I’m a premed struggling with a nursing undergrad
Does anyone else in nursing feel weirdly guilty for wanting medicine instead of nursing?
I’m in nursing school right now after already completing a chemistry degree, and I feel like I’m carrying around a tension I can’t talk about honestly without sounding arrogant or ungrateful.
Because the truth is, I genuinely respect nursing.
Clinical has probably been the most meaningful part of my education so far. Some of the most competent, observant, emotionally intelligent people I’ve ever met are nurses. Nursing forces you into sustained human proximity in a way I don’t think many professions do. You see people scared, vulnerable, grieving, delirious, exhausted. You learn how illness actually feels for people, not just what it looks like on paper.
At the same time, I think chemistry permanently shaped the way my brain works. And not in a “I’m secretly a genius” way. Honestly, chemistry humbled me more than anything else in my life. I struggled a lot. My GPA wasn’t amazing. I was immature, inconsistent, terrible at managing my time, and constantly felt like I was falling behind people who were smarter and more disciplined than me.
(If I were actually brilliant, I probably wouldn’t be doing a second degree trying to claw my way toward med school now lol.)
But even though I struggled, I still loved the way science made me think. I worked in research labs, ended up on a couple papers during undergrad, and realized I was capable of more than my transcript probably suggested. Chemistry trained me to think mechanistically. Everything became systems, causality, interactions, precision. You stop accepting explanations that are merely “close enough” because small inaccuracies eventually become bigger misunderstandings.
Which is honestly part of why nursing school has felt so frustrating sometimes. Not nursing itself.
Not bedside nursing. Not actual nurses. But the academic side.
Sometimes it genuinely feels like curiosity gets subtly punished if it becomes too mechanism-heavy. We’ll spend hours discussing reflections, therapeutic language, and “ways of knowing,” while physiology gets simplified to the point of actual inaccuracy because “for nursing purposes you don’t need that depth.”
At one point an instructor explained why the higher IV bag drains first by saying gravity “pulls harder” on the higher bag. And yes, obviously everyone still understood the practical point clinically. But gravity is not stronger six inches higher in a hospital room. The mechanism is hydrostatic pressure. And I KNOW how insufferable it sounds that this bothered me so much, but healthcare is literally the field where details matter. My brain genuinely struggles with inaccurate explanations because chemistry trained me to believe foundational inaccuracies create fragile understanding later.
Every time I ask deeper pharm or pathophys questions, the vibe can suddenly become:
“You’re overthinking it.”
“Focus on what the nurse does.”
And then the second people realize I’m pre-med, there’s this weird assumption that I must not really care about patients. Like wanting more depth or more scope somehow means you’re less human. But I’m scared that I won’t be fully fulfilled in a nursing role.
For example, the OR is probably my favorite place in the world. I love the intensity of it. The choreography. The anatomy. The pressure. The teamwork. The precision. I could honestly spend twelve hours there and not even notice time passing.
But I also realized I don’t think being adjacent to the decision-making would be enough for me forever. And that makes me feel terrible, and honestly question my motivations for medicine.
And I feel guilty even typing that because OR nurses are incredibly skilled and essential. This is not me saying they’re “less than.” But when I imagine spending decades only handing over the instruments instead of being the person performing the surgery, making the calls, carrying the responsibility, thinking through the anatomy and pathology in real time… something in me aches for that larger scope. Not because I think it’s more important morally. Just because I think it fits my brain better.
And sometimes in nursing spaces, wanting that feels weirdly taboo. Like the second medicine enters the conversation, people assume you must be ego-driven, too reductionist, too obsessed with status, not holistic enough.
I genuinely love patients. I love clinical. I love practical skills. I love procedures. I love the privilege of being present for deeply human moments.
I just also love mechanisms. And systems. And diagnostics. And understanding things as deeply as I possibly can. And I don’t think I’ll ever fully turn that part of my brain off.
I honestly can’t tell whether this is a normal tension for people caught somewhere between nursing and medicine, or whether I’m just romanticizing a larger scope because I’m insecure about my own path.
I’d genuinely love to hear from people who’ve felt something similar. Especially nurses, physicians, or people who transitioned between the two. Did nursing eventually feel intellectually fulfilling for you long term? Did the tension go away? Did anyone else struggle with feeling simultaneously deeply drawn to patient care while also craving more scope, depth, or responsibility?
I’m open to hearing perspectives from people who disagree with me too. I’m honestly trying to figure out whether I’m identifying something real here, or just wrestling with my own ego and insecurity. Please help me find my blind spots. TYIA!