As I rapidly approach my seventh decade, I realize that I can’t work as a bedside healthcare worker forever. I can’t wrestle with meth heads forever. It’s time to start thinking about what comes next. My new employer will pay for my classes and books, so I have decided to get my Masters degree. There are two real choices: Nursing Management, or Nursing Education.
I have already gone down the road of education- I was a high school science teacher, I have also had jobs teaching Paramedic, ACLS, PALS, and other classes. I also don’t have a very high opinion of nurse educators, so I don’t want to do that.
That leaves Nursing Management. If you’re gonna be in the band, it’s better to wave the stick than to carry the big drum. That requires a couple of undergrad prerequisite courses that my previous degrees didn’t cover. Classes begin this week.
14 Comments
Miguel GFZ · August 13, 2023 at 9:54 am
Best of luck and like the italians say: Forza bambino!
Dirty Dingus McGee · August 13, 2023 at 10:37 am
The major problem I encountered when I climbed the corporate ladder, was the higher I got the deeper the bullshit/backstabbing.As I started out with a low tolerance for bullshit, I had problems as you might well imagine.Got to a breaking point and I left a very well paid job with a Fortune 100 company.
BS= Bullshit
MS= More shit
PHD= Piled higher and deeper
Good luck.
Noway2 · August 13, 2023 at 11:08 am
Congratulations. I wish you well on your future endeavor and may it bring you wealth and happiness.
Cederq · August 13, 2023 at 11:49 am
I have a Masters in Nursing and in Behavioral Science. I didn’t want to enter the hallowed halls of upper medical management. I topped out at being a charge nurse and was happy at that. I didn’t want to deal with those that were Nurse or Case management, it was uber-political and I am not a political animal. I held my own and was enough vocal with upper management and with my degrees and being a very good technical nurse I was immune to threats or rumors of being fired for my reasonable views. I was there to do a job as best as I can and what any job I was there for the satisfaction of helping and healing my fellow man and the paycheck… I didn’t think I wanted to nurse past fifty five years old and made plans and set aside for an early retirement and a small, secluded place far enough away and cheap enough to afford on a limited income. That all came crashing down in 1998 ( 40 years old) when I was diagnosed with MS. I had just finished my prerequisites for admittance to a doctorate program and was accepted at UT Southwestern in Texas for Applied Clinical Research, that was squashed too. My thought was slipping into a consultant role in my later years to supplement my hermit lifestyle I had envisioned…
A good way to go and good luck in your endeavors, you are gonna need it.
Divemedic · August 13, 2023 at 8:24 pm
I may do that, I may not. The point is that, if I have the MSN, I have a choice. That’s what the MSN gives me- options.
Joe Blow · August 13, 2023 at 1:23 pm
So, I know I’m sometimes slow on the uptake, but… you’re almost 70 and retirement wasn’t in your thoughts?
I mean, I find satisfaction in working, the paycheck is nice, too. But…. I work to live, I don’t live to work?
Divemedic · August 13, 2023 at 1:45 pm
Your seventh decade begins when you turn 60.
Your first decade: age 0-9
Second: 10-19
Third: 20-29
Fourth: 30-39
Fifth: 40-49
Sixth: 50-59
Seventh: 60-69
I was retired once. The story on how I unretired will come in a future post.
SP RN · August 13, 2023 at 2:36 pm
If you decide you want to remain at the bedside: Endoscopy!
-Day shift, M-F with rare on-call
-ACLS, PALS required. You’ll master the art of sedation and run it for most of your physicians (Nurse Anesthesia is a complex science, whereas sedation is an art.)
-No wrestling with meth heads!
-highly skilled technical nursing
-and occasionally you’ll still get to save the life of someone who’s bleeding out.
After 20 yrs of full time ER, 8 yrs of full time Endo with one-day-a-week ER for overtime, and finishing with 20 yrs of only Endo, I retired for my 71st birthday because it was getting harder to push my increasingly-obese sedated patients up the ramp to recovery… and also because I wasn’t gonna take the jab… but I loved the work to the end… so to speak.
SP RN
Yes We Can · August 13, 2023 at 4:50 pm
Become a teacher and stop the Long March from within?
Mother got out back in the late 1980’s and it is probably 100 times stupider and smartazz since then but someone has to do it.
Thanks to great Red State teachers who taught us well about the commies and internal quislings.
Divemedic · August 13, 2023 at 5:03 pm
I already did more than a decade teaching. I taught college as an adjunct for a few years. I taught high school science for 7 years. Teaching high school is a waste of time. A good percentage are morons. About half of them are doomed to working mindless service industry jobs where education or thought isn’t required.
dave in pa. · August 13, 2023 at 6:27 pm
when I blew out my back, the clowns at SSD wanted me to take a teaching job at the high schools in either north philly or west philly. yeah, right. from what I have seen of high school kids in the past 10 or so years is that they are really stupid. add the fact that I would be the only white guy there didn’t make it any better. anyway, by the time most of them get to high school, they already in a gang and packing weapons of some sort.
thank god the judge was pissed at them for fucking me around for 3 years.
guess the race of the SSD clowns ?
Anonymous · August 13, 2023 at 10:04 pm
Get the appropriate credentials, a plain white van, add an X-ray machine from ebay, and treat illegal construction workers who fall off roofs, for cash. Medical help who keeps their mouth shut and cheerfully heals people is almost the highest status in the hood.
The Tactical Hermit · August 14, 2023 at 4:02 am
Good for you DM. Always forward never Back is my motto in life. 👍👍
Aesop · August 16, 2023 at 9:18 am
The reason to become an educator is
a) to pass on some of what you know, and
b) to not be like the idiot jackholes all of us ran into coming up as students.
Best wishes with whatever you decide.
Comments are closed.