Has anyone worked in medical or pharmaceutical sales and returned back to nursing?

Nurses General Nursing

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Has anyone out there been a nurse and worked in pharmacuetical or medical sales and hated it and returned to nursing? I accepted a medical sales position while waiting for my boards last year being broke after 2 yrs of nursing school. After almost a year, I have used only 1% of my nursing knowledge and been more of a well paid gopher / used care salesman. I have yet to see an ounce of compassion of fellow reps both nurse and non nurse in this field, they are for the most part are agressive and competitive personalities . It all about a monthly quota and not taking no for an answer is the moto. I am regretful for never going and doing my first year medsurge to build my foundation and moving to a specialty. My heart never feels fulfilled in this job, but its getting the bills paid.Im 42 married with family and after 1 year of sales I feel burnout and unfulfilled. So im not sure if I am stupid for thinking this way or not. I understand people from other fields would do anything to get into medical sales and I feel the opposite at this point. Any insight will be appreciated.Thank you

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

Medical sales and nursing are completely different fields. Someone who performs well and feels fulfilled in one may very well not perform well or feel fulfilled in the other.

It's a curious career path you've chosen - to complete nursing education and obtain licensure but never work as a nurse. But I'm sure you had your reasons for the decisions you made at the time.

If you are now interested in working as a nurse in some clinical capacity, a refresher course would probably be advisable. I'd also encourage you to seek out positions advertised for new grads

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Specializes in ER, OR, Cardiac ICU.

Yes, I dabbled in the ortho implant sales while I was a nurse...by dabble I mean a two year stint...and made more moola than I knew what to do with :)

But you have identified what I hated about it- it was (and is) aggressively competitive. I spent 80% of my day trying to talk with docs that really could care less if I dropped dead or not. The other 20% were decent enough.

I went back to the ER because I truly missed it. I may gripe about it from time to time but I know now one profession I won't go back to.

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Specializes in Anesthesia, CCRN, SRNA.

I spent 12 years as a pharmaceutical sales rep before going into nursing. The two careers are totally different from each other. You will make more money as a drug rep but your job security and quality of life will suffer. Its a choice you have to make. From my experience nursing gets better every day. Being a drug rep is a slow ride down into hell.

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I've never done pharma sales, but my current position does involve marketing for a home care agency. Is this something you may consider? In this position, the "sales" are obtaining referrals for the agency. It still involves meeting with docs and other people who really don't care if they see you. I don't feel like it's really that bad though because I really believe in the mission of the organization. I've done bedside nursing and I can't describe how much better my quality of life is in this position. I will NEVER go back to bedside nursing.

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OP here thank you for your replies, Im sure that bedside nursing is not popular but my cohorts who graduated with me have completed their first year of medsurge and are now able to venture into other areas. I would like to get my 1 year in and find another avenue, but the business end has been tough in developing contacts and keeping them, also one of the hallmarks of the sales person is to be "always hungry for more sales" and having a hunter mentality, I feel like a put on a face long enough until i cant fake it anymore. I try to fool myself into believing that I am educating people on products, and try to close the deal. I guess I have not been able to define how I felt for long time.

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I understand how you feel. It does become difficult because nursing education does not focus on the business side of health care. I feel as though I fight for every single referral that I get and sometimes it gets tedious to put a big smile on my face and then get the door slammed in front of me.

But I have perspective that you don't have. I know what it's like at the bedside. I can tell you that I am unbelieveably grateful to have this job. Many nurses would do anything to have such a job. The pay and benefits are much better than bedside nursing and I don't work even half as hard. I can take a break whenever I feel like it and I'm not exposed to the horrendous conditions that many nurses are facing. On the other hand, maybe you need to experience what it's really like at the bedside in order to confirm if it is for you or not. But if you already know that you don't like acute care, why don't you try using your experience to move into a different position? You could look into clinical research associate positions, physician office management, or other types of positions that require a health care background (but not necessarily just nursing). Or you could return to school to obtain an advanced degree that would allow you to transition more easily into a different field.

If you really feel like you need the nursing experience to advance with your career goals, it should not be that difficult since you have only been out of school for a year.

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