NURSE'S NOTES

Before there were only few student nurses that you can see, but now nursing is the most sought after course in the country. If you will ask the students why they enrolled in such course, most of them would say it is a ticket abroad and to a more comfortable life. But is it really worth it and how about the risks? Before you consider nursing as your course read this article first so that you will really be enlightened about what it offers.

To be a student nurse, you must not only be mentally prepared but physically as well. You are expected to stand for several hours while watching someone slicing up another's body. Lifting heavy objects like an oxygen tank or your 200++ pound patient is part of the job as well. But aside from all the physical effort, you must also be analytical and must have a great deal of common sense. You will be constantly bombarded with decision making and a wrong one will be fatal.

Accuracy is also another qualification to be successful in this course. You can't just afford to have a room for error especially in the chart and in your nurse's notes or else you'll end up paying (if you are lucky enough to have just entered your mistakes in the practice sheet) or worse you'll end up rewritting the whole thing and looking for unfamiliar persons who had done entries in the chart. Accuracy is also needed in administering medications. You must know the 10 or some say 12 rights of giving medications if you don't want to see your patient's eyeballs rolling up or your patient's mouth forming gooey froths.

If you have a night life then expect it to be cut. There is what they call noc shift a.k.a graveyard shift and you must dedicate the whole 8 hours to your duty - meaning less than an hour nap time. Then there are the endless overnights for group works wherein you will see nothing but your groupmate's annoying faces and endless piles of books as reference.

Nursing does not offer a room for the faint hearted. Expect that you will encounter brain busting questions, nerve wracking comments, and heated debates (formal term for arguments ^_^) from your classmates and clinical instructors. Add up the toxic doctors who will show off their expertise by asking you endless questions that came out from nowhere. Also don't forget to learn the "docking maneuver" so that you will not be hit by the unidentified flying instruments.

If you love to answer questions or love watching game shows then that is a plus points for you. A student nurse undergoes hell lots of examination before he/she will be recognized as a professional. To name a few of the exams there is the national board exam, national council licensure examination (if you want to work in the US), state board (again in the US), commission on foreign graduate nursing school exam (for those who wants to work in Europe), and the international english language testing system (for those who wants to work in english speaking nations).

Lastly, you must be very competitive and the competition is really tough; just imagine the Philippines produces thousands of nurses annually and you have to compete with all of them. So if you can't top the professional examinations then another way to be competitive is to study, study, and study again. Take endless seminars to perk up your resume or if you can afford, go back to school again and take a master's degree. But in the end, it will still not assure you of having the best job or position that the nursing world can offer.

So now that you know the things that you're gonna face if you'll enter this course are you still willing to take the risks???