Better 2nd career: Accountant or Registered Nurse?

[Rage for Order]

Poll question: Better 2nd career: Accountant or Registered Nurse?

A little background. I'm currently in the mortgage industry...well, by currently I mean I just started drawing unemployment again after my most recent layoff (3rd time since Summer of 2009). This got me thinking; it looks like the mortgage industry is going to be rather unstable for some time to come, and I'm considering a career change. The tricky part is, I'm already 40 years old, so I'm at the point where people should already be well-established in their careers and I'm considering breaking into a field brand new in about a year.

I could become a CPA rather quickly since I have so many credit hours in business college; all I would need is 30 hours (10 classes) of accounting - 15 hours/5 classes in the fall, and 15 hours/5 classes in the spring, and I could sit for the CPA exam when I feel ready. I've already worked in the business world so it's not a foreign environment, and my wife is a CPA so it would give us something else in common. Of course, it would probably also lead to us talking about work at home a LOT.

Nursing may take longer since I only have the very basics - Biology I & II, Chemistry I, Nutrition. There would be a bit more back work to obtaining a nursing degree. And I would want to be a RN at the very least, not nursing assistant or nurse's aide. Can anyone tell me how long it would take to earn a RN degree from (basically) scratch? Also, I've never worked in the health care field so I would not know what to expect. One of my sisters is an emergency room doctor so I can ask her, but she's all I have.

Nurses in particular, what are some of the pros and cons of nursing school, nursing work, nursing specialties, etc? What are pros and cons of my entire situation? I feel like I'm at a crossroads right now and I'm not sure which way to go because I truly believe that this will be my last opportunity to change course. if I screw this one up, I'm stuck.

What say you, DU?