Thoughts From a Nursing Student: Is Nursing Really a Calling?
When I first began nursing school, I kept being told, “Nursing is a calling!” and “Nurses are saints!” This occurred after two years of taking care of my mother while she battled breast cancer, a journey I was honored to be part of and one that inspired me to become a nurse. Due to that personal history, those statements felt true to me. Taking care of my mother during one of the hardest times in her life absolutely felt like a calling, so I was certain that the satisfaction I had experienced with my mother as my patient would translate to caring for others as well. As I started my nursing classes, it was comforting to tell myself that even if things became difficult, I was where I was meant to be.
Then I stepped onto the hospital floor.
For the first time, I was not at the hospital as a patient, but as a nurse-in-progress.
And if I am being honest, my first thought was, “If I didn’t have to pay a fee, I’d be out the door!” On the medical-surgical floor, none of the patients had conditions like my mother’s. I didn’t have the familiarity with them that I had with my mother. I didn’t even recognize the supplies the nurses asked me to retrieve. The first time a nurse on the floor asked me to grab something from the clean utility supply closet, I stood in there for 10 minutes trying to figure out what IV tubing looked like. I left with four different kinds when she only asked for one.
I couldn’t figure out how I had successfully helped my mother in her care during chemotherapy, but it took me 15 minutes to get a cup of ice water for a patient because I didn’t know the pantry code. (That same patient definitely had some reservations later about me giving him his medications.)
These experiences were not only terrifying but also disheartening. I had never seen anything like this before, nor had I ever had any responsibility to that degree. I didn’t know what I was doing, so who was I to care for these people?
I started to wonder if nursing is really a calling. I didn’t feel called to it. I certainly didn’t feel like a saint. It didn’t seem saint-like to question whether I belonged in this field. If nursing was a calling, wouldn’t I have been able to jump right in without fear and love it immediately?
Despite my racing thoughts, I stayed. I knew I had to break every mental wall that stood before me if I had any chance of learning, so I asked every question that came to mind. What is this piece of equipment used for? Why are we doing this procedure? What medication treats that condition? Suddenly, I developed a hunger to learn everything I could, even if I was starting from the very bottom.
The nurses I shadowed were among the loveliest people I have ever had the privilege of working alongside. They answered my questions with enthusiasm and were eager to teach me everything they knew, from skills they had perfected over years to small tricks in keeping patients comfortable and happy that I would never learn from a textbook.
Finally, I felt comfortable truly helping care for patients. My hands shook with every task, but I completed them anyway. By the end of the day, I felt something familiar — that same warm, radiating sense of satisfaction I felt while caring for my mother. The feeling that I was hoping to experience the second I walked into the hospital only presented itself when I had chosen to put aside my fears, bring forth my curiosity, and learn things that were entirely new to me.
As I approach the end of my first semester of nursing school, I have decided, without a doubt, that nursing is not a calling. Loving nursing is like loving anything: It is a choice. My reason for starting nursing school may not be the reason that I stay in nursing, and I don’t know what my future reasoning may be. What I do know is that I must choose to love being a nurse.
My fellow nursing students and I must choose every day to show up to our classes, clinicals, and exams, and say, “I will be the best nurse that I can be today.” We must choose to steady our shaking hands and carry out our tasks to the best of our abilities. We must choose to seek out the opportunities that terrify us most until they no longer do. We must choose to care and advocate for our patients. There will not be a divine entity descending to assure us that we are on the right path. The only voice that will call us to nursing is our own, and we must choose to love it every day. In time, it will love us back.