What made you want to become a nurse ?
hey @coldbrewman1 ! sorry I'm not sure when you sent this, I'm not super active on this blog anymore and mostly just post a mash up of things on my main @starfish-enterprise .
anyway! I don't have a super profound answer to this question. I've always been interested in medical things/the human body as long as I can remember. I remember looking at human body books I had as a little kid and stuff like that. this turned into watching medical shows, reading lots of random stuff, and sneakily watching medical reality/reenactment shows when I wasn't supposed to be watching TLC 😆
I've been pretty involved in scouts Canada since I was six going up through the program, and through scouts I had opportunities to do first aid training which I really liked. I also met a lot of amazing people who are lifelong friends who shared my same interests, and starting in highschool I was able to be involved in a "vocational program" focused on first aid and medical training and providing volunteer first aid for camps, scouting events, and community events. I have been able to be part of the medical service for three national scout camps with thousands of kids and it's amazing!
doing this volunteering kind of solidified in my mind like okay something medical is definitely what I want to do. originally I really wanted to be a paramedic, and the year after I graduated from high school I got my emergency medical responder license. I never ended up getting paid to work with that license (I did volunteer,) but I did volunteer under that scope. where I live it can be difficult to make a good wage starting out as a paramedic. BC has a provincial paramedic service, and it's a union (which is great) so it's all seniority based, so getting a full time position in a city can take a long time. on call hourly pay is terrible, and you usually start in a rural area where you might not get a lot of calls, so if you don't get any calls you could make just $14 for a 12 hour shift.
my mom discouraged me from pursuing that for various reasons, and she also really encouraged me to get a university degree, which is what most people do in my family. I didn't want to do just like a random biology degree, because I don't necessarily work well when I can't see a clear trajectory and a concrete end goal of what I'm working towards, if that makes sense. even doing a degree with the goal of med school still has a lot of possible routes to get there, and it's so much school, which is not my favourite lol. I also knew I still wanted to do something medical/health care related, so that led me to nursing! I applied to a few universities in my last year of high school, and I was accepted to nursing programs at Queens and Western universities in Ontario. I almost went to Queens, but I didn't feel ready to go straight into university after high school.
I took a year off, did that EMR course and licensing, worked at a grocery store and as a nanny, and did volunteer ski patrol (more first aid) at my local ski hill.
during that year I applied to my local nursing program which I wasn't able to apply to straight out of high school due to various course credit stuff which they have since changed. I was lucky enough to get in on my first try, which is amazing because there's often a long wait-list for this program. then I finished and became a nurse!
tldr: I like medical stuff, becoming a doctor is a lot of school, and paramedics don't make as much money 😆
anyway, I don't a have a super profound answer or anything, it was just a good career choice that worked for me. nursing wasn't a calling to me, its not really my passion, it's my job. it's a job that I really like and sometimes love, but it's my job, not my life. I think we need to hear more of that because it will help nurses get paid more and change public perception. I'm not nursing for altruistic reasons, and honestly I don't know anyone who is. the narrative of nursing being a calling or whatever needs to change imo.
sorry about my little diversion at the end there! there's the long convoluted answer 😆
