Should I become a RN or a Dental Hygienist??

Both of the programs at my school have the same prereq's except I wouldn't have to take chemistry and organic chemistry to become a nurse. In your opinion, which career do you think is better? I'd love to be a nurse but I don't think I can deal with working late into the night. Or I could but not 5 nights a week. How are nursing schedules compared to dental hygiene schedules?? Thanks!

Should I become a RN or a Dental Hygienist??
If the thought of working late into the night bothers you, I would not consider nursing. I'm a medical student in my third year. As a part of our schooling, we are required to do rotations at hospitals in which we are on the wards seeing patients and working with nurses. Nurses work hard and I feel they are often overworked and underpaid. In addition, they take a lot of abuse from physicians but they are mostly older physicians who are a little old school in regards to the hierarchy of medicine.





Generally, nurses work 12 hour shifts 4 times a week. Yes, some of those shifts will include nights or the graveyard shift from 7PM to 7AM. It may not be so bad to work nights when you are younger but as you age, it can be tough.





Dental hygienists make similar incomes and are often paid by the hour at 30-40 dollars per hour depending upon their experience level.





I feel that nursing is a calling and that people do it because they truly want to work with patients and impact their lives. Nursing is a career whereas dental hygiene is a profession. There is a difference. I don't think you will receive that same level of patient interaction in dental hygiene nor will you receive that same feeling of benefitting people's lives and impacting them. I'm not belittling dental hygiene but let's be honest if you are putting in IV's, observing them overnight, feeding them, cleaning them and watching their meds, you are going to be more involved with their health than cleaning their teeth once and moving on.





The other advantage to nursing is that if you want to pursue becoming a nurse practioner, you can do a graduate program for 3 years after your RN and become an NP. You can then see patients unsupervised in some states and function more or less like a physician. Or you can work "under the supervision" of a physician in his office and essentially serve as a physician as you see your own patients. Nurse practioners typically earn anywhere from 80-130 depending upon how they choose to practice; they can earn more than that if they work in a state where they can function independepently and build their own practice base.





Still, if you are seeking the field with the best lifestyle and pay, dental hygiene is probably ideal. Dentists are much less malignant to work with than Physicians and provide you with more respect. You will be able to control your hours better especially since many dentists only work 4 to 4.5 days per week and never take call. I do disagree with the person below about dental hygienists opening their own clinic. That is almost unheard of in large cities because there are so many genral dentists practicing and competing with each other and they make a significant portion of their income on hygience (hiring a dental hygienists to clean mouths while they see more serious dental cases). Unless he or she is lucky, a dental hygienists would not be able to open their practice and survive with large number of dentists already practicing in the area.





Good Luck and I hope this information was useful
Reply:Try searching both occupations on O*Net- it's an online database that compares jobs and will tell you salary, compensations, skill requirements, etc.- basically anything you might want to know about a job.
Reply:There are many different career paths for nursing, including research and clinical work, that would not involve night shifts.


I would think that an RN career would offer a more varied career choice. Why not apply to both though if you are interested in both? Do some job shadowing?


Good Luck
Reply:If you are basing your choice solely on schedules, dental hygientists would definately be a better schedule. Most dentists aren't open late in the evenings, maybe half days on Saturdays. No Sundays, no holidays. Nursing, you are there 24/7. Now, if you get a job in a medical office, you'll have much better hours than in a hospital.





But these two jobs are nothing alike at all. I don't know how you can possibly compare them. I'm currently in nursing school because I want to take care of people. I'm not doing it for the money and certainly not for the schedule.





Nursing school is very intense. There is a lot of pressure and your grades have to be high. Where I am attending school, anything below a 77, and you don't pass and can't move on to the next class. If you choose to go to nursing school, know that you have to dedicate yourself 100%. If may be the same for dental, I don't know.
Reply:Dental Hygienist is far better, u make a lot more money if u open ur own clinic. My mom is also a RN and she works wayy too much. They get paid really well (christmas day it was her x day and she made about 100 an hour) but it was really busy. Overall there is way too much stress and not enough family time wid a RN, if you choose RN just go into being Docotor instead thats what I recommend, espeacilly being concerned of how much my mom has to work.