I am sure that you can get through this and learn to internalize Type 2 thinking as Type 1, and it will be of great help to you in general, but you will probably not be as good at it as those who are natural and don’t get as stressed out when thinking under pressure. I’m wondering if down the road you would be better off finding a career which plays more to your strengths as a Type 2 thinker, while at the same time allowing you to express your need for altruism and compassion. From what I know, many ICU nurses operate close to breaking point and burn-out nearly all the time, one has to have a specific type of personality to thrive in such an environment.
Oh, I have no doubt that there are a dozen careers that would play more to my strengths than nursing. If I’d wanted to stay in my comfort zone, I would have gone into academia, like my parents. And maybe there are some aspects of nursing where I’ll never be as good as the “naturals”–but I think you overestimate the number of “naturals” out there, and what percentage of nurses they represent. My preceptor, who makes everything look effortless now, confesses that she was scared shitless for the first year that she worked in ICU–and she did nursing as a second career, after a degree in biology, and had already worked as a nurse for a year in med/surg, acquiring the basic organization skills that I’m still working on.
For all the constructive criticism I’ve gotten, no one has suggested I find another career. Most of my teachers have told me clearly that they think I’m going to be an awesome nurse, once I get my feet under me. Being curious and conscientious and eager to learn new things and aware of the importance of deliberate rather than haphazard practice goes a long way. I tend to have a flatter learning curve than most people, when it comes to acquiring Type 1-ish skills–but I keep improving and end up just as good as everyone else. My parents might have told me when I was eleven that I ought to find a job that didn’t involve working with people, since my social skills were spectacularly awful–but I worked on that, and today my nursing profs tell me that “interpersonal communication” is one of my strengths.
From what I know, many ICU nurses operate close to breaking point and burn-out nearly all the time, one has to have a specific type of personality to thrive in such an environment.
That sounds like a badly run ICU. In general, the place in a hospital where I’d most expect to see burnout is an understaffed surgery floor, maybe ortho–nurses looking after six to eight hip and knee surgery patients, overworked, bored because they’ve been having the same sort of patients for 10 years, and working with other nurses who are just as burnt out. My preceptor, who’s worked in both areas, confirms this. The ICU where I’m placed right now is probably the least understaffed part of the hospital, and has the best teamwork, both amongst the nurses and with other health care professionals. Not to mention you get to have interesting patients.
(The idea of working in emerg scares me though. Not enough structure.)
This may sound a bit too critical and patronizing, but...
Practice will make you better, but you might find yourself always struggling to achieve a level of minimal functionality. Even if you become a good nurse, you might never be as productive as you would have been if you had chosen a career more suited to your dispositions.
Be aware of comparative advantage, don’t be afraid of sunk costs and most importantly, don’t do things just to differentiate yourself from your parents.
you might never be as productive as you would have been if you had chosen a career more suited to your dispositions. [...] Be aware of comparative advantage.
I would agree with this if I was better at math and physics. I maintained grades of around 90% in high school science classes, but that’s by no means an indication of genius. I liked science, and was exposed to it from an early age through my parents, so a lot of concepts weren’t new to me the way they were to my peers, and I was a conscientious, hard-working student. I certainly don’t think I would have been more likely than any of my Grade 12 classmates to accomplish anything revolutionary in science.
don’t do things just to differentiate yourself from your parents.
Ha, you noticed one of the unstated wrong reasons why I wanted to go to nursing school. Although the fact that my father was extremely unhappy in academics (for anxiety-related reasons) is good evidence that I wouldn’t have done any better going straight into academic research, so I don’t consider that a wrong reason.
but you might find yourself always struggling to achieve a level of minimal functionality.
“Minimal functionality” would be an excellent description of my performance as, say, a professional athlete or an musician/composer–both of which I at some point thought of pursuing as a career. I think I can achieve a lot better than that in nursing.
This comment bothers me for two reasons—one obvious, one not so obvious.
The first is that I think you’re empirically wrong—I think Swimmer963 will make an excellent nurse. She is obviously way above the mean in both intelligence and determination, and there’s not much more to success than that. When she says she is “terrible” at something, she is probably just being 1) modest and 2) self-critical—what she probably means is not that she’s worse at it than the other people in her cohort, but that she realizes she can be a lot better at it. That kind of realization is the sine qua non of excellence.
More abstractly, I think your comment is problematic because it tends to undermine or second-guess a difficult choice that someone has made after the fact (in this case, Swimmer’s decision to become a nurse). This is non-obvious from a rationalist standpoint, but you really shouldn’t do that. The most obvious example situation is that you don’t tell your friend that you think he was a fool to get married when he’s already married—you can give him that kind of advice before the wedding, but not after. If Swimmer were asking for advice about what career to go into, it would be reasonable to suggest one area or antisuggest another, but she’s already made her choice, so this kind of advice is not very helpful and may actually be harmful.
Downvoted for confidently misinterpreting virtually everything I wrote.
The first is that I think you’re empirically wrong—I think Swimmer963 will make an excellent nurse.
I am sure she will. My point was that she might not be as good at one specific part of it, internalizing Type 2 as Type 1, as those who are natural at it. There is much more to nursing than this.
it tends to undermine or second-guess a difficult choice that someone has made after the fact
What I really said:
if down the road you would be better off finding a career which plays more to your strengths
I would expect her to work as a nurse for a number of years and then reevaluate her options if the level of stress is too much.
I did make one mistake though, I confused ICU with ER.
I am sure that you can get through this and learn to internalize Type 2 thinking as Type 1, and it will be of great help to you in general, but you will probably not be as good at it as those who are natural and don’t get as stressed out when thinking under pressure. I’m wondering if down the road you would be better off finding a career which plays more to your strengths as a Type 2 thinker, while at the same time allowing you to express your need for altruism and compassion. From what I know, many ICU nurses operate close to breaking point and burn-out nearly all the time, one has to have a specific type of personality to thrive in such an environment.
Oh, I have no doubt that there are a dozen careers that would play more to my strengths than nursing. If I’d wanted to stay in my comfort zone, I would have gone into academia, like my parents. And maybe there are some aspects of nursing where I’ll never be as good as the “naturals”–but I think you overestimate the number of “naturals” out there, and what percentage of nurses they represent. My preceptor, who makes everything look effortless now, confesses that she was scared shitless for the first year that she worked in ICU–and she did nursing as a second career, after a degree in biology, and had already worked as a nurse for a year in med/surg, acquiring the basic organization skills that I’m still working on.
For all the constructive criticism I’ve gotten, no one has suggested I find another career. Most of my teachers have told me clearly that they think I’m going to be an awesome nurse, once I get my feet under me. Being curious and conscientious and eager to learn new things and aware of the importance of deliberate rather than haphazard practice goes a long way. I tend to have a flatter learning curve than most people, when it comes to acquiring Type 1-ish skills–but I keep improving and end up just as good as everyone else. My parents might have told me when I was eleven that I ought to find a job that didn’t involve working with people, since my social skills were spectacularly awful–but I worked on that, and today my nursing profs tell me that “interpersonal communication” is one of my strengths.
That sounds like a badly run ICU. In general, the place in a hospital where I’d most expect to see burnout is an understaffed surgery floor, maybe ortho–nurses looking after six to eight hip and knee surgery patients, overworked, bored because they’ve been having the same sort of patients for 10 years, and working with other nurses who are just as burnt out. My preceptor, who’s worked in both areas, confirms this. The ICU where I’m placed right now is probably the least understaffed part of the hospital, and has the best teamwork, both amongst the nurses and with other health care professionals. Not to mention you get to have interesting patients.
(The idea of working in emerg scares me though. Not enough structure.)
This may sound a bit too critical and patronizing, but...
Practice will make you better, but you might find yourself always struggling to achieve a level of minimal functionality. Even if you become a good nurse, you might never be as productive as you would have been if you had chosen a career more suited to your dispositions.
Be aware of comparative advantage, don’t be afraid of sunk costs and most importantly, don’t do things just to differentiate yourself from your parents.
Thank you for your input.
I would agree with this if I was better at math and physics. I maintained grades of around 90% in high school science classes, but that’s by no means an indication of genius. I liked science, and was exposed to it from an early age through my parents, so a lot of concepts weren’t new to me the way they were to my peers, and I was a conscientious, hard-working student. I certainly don’t think I would have been more likely than any of my Grade 12 classmates to accomplish anything revolutionary in science.
Ha, you noticed one of the unstated wrong reasons why I wanted to go to nursing school. Although the fact that my father was extremely unhappy in academics (for anxiety-related reasons) is good evidence that I wouldn’t have done any better going straight into academic research, so I don’t consider that a wrong reason.
“Minimal functionality” would be an excellent description of my performance as, say, a professional athlete or an musician/composer–both of which I at some point thought of pursuing as a career. I think I can achieve a lot better than that in nursing.
This comment bothers me for two reasons—one obvious, one not so obvious.
The first is that I think you’re empirically wrong—I think Swimmer963 will make an excellent nurse. She is obviously way above the mean in both intelligence and determination, and there’s not much more to success than that. When she says she is “terrible” at something, she is probably just being 1) modest and 2) self-critical—what she probably means is not that she’s worse at it than the other people in her cohort, but that she realizes she can be a lot better at it. That kind of realization is the sine qua non of excellence.
More abstractly, I think your comment is problematic because it tends to undermine or second-guess a difficult choice that someone has made after the fact (in this case, Swimmer’s decision to become a nurse). This is non-obvious from a rationalist standpoint, but you really shouldn’t do that. The most obvious example situation is that you don’t tell your friend that you think he was a fool to get married when he’s already married—you can give him that kind of advice before the wedding, but not after. If Swimmer were asking for advice about what career to go into, it would be reasonable to suggest one area or antisuggest another, but she’s already made her choice, so this kind of advice is not very helpful and may actually be harmful.
Downvoted for confidently misinterpreting virtually everything I wrote.
I am sure she will. My point was that she might not be as good at one specific part of it, internalizing Type 2 as Type 1, as those who are natural at it. There is much more to nursing than this.
What I really said:
I would expect her to work as a nurse for a number of years and then reevaluate her options if the level of stress is too much.
I did make one mistake though, I confused ICU with ER.