is hovering around a 3.6), and I absolutely hate clinicals despite my interest in medical science. I thought that CRNA would be a faster and less stressful route towards becoming an anesthesia provider, but I now realize how misguided I was two years ago after transferring into nursing. CRNA schools are incredibly competitive due to the influx of nurses desperate to leave the bedside, and my GPA keeps going down semester after semester after taking all of these evil nursing tests that seem to be specifically designed to trick you. The thought of wiping ass and doing backbreaking nursing work for 3+ years while gaining the necessary experience for CRNA school is starting to feel unbearable to me now. I have always been a more academically inclined person, and I desperately wish that I had kept my liberal arts major to boost my GPA while taking the necessary prerequisite courses for medical or even dental school. Nursing school is already turning me into a s*** person, and realistically, I could probably only last at the bedside for 3 years tops before burning out.

In this moment, I am incredibly confused, depressed, and discouraged at this point in my education. I don't know if I should keep powering through for CRNA school, or if I should drop out of nursing now and start taking medical prerequisites immediately to save what is left of my GPA. At the end of the day, I just want a good work-life balance to help provide for my family, but I don't want to spend the rest of my career making 70K and taking orders from physicians and management. CRNA still sounds appealing to me, but I honestly hate the bull**** involved in nursing education and a lot of those programs will kick you out for getting even one grade below a "B" (trust me, I've checked). I am also in a very intense LTR with a person I hope to marry one day, and if I pursue the medical route, I am worried about being dragged across the country away from him throughout the long years of medical training. I am also considering dentistry because of the decent pay and excellent work-life balance, but I also lack people skills and hate small talk so I would probably have difficulty marketing myself/running my own practice.

I have no idea what to do anymore and I am in desperate need of advice. If I could go back in time, there is no way that I would have entered nursing school knowing what I know now. I wish I had the confidence to pursue pre-med from the beginning so that I could have more options available to me such as optometry, pharmacy, dentistry, and medicine. Without revealing too much about my personal situation, I'll just say that money isn't an issue and that everything is (and probably will) be covered. However, I would still feel like absolute **** for wasting my time on a nursing degree that I would not even use.

tl;dr At this point in nursing school, should I keep pursuing CRNA or should I jump ship to medicine/dentistry/other health professions.

At this point and from what you have shared, you should drop the nursing major. Finish the semester and get out. Maybe take a semester off and figure out what you really want to do. I can’t imagine a nurse with a lack of “people skills and (who) hate(s) small talk.” It must be awful for sick and scared patients to have you for their nurse. And if you think there is no accountability to higher ups when you are a doctor you really couldn’t be more wrong. Of course you have more autonomy when you are practicing but the hoops you have to jump through from hospital administrators, insurance and even the government make the demands placed on you as a nursing student seem insignificant. And besides nursing students should be “taking orders from physicians and management.”

Please spend sometime researching other fields in Health Care and even out of Health Care. You are obviously pretty miserable doing what you are doing. And actually I can’t think of one area of Health Care where people skills aren’t a huge requirement. I do agree with @Sn00pygrrl . You seem very entitled and expect to have all of the perks of a practicing physician or even a CRNA while you are still in undergrad. That’s not how life works. If you switch to medicine you are probably at least 8-10 years away from practicing medicine. So think carefully as you work towards the future. Good luck.

 

[jhmmd]

I am a current nursing student who is a year away from graduation. I originally transferred into my university's nursing program with the intention of being a CRNA... but I am now experiencing severe regrets for doing so. Nursing school has wreaked absolute havoc on my GPA (which is hovering around a 3.6), and I absolutely hate clinicals despite my interest in medical science. I thought that CRNA would be a faster and less stressful route towards becoming an anesthesia provider, but I now realize how misguided I was two years ago after transferring into nursing. CRNA schools are incredibly competitive due to the influx of nurses desperate to leave the bedside, and my GPA keeps going down semester after semester after taking all of these evil nursing tests that seem to be specifically designed to trick you. The thought of wiping ass and doing backbreaking nursing work for 3+ years while gaining the necessary experience for CRNA school is starting to feel unbearable to me now. I have always been a more academically inclined person, and I desperately wish that I had kept my liberal arts major to boost my GPA while taking the necessary prerequisite courses for medical or even dental school. Nursing school is already turning me into a s*** person, and realistically, I could probably only last at the bedside for 3 years tops before burning out.

In this moment, I am incredibly confused, depressed, and discouraged at this point in my education. I don't know if I should keep powering through for CRNA school, or if I should drop out of nursing now and start taking medical prerequisites immediately to save what is left of my GPA. At the end of the day, I just want a good work-life balance to help provide for my family, but I don't want to spend the rest of my career making 70K and taking orders from physicians and management. CRNA still sounds appealing to me, but I honestly hate the bull**** involved in nursing education and a lot of those programs will kick you out for getting even one grade below a "B" (trust me, I've checked). I am also in a very intense LTR with a person I hope to marry one day, and if I pursue the medical route, I am worried about being dragged across the country away from him throughout the long years of medical training. I am also considering dentistry because of the decent pay and excellent work-life balance, but I also lack people skills and hate small talk so I would probably have difficulty marketing myself/running my own practice.

I have no idea what to do anymore and I am in desperate need of advice. If I could go back in time, there is no way that I would have entered nursing school knowing what I know now. I wish I had the confidence to pursue pre-med from the beginning so that I could have more options available to me such as optometry, pharmacy, dentistry, and medicine. Without revealing too much about my personal situation, I'll just say that money isn't an issue and that everything is (and probably will) be covered. However, I would still feel like absolute **** for wasting my time on a nursing degree that I would not even use.

tl;dr At this point in nursing school, should I keep pursuing CRNA or should I jump ship to medicine/dentistry/other health professions.

What exactly is your motivation for going into medicine then? You mentioned that you are "academically inclined"...from this post it doesn't sound like you are in danger of becoming homeless, or even low-income. If you don't like nursing, then get out of nursing. There is no need to pursue another type of health degree if you do not have strong intrinsic motivation for that field. Some of the people here have been a little harsh but I think this is the crux of the problem: You seem to want more money. A career in healthcare isn't necessarily the right path, in that case. Try business, law, or sales.

 

[ciestar]

To be fair, I and most medical students would probably hate nursing clinicals. No hate for nurses, in fact quite the opposite. But there is a reason I did not go to nursing school over medical school. Very different clinical responsibilities, even as students (I have never been a nursing student but I have worked in the same department as them before so I have a rough idea of what their clinicals are like).

I hated nursing clinicals. I got through 2.5 years of nursing school before i bailed on it.

PS: interviews werent a problem for med school. I got 10. Nobody questioned my commitment to medicine because i quit nursing. Nursing just wasn’t for me.

 

[ciestar]

If you hate clinicals, there is no reason to become a doctor.

If you bail on nursing school now, how do we know that you won't do the same on Medicine?

Hey now, somehow it all worked out for me. I hated nursing school lol

 

[Moko]

lack of people skills and hatred of small talk

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

10/10 thread.

1. Nursing student who doesn't want to wipe asses for 70k.
2. Nursing student who wants to be a CRNA from the get go.
3. 3 years of ICU work = lifetime sentence.
4. Another nurse asserting nursing exams harder than other exams.
5. Hand washing question flex.
6. Obligatory knee jerk flex with step 1 first order questions.

There's a skilled nursing shortage and this is one of many reasons why it will still exist. I've worked everything from blue collar to white collar jobs and nursing is such a sweet gig it's almost criminal. A lot of people who have never seen the other side think that they can get a "cushy" WFH job working on Agile as a junior dev at Google for six figures or work as an attorney chugging through contracts/cases/leases for hours with less burn out. What a crazy world we live in.

Make Nursing a trade again!

 

[FiremedicMike]

If you hate clinicals, there is no reason to become a doctor.

If you bail on nursing school now, how do we know that you won't do the same on Medicine?

I have obviously never done clerkship or residency, but there really seems to be no comparison between nursing clinical and being a medical student. The scope, the role, the day to day.. It's been an OK experience for me because I've had good clinical instructors and it is fun to see a different aspect of medicine than what I'm used to, but it is not the same as being a physician student/resident.

I have made my own clinical experience more enjoyable because I don't need to focus on patient interaction or isolated skills, I just build on the foundation I already have as a medic. Instead, I spend my extra time reading my patient's chart, googling and learning about their conditions, meds, the procedures they've had done or will have done. Many nursing students don't have the time to do that because they're so new to patient care that they're scrambling to get comfortable with that aspect of it.

I think that the complaint regarding the difficulty of the nursing exams is not that the material is difficult intellectually but that it is arbitrary and not always based on logic or science. It is somewhat like being asked the to state the theme of a newly published short story. There is no one correct response and it is open to interpretation and not an answer you'll find in a book or that you can figure out like solving for x.

They are immensely arbitrary. Some questions require you to think globally, some questions might as well be "what's the third word in the second paragraph on page 1732 in XXX textbook. Oh and by the way, you'd better be compiling your answers from this paragraph/chapter and not that one, because they say slightly different things and you will probably get it wrong.. On top of that, a solid 10-15% of any exam is information that is completely irrelevant to patient care.

Out of curiosity, are these national exams or in-house exams?

In-house and written/vetted internally by the nursing program. I don't doubt there are fantastic programs who have well written exams, but there are also exams written by nurses who went through nursing school decades ago and admit to the fact that they barely passed exams when they were in school..


These threads always attract the posters who say "I've seen nursing exams and they're super easy", but they fail to recognize a few things..
1. They are looking at these exam questions from their own educational standpoint, which is clearly more in depth. It is easy to go backwards and answer a question now when you have gone 4 degrees deeper on a subject.
2. As mentioned, the exams aren't standardized. The exam you looked at isn't the same as the exam I took, nor are the questions written by the same people.

I'm not here to say nursing school is harder than medical school, but to brush it off as easy is egocentric.

 

[Med Ed]

In-house and written/vetted internally by the nursing program. I don't doubt there are fantastic programs who have well written exams, but there are also exams written by nurses who went through nursing school decades ago and admit to the fact that they barely passed exams when they were in school..

That's what I would have guessed. It's actually not difficult to run statistics on exam questions and identify the ones that are lousy. The hard part is fixing or replacing them.

 

[FiremedicMike]

That's what I would have guessed. It's actually not difficult to run statistics on exam questions and identify the ones that are lousy. The hard part is fixing or replacing them.

They do that, and they'll toss questions each exam, but like you said, the issue is fixing them.

Fixing them goes beyond just adjusting the question, it requires adjusting the content delivery and even course objectives (also not standardized). Example - my last peds exam covered 3 weeks which should have covered approximately 70 learning objectives as listed in the syllabus. Easily 20-25 of those objectives were not even mentioned on the test, and there were a solid 10 questions that did not correlate to the objectives as listed in the syllabus.

It's frustrating to say the least, and I actually go to a school with a good reputation in this area..