I’m in a holding pattern. I am somewhere between nursing school and waiting for ATT. I’ve applied for my license and now I wait. Wait for the college to send my graduation information. Wait for authorization to test. I was going to register with Pearson Vue but the lady on the phone said I should probably wait until I get my ATT. None of this was really clear toe when the dean came and spoke to us in my last semester of nursing school.

So now I wait. I am in limbo. This is nurses week and I counted myself as a nurse until I was reminded by one of my former classmates that I am “almost there” and that I will “rock my boards.” I guess graduating from nursing school doesn’t make you a graduate nurse as I thought.

And I wait. I barely know what do do with myself these days since graduation. I haven’t started studying yet but I have promised myself to start on Monday. I just wanted one full week of not studying anything related to nursing as I was pretty burned out on nursing studies by the time the last two weeks came along.

I continue to wait. I haven’t gone back to work full time hours at work because I choose not to do so so that I could study. Also the fact that, I suffer from burnout on my current (and continuing) profession. I think it has to do more with where I work and how I have to do my job and not what I do for a living. I’ve always liked my job and never would have dreamed of nursing before I came to work where I work. my reasons are my own and will not be discussed in this forum.

Now I am hearing horror stories about the nursing. People are in two camps it seems. People who think nursing is great and think I will be great in the profession and then there are others who say nursing is not what it used to be and the focus is shifted away from the patient and I have been asked by several people why I want to “come to the dark side” or “what are you doing here? You’re an RT, you have it easy.”

It’s really funny because before I became in RT (RRT) I was renting tiny garage apartment from two RT’s who worked at a local hospital. I moved aware for two years and then moved back to the area and I turned up in the Cardiovascular ICU of one of my former landlords in my last. Clinical rotation of respiratory school. He said to me,

“what are you doing here? Trust me you don’t want to be an RT.”

Isn’t that funny? I heard the same thing 13 years ago as I have heard today except another whole profession.

So I will continue to wait for the stars align and the board of nursing bestows upon me the Authorization to Test.