“медсестра (medsestra) = nurse”

Hmmm, that sounds a lot like “mid-sister”. Is that the etymology?

сестра (sestra) is sister and I think мед (med) might be related to medical matters – another word of doctor is медик (medik), which also means medical student.

to say “I am a carpenter” is too easy to mention “я плотник” (ya plotnik)
he is a carpenter – он плотник (on plotnik)and so on.

k is correct, but there are other ways to say this, too.
If you say:

я плотник, you are implying that there is an idea that you are inherently meant to be a carpenter, but say you were trained to be a linguist, but gosh-darnit, the soviet of linguists won’t let you in, and you have to work in the carpentry profession, then you would say:

я роботаю плотником. “I work as a carpenter” with ‘carpenter’ in the instrumental case. Hope this has been helpful!

Chase Boday,
your comment has compicated everything. Forget USSR.. here is a language portal. If someone says I am a carpenter, he means it…

K is right.
I am a carpenter. Я – плотник.
(nice example by the way.. i have never met travelling carpenters as well as nurses)

Yes, K is right, I was just adding some details that I learned from my khazjain, (can’t type cyrillic on this infernal computer right now). The conversation went like this:

Me: Mne skazali chto vy professor…
Ilja: Net, nepravilno. Ja byl enzhinir, no schas (sejchas) ja robotaju veterinarom.

Ok, so its not word for word, but the grammar is the important thing.

You’re both right above. Most Russians would just say ‘Ya plotnik’ etc etc, as gramatically, the construction ‘ya rabotaioo plotnikom’ is a little complex as it uses the ‘instrumental’ case.