Jocelyn Belkin, a 33-year old LVN (licensed vocational nurse) student at the Annenberg School of Nursing in Reseda didn’t start out wanting to be a nurse. She received her MBA from California Lutheran University. Belkin worked at a jewelry store handling the business side of the store and this inspired her to go get her MBA. “I thought I could help turn the company around,” Belkin said. “But I met resistance from the owner.” She was subsequently laid off. After Belkin lost her job she started looking into other careers where she might use her MBA. She said she “always liked nursing and felt suited to be a nurse.” “The nursing shortage was a big factor for me in looking at what’s growing,” Belkin said. “It’s difficult to get into nursing because it takes years to transition but they know that they can get in a secure career for the rest of their life.” Mid to late career transitions to nursing are 75 percent of the class at CSUN’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing program and 33 percent of the class at the Annenberg School of Nursing’s LVN vocational nursing program. The nursing shortage is expected to continue as 44 percent of all nurses are expected to switch professions away from nursing between 2010 and 2013 to something less demanding, according to an AMN Healthcare Survey. Meanwhile, some people are switching professions and going into nursing. However, contrary to what one might think the shortage of nurses has not spawned an expansion of nursing schools. Just ask Annenberg School of Nursing’s Director, Marie Fagan. The 57-year old program director started the program 4 years ago and wrote the curriculum herself. Fagan switched to nursing as an RN (registered nurse) in her 30s after she had surgery at Simi Valley Hospital. She said she was so impressed with the nursing staff there she decided to become a nurse herself. Professor Patricia Dahlstrom, assistant program director for the accelerated nursing program and clinical coordinator lecturer at California State University Northridge has worked at CSUN for 2 years. Previous to her position she worked as a pediatric nurse practitioner. Dahlstrom switched to nursing from the aerospace industry in the early 90s because she was a single mother, didn’t want to leave the area and wanted to make a difference. “Being in healthcare provided economic incentives,” Dahlstrom said of her switch to nursing. According to Dahlstrom, RNs can start out making $50,000-$60,000 annually, depending upon experience, and eventually can make up to $150,000 per year. Dahlstrom attended CSUN for her bachelors and masters. She said CSUN had 200 applicants last year for 30 slots, an indication of how impacted it is. “We don’t have enough faculty and accelerated students want advanced studies,” Dahlstrom said. “Nursing and faculty studies outcomes are better with high levels of education.” With the advanced degrees Dahlstrom said that critical thinking skills come into play. “With a bachelors they become not just a bedside nurse but nurse leaders,” Dahlstrom said. According to Fagan, there is a need for nurses. By 2025 the largest percentage of people in the nation will be heavy consumers of healthcare. From a student’s perspective there are lots of reasons to switch careers and a variety of professions they have switched from. Alex Kronbetter, a 35-year-old nursing student at CSUN worked in web design development and management for 10 years at companies such as Accenture, GAP Corporate and Primitive Logic. He worked in that field during the dotcom era. Kronbetter started out pre-med but made the switch to communications as an undergraduate and became interested in Web design his sophomore year at Purdue, he said. Kronbetter said he made the transition back to nursing because he wanted to “return to his roots” with an interest in medicine. “I wanted to help people on a personal or medical basis,” Kronbetter said. He took his prerequisites at Fresno City College and Willow International College because he said these classes were impacted. According to Kronbetter, these prerequisites take two years to complete, but sometimes it takes one year to gather the seniority to be able to take some of the required courses. For Kronbetter, he said he is aware of the nursing shortage but it didn’t really play a role in his decision to become a nurse. Kronbetter said he spends 40 to 100 hours weekly on his program, which he said is “time intensive” but he said he used to work just as long in the dot com era and he finds the challenges to be “motivating.” Gail Covinton, a 34-year CSUN nursing student originally from Jamaica, worked as a technical writer for a toxicology research company for 12 years. Covington like Kronbetter, and Belkin said she always knew she wanted to be a nurse. She said her life experiences have enhanced her personal experience as a nurse. She said she learned a lot about the profession watching her godson battle sickle cell anemia. She said it taught her how to relate to patients. For Covington it took her a few years to start school because of the $22,000 tuition for the BSN degree at the time. She started off getting her first Bachelors at Montclair University in Biology and she minored in chemistry and anthropology. “Things happened to the point where I couldn’t complete the application,” Covington said. Covington’s issue in switching to nursing had nothing to do with prerequisites. Her husband, a computer engineer, moved often and she could take different prerequisites wherever they moved. Covington said it is nice to know that the nursing profession is in such high demand regardless of what happens. “My love for the profession is 50 percent of why I went into it, flexibility and opportunity is 30 percent and 20 percent is it’s always changing so you don’t get bored. I love the idea of counseling, teaching and management and bedside care.” Covington had done quite a bit of volunteering before going back for her nursing degree, something she said she recommends for anyone considering entering the profession. “Even though it’s secure and flexible you have to have some ounce of love to go into the profession because it’s stressful,” Covington said. “It’s so tragic when people come out of school and they don’t want to be nurses anymore. It’s heartbreaking. I always tell people to volunteer first.” She also said that trying to go to school while someone has young children can be a challenge especially because the program is a 24 hour, 7 day a week commitment. She said nurses with small children should evaluate if they have a good support system and that they have to make sacrifices. At the Annenberg School of Nursing, Belkin is paying for her schooling with a deferrable loan she will pay off in two years, the Jewish Free Loan Association and a loan from her grandparents. For Belkin she said the biggest challenge for many of her classmates transitioning in nursing was remembering how to study and balance time again as a career student.
Nursing Profession Provides Haven for Mid-Career Switches
