not so whiny today

I guess that in my last post I was so busy being self-indulgent that I forgot to mention the important fact that I did in fact graduate, with honors, and successfully passed the horrid, dreaded NCLEX (nursing licensing exam). I am an real nurse at last. And I'm really sure that I've found my calling. It's that ever-elusive dream of 'what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up' finally in my grasp. I don't think that I want to do exactly this aspect of nursing forever... but there are so many exciting areas to explore.

Right now, I work in the burn unit, an admittedly challenging, not-for-everyone place to be. We take everyone at my hospital, insured and uninsured, and give them exactly the same treatment (this of course, is why I chose to work at the hospital that pays the least... a philanthropist at heart--and the experience is better, educationally). And let me tell you, treatment for burns is *hugely* expensive. Between the dressings, the antibiotics and other medications, and the surgeries, we are talking tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The patients are difficult: the meth-lab explosions, the abused, the elderly... and the stupid (Darwin awards could be handed out regularly). Of course what everyone always thinks of are the wounds... the oozing, gory, yucky wounds covering huge portions of the patient's body. I still love it. It's a niche... and it's mine.

But I'd also like to try flight nursing. (For the uninitiated, it's the nurses who fly in helicopters to the scene of the accidents, extract, stabilize and transport the patients back to the hospitals.) Apparently I'm a bit of an adrenaline-junkie.

Then when I'm a bit older, I'd like to go back to school, get a master's degree and work as a nurse anesthetist. (They make the big bucks.) And finally, I'd like to return to school again for a PhD so that I can teach the next generation of nurses.

It's nice to have goals.