[dragonflycafe]

Hello -

I am a degreed woman wanting to go back to school to get her BSN and eventually her CNS. It has been interesting to see all of the negative comments on nursing from this site (and all over the internet).

Are you more satisfied with your career now that you are a CNS? Since nursing encompasses so may different education levels I suppose I am trying to figure out if there is one 'set' of nurses that seem to be more dissatisfied than the others.

Also, do you get the respect you hoped for and are you comfortable with your salary?

Thanks for your time and all of the hard work you provide!

[traumaRUs]

I'm adult health CNS and work as an advanced practice nurse in nephrology. I am overall happy with the choice I made. However, my position is definitely advanced practice. It is not the traditional CNS role. I would not have been happy with that. However, I knew the practice act when I went this route and would never move to a state that didn't recognize CNS as APN.

Overall, I am very satisfied. However, I liked working in the ER too as an RN.

[llg]

I've spent most of my career in CNS roles and Staff Development roles. My colleagues and I seem happier ... but then, our lives aren't perfect, either.

Some aspects of the role are very appealing, but you have to be good at working with people and handling political issues if you are going thrive in a CNS role. You also need to be patient -- as you don't often get that immediate positive feedback from a patient when you are not spending as much time at the bedside doing direct care.

On the positive side ... the CNS role is one in which you have a chance to make significant changes in practice and procedure that will be for the benefit of a large number of patients, not just the few patients an individual staff nurse takes care of.

It's a role that suits a lot of people -- but not everybody.