Why does a career in Nursing goes well with a career in Aviation?

N918KT

N918KT

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Hello all. I think I heard from time to time on this board that getting a nursing degree or working as a nurse goes really well with aviation especially with being a commercial or airline pilot.

Is it because of a good income or that you could get a job anywhere? I just am curious of the reasoning behind this.

Disclaimer: I have no interest in changing careers to become a nurse or getting a nursing job as a side job. Nor do I have any interest in a career in healthcare. I am only curious why nursing goes hand-in-hand with aviation especially with professional piloting.
 
I've never heard that pilots should be nurses, that is illogical given the psychological makeup of the two are sooo very different.

It seems that there are an inordinate number of pilots who marry nurses; however. This is logical in that nurses are inherently caregivers and pilots do need a lot of care.
 
N918KT said:
Hello all. I think I heard from time to time on this board that getting a nursing degree or working as a nurse goes really well with aviation especially with being a commercial or airline pilot.

Is it because of a good income or that you could get a job anywhere? I just am curious of the reasoning behind this.

Disclaimer: I have no interest in changing careers to become a nurse or getting a nursing job as a side job. Nor do I have any interest in a career in healthcare. I am only curious why nursing goes hand-in-hand with aviation especially with professional piloting.
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Probably because nursing is one of those degrees / professions that assures an employer that the holder / practitioner is neither an idiot nor afraid of work.

Rich
 
That would have been me

RNs have very felxable schedules which work well with a low or high time pilot job, RNs can find a job nearly anywhere, goes well with the traveling required of a pilot, especially a low time guy building hours, excellent ROI for a RN can subsidize a low time pilots income, or lack thereof.

Personality wise they go very well together, both are critical thinking types, both are type As (or at least the nurses I work with), some airlines are still stuck on a pointless degree, might as well get a degree as a RN if you're going to bother, it'll atleast give you some ROI and is something you can turn on or off at anytime as money may be required.
 
It's not a holdover from the old saying "Nurse, I need another screwdriver"?
 
Cause....nurses are good at taking charge.
LOUISE-FLETCHER-AS-NURSE-RATCHET-IN-ONE-FLEW-OVER-THE-CUCKOOS-NEST_10.jpg
 
Married to a Nurse Practitioner. She is in charge. When in doubt just ask her.

No way she could have another career flying. Too busy taking care of others.
 
Maybe the thinking is nurses and pilots make good partners... not that it's a good combination of jobs to have. Like nurses and cops. They're both used to weird schedules so they don't freak out on their day off or holidays when their significant other has to go to bed at 7pm to be up for work at 3am.
 
Don't believe everything you read on the internet. That was just one member's opinion. If you want a part time gig that you can do on the side of flying professionally, it needs to be portable...like writing, copy editing, web design, etc. Aviation has lots of downtime, but nursing could hardly fill the gaps.
 
Eh it doesn't really. You figure a year of prerequisites (A andP biology etc) apply to school go four years(you can do two but as my wife found your very limited in places of employment or required to sign saying you'll have a BA in x years). Job won't work with a flying job in a lot of cases 3-2 splits on call, call off etc mean your schedule isn't fixed.

It works with a flying career in that you make enough money to fund the training but then your paying for 5 years of school on top of flight stuff.
 
Plenty of 2 year RN programs, and per diem is a good thing.
 
James331 said:
That would have been me

RNs have very felxable schedules which work well with a low or high time pilot job, RNs can find a job nearly anywhere, goes well with the traveling required of a pilot, especially a low time guy building hours, excellent ROI for a RN can subsidize a low time pilots income, or lack thereof.

Personality wise they go very well together, both are critical thinking types, both are type As (or at least the nurses I work with), some airlines are still stuck on a pointless degree, might as well get a degree as a RN if you're going to bother, it'll atleast give you some ROI and is something you can turn on or off at anytime as money may be required.
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My mother's a nurse, my sister's a nurse, I somehow managed to marry a nurse. My wife works 7AM - 3:30 PM Monday - Friday, as she works in a cardiology clinic. Before that, when she worked in what you and I call the Recovery Room, her hours seemed to change on a daily basis, she took call three nights a month, and had to work some holidays and weekends. Before that, she worked in Cardiac Intensive Care, and was working 3 PM - 11 PM five days a week, but one week per month she did 12 hours two weekend days and two 8 hour weekdays. Her schedule has always been quite fixed, excepting that recovery room stint where the hospital was trying to cover too many hours with too little staff. My sister works 7PM - 7AM Fridays, Saturdays, and Tuesdays, on a general medical- surgical floor. That's her schedule every week pretty much without fail. My mother worked in drug rehab and psychiatric nursing, pretty much 8 -5 five days a week. At one point she moved into home healthcare nursing, and saw patients during the week on normal business hours.

Lots of nurses have rather unconventional schedules, but I wouldn't call them flexible. I'm a software developer, my schedule is more flexible than my wife's is. Also, unless you're willing to work nights, it's not as easy to get hired as you are implying here. If you happen to have experience in the specialty du jour, yes, there's lots of demand, but that changes year to year, and odds are at any given time it's not your specialty.
 
Maybe because they make a decent salary to afford flying? :dunno: That's a pretty good reason.

What about a Flight Nurse working in Medevac? Lots of those.
 
Brad Z said:
Don't believe everything you read on the internet. That was just one member's opinion. If you want a part time gig that you can do on the side of flying professionally, it needs to be portable...like writing, copy editing, web design, etc. Aviation has lots of downtime, but nursing could hardly fill the gaps.
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Gigolo.
 
FormerHangie said:
Lots of nurses have rather unconventional schedules, but I wouldn't call them flexible. I'm a software developer, my schedule is more flexible than my wife's is. Also, unless you're willing to work nights, it's not as easy to get hired as you are implying here. If you happen to have experience in the specialty du jour, yes, there's lots of demand, but that changes year to year, and odds are at any given time it's not your specialty.
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There you come again with your 'facts' and 'reality'.

Yes, there are very flexible per-diem gigs where nurses can make good money filling in the gaps in some hospitals staffing. The best paying gigs are not for run of the mill fresh out of school positions but for specialty things like ICU, OR or cath-lab. To have hospitals hire you for those gigs, you need to have a couple of years of experience in that respective function, often at the very hospital.

So if someone has made a career in nursing with a couple of years in specialty jobs under his/her belt, they can potentially go to an all per-diem schedule and have a lot of control over when they work. At that point, it may be a good profession to combine with a budding aviation career.

Oh, and admission into nursing programs is competitive. I work overnights and have a clerk that supports my work. A number of them have been college students trying to get into the RN/BSN program and some were nursing students. They all had to work pretty hard to get there. It's imnho not as easy as 'just get a nursing degree'.
 
We've met some traveling PRN nurses both male and female over the years who expressed interest in my flying and learning to fly, who may have done it... don't know... but they loved moving around and living in different cities each year. They'd certainly have the money and the schedule to do something in aviation, but they didn't always get to choose how long they'd be in one place.

Met them through my wife who still claims she has no interest in learning to fly after going up since we were kids together. She's a wound care nurse and has a great normal daytime schedule and loves it. Before that she did home care nursin for years and management in that gig and it was a lot of driving and a lot of hours. The last thing she wanted to do after driving all day was to go fly something.

Other local nurses we know, as others have pointed out, don't really have flexible schedules, just odd ones. Excellent for going to the airport for flight lessons on a non-busy weekday schedule, but not really for having a second job flying. They'd do fine with it as a hobby or as part time instructors. Most of them seem to get in a habit of picking up extra shifts for overtime pay for toys, and that eats a lot of free time. Our ER nurse friend, big dude, is much in demand on extra shifts because he knows how to glare and bark at crazy people to get them to shut up. LOL.
 
I used to date a nurse. She was in charge on the ground, I was in charge in the air, and that worked good for us. What didn't work good for us was when she wanted to take charge of my career and decide where I was going to live and what I was going to fly.
 
Major airlines just want a bachelors. Doesn't matter if it's in underwater basket weaving or law.
 
Oh, I have met plenty of nurses that are idiots. Doctors too. No profession excludes idiots. Some of them just have a lower percentage.
 
Well, nursing DOES go hand in hand with piloting and I agree, pilots could use some nursing...
 
N918KT said:
Hello all. I think I heard from time to time on this board that getting a nursing degree or working as a nurse goes really well with aviation especially with being a commercial or airline pilot.

Is it because of a good income or that you could get a job anywhere? I just am curious of the reasoning behind this.

Disclaimer: I have no interest in changing careers to become a nurse or getting a nursing job as a side job. Nor do I have any interest in a career in healthcare. I am only curious why nursing goes hand-in-hand with aviation especially with professional piloting.
Click to expand...
Huh, I've never heard that, but my significant other is a nurse, working to be a doctor. I'm training for commercial piloting, so that's kinda neat.
 
dillardrg said:
I've never heard that pilots should be nurses, that is illogical given the psychological makeup of the two are sooo very different.

It seems that there are an inordinate number of pilots who marry nurses; however. This is logical in that nurses are inherently caregivers and pilots do need a lot of care.
Click to expand...
That's awesome, my girlie friend is nurse, she's good to me ☺️
 
I worked as an pediatric emergency room nurse and was chosen to do helicopter/fixed wing transporting of patients. It got me interested in flying. I moved on to hospital management and later owned and sold a hospital. Nursing was a good way to understand the workings of the healthcare system. I ended up with advanced degrees in other fields, but the nursing program was the most challenging.
 
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