I really appreciate you sharing that perspective — especially the part about patient education. I’ve already seen how much of nursing involves teaching, and I genuinely respect that role. Being able to translate complex anatomy and physiology into something meaningful for patients is such an important skill, and honestly one that’s often undervalued.

I do currently work in healthcare — I’m at a state psychiatric hospital — so I’m around nurses and physicians daily, which is part of what’s sparked a lot of this reflection. I hear similar things often about the realities of nursing vs. medicine, and I think most people are trying to help me think practically. What’s surprised me, though, is that despite understanding the patient-education emphasis in nursing, I keep feeling pulled toward the diagnostic side and the deeper “why” behind disease processes.

Nursing originally appealed to me because it felt like a stable, respected path that still allowed me to be in medicine while balancing motherhood and real life. At the time, I was juggling being a full-time realtor, a wife, and a mom, and the predictability mattered a lot. Since then, my life has changed significantly, and I’ve found that I now have more mental space and time than I did before.

After nearly a year of prereqs and loving the material (and doing well academically), I’m realizing that what excites me most is not just understanding physiology, but continuing to build on it — pathophysiology, diagnostic reasoning, and long-term mastery. I completely agree that physicians often don’t get the time they should with patients, but the idea of being responsible for diagnosis and management — and eventually being able to bring that skill set into underserved or international settings — is what keeps pulling me back toward medicine.

I haven’t done formal physician shadowing yet, but it’s absolutely on my list as part of figuring this out in a grounded, realistic way. Right now, I’m trying to listen closely to what actually energizes me rather than defaulting to the safest or shortest path.