Is there a requirement for a nurse to have a ‘calling’ or to be altruistic in their reasons to become a nurse?
I’ve recently ran across several articles and nursing forum posts related to nurses having a ‘calling’. Something deep seated in their personality or their mind-set, a need or want to ‘help’ others. Something altruistic in their reasoning for becoming a nurse. The argument that I’m seeing repeated over and over is that you ‘have to’ or ‘should’ have a need, want and desire to help others in order to be a good nurse.
I’m going to rant on this…please do not send me ‘hate’ mail. If you would like to have a respectful discussion; I’m open and willing to participate
Confession: I never wanted or desired to be a nurse.
WHAT??!!??!?
That’s right. I started my nursing career as a career choice and a JOB. There wasn’t any deep seated desire to make a difference in the world. No passion to ‘help others. No ‘calling’ from a higher power. Nursing to me was a stable career with attainable educational requirements, decent pay and job security. I consider myself an altruistic person but that was not my drive to become a nurse.
There are many that will immediately think that I am a bad person or worse yet, a bad nurse for my decision to become a nurse as a means to provide myself and my family a decent lifestyle. To them, I say ‘YOU’RE WRONG’.
So, am I automatically a bad nurse because I chose Nursing based on purely career and stability oriented reasons? Or is it possible that even though my reasons were not altruistic, I am still a good nurse, a patient care-giver and able to provide safe care with positive outcomes?
I want to hear your thoughts. Were your reasons for becoming a nurse altruistic? Do you think it’s a requirement for someone entering the nursing profession to want to ‘help’ people? Are you like me and see nursing as a career and a job to be performed to your best ability?
TheGypsyNurse
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Lacie
I came to nursing as a second career, having temporarily left teaching to do so. I do not see anything wrong with looking at nursing as a career over a calling. In fact, I think that doing so in many respects furthers the fact that nursing is a PROFESSION.
Nurses are caregivers, but we provide care through a background in science. Whether we are calling upon our knowledge of human anatomy and physiology, pharmacokinetics, or human growth and development, we are acting based upon an established scientific knowledge base. Certainly there are those of us for whom this is a passion or calling, but to fail to consider the professional aspect in lieu of the “calling” limits the professional respect that nursing deserves.
To our patients, we may be angels of mercy with an altruistic calling, but we are also professionals. We need to acknowledge, respect, and honor that aspect of what has brought many of us to nursing as well.
TheGypsyNurse
Well Stated!
Lisa
Same for me. Nursing is my job. I love it! I do a great job because its what I want to be doing. I became a nurse because I felt like it was a smart career choice. I thought that more than likely (knock on wood) I can have a job just about anywhere. I do know, however, that some people are appald at that. Appald at the fact that I didn’t “have a calling” or “always want to be a nurse since I was a little girl”. One of the hardest parts of nursing to me is compassion. Sometimes I do think that maybe if I did have “a calling” that the compassion would come more natural and not something I have to work at.
TheGypsyNurse
Sympathy and compassion are very similar yet very different. I struggle with sympathy but can give compassion…if you have ever held a dying hand or said a soothing word, I would say that you have much compassion.
Katy Blythe
Nursing is a second career for me also and I also chose nursing as a career. I looked at all the possibilities that a nursing degree gave me from bedside nursing, to travel nursing to administration and so much more. It is a degree that offers stability and the chance to not “burn out” from your carer because it is diversified. There is a part of nursing that called to me and that is the NICU. I would have never felt that “calling” if I had not first chosen nursing and did clinicals in the NICU. So I believe that choosing nursing as a career is a decision made by the brain and choosing which area of nursing to do involves the heart as well.