People here may or may not know that in addition to making whistles part time, I’m a podiatrist by trade. Been at it for over 28 years and am frankly getting burned out by it.
Not the patient care part. That’s what attracted me 'way back and still remains a joy. It’s the related BS that gets thicker and deeper every day: dealing with insurance companies, government scrutiny of every move I make, day to day aggravations of running my own office-- the list goes on and on.
So… as of Jan 9, I’ll be a nursing student at Maria College in Albany, getting an associate RN degree. While many would say it’s a step backwards, I think of it as a step sideways 
I’d be eliminating LOTS of the chud associated with modern medical practice (although I don’t fool myself that I’ll be taking on new, different chud…). At the end of a week, I can take my paycheck, say “Thank you very much” and go home leaving the problems behind. I’ll also have a profession that is portable so if Charlene and I decide to move to sunnier climes I can still work (getting a podiatry license in another state at this point would be virtually impossible). Best of all, I’ll still be doing patient care.
Thanks for listening to my venting. Any advice from other nurses would be most welcome.
OH-- if anyone lives in the Capital District of NY, please keep this to yourselves. I’ll still be running my practice until I graduate in 5/07. Word that a Doc is switching fields is the kiss of death for a practice 
go for it!
I’ve always told my kids I don’t care WHAT they do for a career - as long as they do it the best they can and are happy. The happy part being important.
My son’s girlfriend is currently in her freshman year and working toward being accepted in nursing (she won’t be matriculated until the end of this year). Her worse class so far is A&P - she hates the memorization!
My mom was just commenting on how many guys are going into nursing now - so you will be part of a “trend”.
Paul,
I applaud your choice to step sideways. IMHO, nursing is good thing for a physician to explore… lots and lots of patient interaction that is usually a smaller part of a doctor’s professional life. Also, as a physician you are afforded an insight into matters of medicine beyond that of most nurses and that makes one valuable care giver in my book! It’s all about the patient, something a lot of newer folks seem to have forgotten.
Go for it, and the best of luck to you! 
No Paul, you aren’t crazy, you recognized a growing situation with yourself and took measures to cure it before it ate you alive with anxiety. Physician heal thyself and you did. I wish all the best in your new career.
MarkB
I think it’s great if you are wanting to do something different and have made a good plan like this. Nurses can make a huge difference in the experience people have. My mom and my sister are nurses.
My wife (after a year in the work force) decided that after she had her biochemistry degree that she wanted to go to a paramedic school. Trade school. “A step backward”.
She is much more happy in the mornings and likes her future rather than dreading it. Money is nice, respect is nice, but seeing your loved ones happy… …brings life. I hope your loved ones support you in this, because they do not know the benefit that they will receive.
I hate it when I sound like a flakey granola eater..
PS, this doesn’t mean you are not “NUTS”.
It’s probably not well known 'round here, but I used to be in nursing school. I was a 40 yr. old mother of 4 when I hit Johns Hopkins as a full-time student.
What I loved:
The camaraderie among the students, many of whom were career changers, the geeky academics, (Hopkins is one of those nasty schools that makes you get a 94 for a full-fledged A, but I scraped and clawed for the A- in pharmacology,) and getting myself the hell out into the world because I have never worn the Suzie Homemaker label gracefully.
What I didn’t love:
Well…the first semester was about 90% academic. Great for me. The second semester was about 75% academic, 25% clinical. With this ratio change came several revelations. I really, really dislike working with an unfortunately high proportion of available clinical instructors. Some have downright unnecessary personalities. This is unpleasant if you’re a 20 year old. For me, at double that age, with half my life lived, I was thinking–“I didn’t enter this field to take crap and have people speak to me like I’m an idiot.” (and I really wasn’t any more idiotic at clinical tasks than average–but the protocol for many instructors seems to be a generally oppressive attitute. Is it because they hate their jobs? Is there some kind of understood frat rush requirement? I don’t know.)
I also realized that I really don’t love patient care as you, Paul, stated that you do. I didn’t want to go wake the person up to take vitals, though I would have been happy to go fix the computer. That was another revelation–I clearly am happier working with things rather than people. I want people around–because I like’em–but I don’t want to be in charge of them, nor do I want them in charge of me.
So, after summer break, I had serious misgivings, but gave myself the pep talk about following through, and the practicality of completing the degree. It was unavoidably obvious on day one that the year would be 80% clinical. After sitting through an introduction to the adult health clinical–with my mind elsewhere–I realized I was as close to a full-fledged insanity crash as I’d ever been, and I left, and never came back.
I surprised myself, because I’d attacked the first year with such vigor and success–but in retrospect there were ominous signs all along:
The job title Nurse never sat right with me. I’d always felt a visceral negative twinge at the word, as applied to me.
I’ve often had a difficult time with bosses. Taking orders and such. I must have the prickly soul of an independent contractor.
I could have toughened my hide, seen it through, and taken a job at a school or as a visiting hospice nurse where I would have been away from the hospital environment with its personnel hierarchy. Most of my classmates did not have my issues and are now working.
I had personal issues which ultimately would have made launching a career in a serious way difficult. Health concerns with my spouse put me in a more necessary role in the family context–there is no-one to take up the slack at home. Creative pain about knowing that a demanding career would seriously impede continuing to work at writing.
Well, this was a lot of unloading that had little to do with your question Paul, except for this:
You have achieved a certain degree of professional success in podiatry, and generally, I’d assume, have come to expect respectful treatment in the context of career. In the early years of this career change–the school part, and the getting established part–you may encounter behavior that makes you wonder why the heck you’re putting yourself through this. But if you like the field in most ways, it’s probably safe to say that there are jobs for nurses that are not under the direct gaze of Supervisorzillas.
I hope you do love it. The world needs good people in nursing.
Read my post in the Be Here Now thread. I’m a droppout from 19 years in the oil bidness (chemical engineering). Do what makes you happy, skip what makes you miserable. Life is too short to delay gratification your whole life - because it might actually be for your whole life.
BrewerPaul
Nancy
I’m a nurse … I don’t see it as taking a step backward, in fact, in my opinion it’s taking a step up! 
What kind of nursing do you want to do? Hospital based or community based? Long term care? Do you want to specialize in an area? (I’m just curious).
Good luck in your schooling and in your new chosen career.
This odd thought came across my mind…
Paul, if you had switched from podiatry to dentistry, you could handle the worst case of hoof and mouth disease!
On a professional level… vinegar only appeared to soften nails, but 50% urea nail gel and Nailstat 2 times a day does the trick!
You and me both, Em.
Paul, you’re kind of doing the opposite of my big sister. She got a degree in English (was gonna go to med school but didn’t for various reasons), and after her kids grew a bit, she went back to school and became an RN. She didn’t like the way things were run, so she got her BSN and became a supervisor. She didn’t like the way things were run at that level either, so she got a master’s in public health. She had to spend some time in a lab for that, and decided she liked research, so she got a PhD in epidemiology. I think she was 48 or 49 when she got her (probably) final degree. Now she gets to tell a lot of the policy wonks what they should be doing.
Go for it, Paul. We need more nurses who actually care about the patients.
Paul,
I am a nurse too. It was my second (or third) career. I started my first job as a nurse on my 30th birthday. After a couple years I realized that having to rotate shifts, as nearly all nurses do, was making me sick and toying with my mental health. So I watched and bided my time until I heard of a research job and I snapped it up. That’s the beauty of being a nurse. There are many ways to make a living. The knowledge base of a nurse with five or more years of experience is something a lot of different employers, not only hospitals, will reward with a good salary. My present job is as a quality management coordinator in a local hospital. In a department of six people, five of us are RNs. So I say go for it. Nursing school is a pain in the nether regions and, as Emline noted, many of the instructors are twits. But as long as you keep in mind that nursing as a job is not a lot like nursing as school, you can tolerate the BS.
Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
Mike
Sounds very sensible to me.
I have no background in the health field, so I’m a bit confused. Can you ever get tired of being foot fetishist?
djm
Good luck, Paul! Of course, why you’d start nursing instead of whistle-making full time is a bit of a mystery 
It’s interesting how we change over the years. Myself, I have found that I would have enjoyed going to a trade school to be a machinist. Or I could have enjoyed being a heavy equipment operator.
Are you sure that you don’t want to do whistles? They never throw up on you and there’s NO bedpan involved.
Erik
p.s.
Funny foot story: my wife finds feet SO disgusting that she has a deal with her current partner that her partner will do all nail removal surgeries if my wife drains all pus-filled absess located anywhere else in the body.
Paul, you’d be surprised how many physicians, veterinarians, pharmacists, and podistrists switch careers and for the same reasons you are.
I needed to make a switch from laboratory medicine and research (I was allergic to it and there were no jobs and those that were there paid zilch) to . . . anything. I already knew I disliked patient care, but I’m obsessively detail-oriented, able to recall vast quantities of esoteric facts and use heaping stacks of reference materials, and delight in figuring out ways to get things to happen . . . so I now specialize in getting doctors paid for what they do. Yup, all that stuff that’s taken the fun out of feet for you. Only, I work for a Big Giant Healthcare System, where my little contribution to the cause takes 8 hours a day and returns a decent paycheck no matter what.
I also teach the stuff. Remember that colleges need instructors to have advanced degrees in order to teach, so if you already have one and most people in the profession do not, they just light up when they see you. Small colleges always seem to be looking for people to teach a class or two.
The only problem I have encountered is that there is discrimination against those who are seen to be “overqualified.” It was initially difficult for me to get low-level jobs because of that, but now that I’m higher up it’s an advantage. If you’re overqualified, I recommend not making an issue of it, because there can be resentment.
Is there a way to make your medical practice
livable? Or more so? I know physicians who have
managed to do this, complaining initially about
the difficulties you mentioned. You must be
a pretty good podiatrist by now, you love
patient care–perhaps you can do more good
ultimately as a podiatrist–if you do some problem
solving. I’m not so sure things will be that much
happier as a nurse, and you may be a better
podiatrist than you will be a nurse.
Also can’t you make enough money as a podiatrist
to move to sunnier climes by retiring?
Nothing the matter with the nursing degree, it will
give you options,
but that doesn’t commit you to being one.
If you really want to go into nursing, by all means do it. If, however, you really like podiatry and hate running an office, maybe you could find a position (possibly even part-time, if there is such a thing) in a group clinic, or even a hospital, where you wouldn’t be solely responsible for running the place. This could be a very viable option if you were to find the right situation. Even if the pay was less than you make now, it would still be more than you would make as a nurse. Another option might be to hire an outside service to handle some of the more burdensome tasks for you.
I have some concerns about nursing…there isn’t a nursing shortage for nothing. Most places are cutting back on nursing staff to make up for financial shortfalls, leaving nurses overburdened with patients, among other things. Of course, as a physician, I’m sure you have thought about all of this and know a lot more about the ins and outs than I do. I also know how tempting it is to cut and run when job stuff isn’t going the way it’s supposed to. Just make sure you explore all of your options before making the leap.
Best of luck!
Robin
Do you want to make a poll out of this, Erik? 
Well, here’s a thought. Have you considered working for the VA? There are 8 huge medical centers in Florida alone. The fastest growing ones are in sunny climes. You can work in any of them in any state if you’re licensed in at least one state, because it’s federal.
You’d get to do podiatry without one iota of the practice management mess. Forty-hour work weeks.
The VA is not like what you may have seen in movies, by the way. It’s a very nice place to work, in fact. Some VAs are extremely nice. A lot of physicians who are bummed out on the practice-management aspect move to the VA.
1/31/2006 Staff Podiatrist
Position is located in Surgical Service at the VAMC, Providence, RI. …[more]Vacancy Ann.#: 06-20
Who May Apply: Public
Pay Plan: VM-0668-GS-15/GS-15
Appointment Term: Permanent
Job Status: Part-Time
Opening Date: 11/23/2005
Salary: From 89,625.00 to 116,517.00 USD per year