How much time do you have to be with your family or live your life outside of the career? Since nursing is always on call

Nobody is ALWAYS on call. Most of the nurse practitioners I work with are not on call at all, and work regular set hours. It all depends on what area, field, or setting you choose to work in. Nursing is a 24 hour job, so in a hopsital setting, you will likely have to work overnights, weekends, holidays, evenings, etc., but not every one. People take turns and it usually ends up fair. If you work in a clinic or outpatient setting (doctor's office, day surgery, etc.), you may never have to work odd hours, as it could be closed on off shifts. Nurse and Nurse Practitioner are 2 different jobs though, so I'm not sure which one you are asking about, but the same goes for both. In my areas, I am never on call, but my schedule does change week to week. I can request days off if I have plans and take vacations like any other person! It is busy, and the hours are not always ideal, but you will have a social life and family life unless you decide to pick up overtime shifts! One good thing about it is that I work three 12 hour shifts, so I actually have 4 days off a week because I work longer hours on the other days (it sounds worse than it is, trust me), so actually, I am able to see my family, go to graduate school, and work full time and still have a social life (if anything school is stopping that more than my job). I don't know where you found your information, but it definitely wasn't entirely correct! As a nurse or medical personnel, you will have to miss things and work through things that people in an office job would never have to miss, so you have to be ok with that, but most of us carry on normal lives outside of work!

Being on-call depends on the job you have. It can vary from having to go into a facility to care for patients to just taking phone call. Some fields have no call at all, school nurses for example, and others are on call frequently, (think nurse midwives). I think for most nurse practitioners call is of the phone variety, but in rural areas you may have to go in after hours to see patients. In my practice I take phone call every 4th week which is not too bad. As a part of the trade-off I also work 4 10h days so I get a bit of extra time with my family. Mostly call is not too bad.

Actually, the time that you will have to spend with your family will have to be created by you. In that you'll have to be more organized,make most use of your off-duty days, try to schedule your shoppings,plan your time-out with friends, generally your family. At the close of every duty shift, plan your rest hours,interactions hours,with your family . I have personally tried this, it worked. Though ,l must say that you'll will have to be very dertermined about this.

And a nurse practitioner job doesn't have to discourage you, because we all have our goals in life, in different sections/ specialities in the nursing career. Also no hospital /employer will force you to do duty-shifts that are not agreeable to you or convenient for you . You can always have a say in the matter.

Also some nursing specialties are more demanding than others .