I am at a turning point right now in which I need some career advice. It's a convoluted story so let me try and explain it clearly.
Right now, I work in a clinic. I have been there full time now for a year and 3 months. I am part of the Internal Medicine department, and what I do, all day, is handle all the medication refill requests, samples, etc for the 20 physicians within that department. It's M-F, no weekends, no holidays, no call. I am also involved in the clinic by teaching patient asthma classes, and publish our phone statistics for the Physician Work Groups. I also LOVE my co-workers, and adore my immediate co-worker, who does the same thing I do. We both handle the medication refills.
I also go to graduate school full time; the college I am attending is 5 minutes away from work, and my manager allows me flexible scheduling to accomodate my class schedule in the evenings.
What has happened, recently, was a dramatic change in our department with the telephone nurses (which includes me). My partner and I have relocated our offices to the clinic Infusion Room, where we will be expected now to also assist with the clinic's infusion/injection needs. This includes patients from geriatric to pediatric. The other nurses who were there in our spot, were Travel Nurses, who handled all the foreign travel immunizations/counseling for patients. They got relocated to OUR old office, which we shared with 2 other nurses who did a completely different job. There is much dissention; we are not wanted in the Infusion Room, and the other nurses are upset that they have to work where we used to; they don't like our roommates, basically. So there is this big rift down the middle of our department, and it's really horrible right now. I don't want to do infusions and neither does my co-worker. We took the jobs we have to get away from patient care. Also, my only clinical experience is obstetrics. To suddenly have to hydrate a CHFer in fluid overload is very disturbing to me.
Well....there is a position open within the clinic; an educator role who is basically in charge of training new staff. This is somewhat in line with what I am going to school for: to be a nurse educator. The pay is about $2/hour more than I make now, is salaried, and expected weekend on call to support physicians who use our electronic charting system.
I also have a interview with our Medical College as a Research Nurse in the Birth Defects Center. I don't have experience as a research nurse, and I don't know the pay, but the Medical College here is very prestigious and tough to get in to; I hear nurses are happy there. I also have obstetrical background so this is definitely in line with my clinical experience/interests.
My dilemma is that, changing jobs, especially to something intellectually challenging like the research position might be tough to do during school. Also, I really, really love my co-worker at the clinic. I adore her, and don't want to leave her. Working with her is the most pleasant thing I have ever encountered. Also, my clinic job is very conducive for finishing school; it's not intellectually demanding and I am comfortable there. So, I guess, I don't know what I should do. I don't know if now is the time to make such a move. I DO know that both the research and the educator position within the clinic would be good career moves, but I am unsure if I am ready to make such a move, but they are very good opportunities; especially the research position.
I am very confused. The reason I was looking for a job because of the changes within the department, as well as other unsettling future type things going on. \
