Nurses who DON'T work in a hospital, what do you do?

I currently work in Clinical Research as a certified clinical research coordinator ( CCRC). I've been a nurse for 30 years and previously worked in a hospital setting for many, many years. My speciality was labor and delivery and I maintain a certification in that field as well.. I absolutely love what I do. Of course I have a great boss that allows me to have autonotomy with my schedule. I see a variety of different patients/subjects on a daily basis depending on the clinical trial that I am working on.. it varies from diabetes, testosterone, hypertension, and heart failure. I no longer work weekends or holidays and the pay is comparable to what I made in the hospital. I feel like I found some sort of secret society.. there is actually an appreciation for what I do and I feel like I"m helping people. I knew I wanted out of the hospital setting ( I was tired of being run ragget) and began doing some "research" about working in a research environment.. I stumbled into something good via networking. Each day I have a mix of actual clinical skills, EKG's, labs, teaching, drug accountability along with a giant papertrail but it's all good. I do a bit of travel at times when I am beginning a new trial to learn about the protocol... I feel like I'm treated well and respected in my position.

Karen
aka Raven

I, too, am in home health care/hospice and after 3 decades in hospital, it is heavenly to be able to schedule my own hours! I can second the idea that you really need a few years of med-surg experience to be able to do this kind of nursing. One can become certified in case mgmt. as well. If you ever work for an insurance co. as a case mgr. you'll be much more marketable to that co. if you do have your certificate in case mgmnt. The pay scale at that level is much higher than in hospital or even in routine home health care. I have also heard of nurses who work on sets of movies being made to deal w/ the accidents and they make incredible salaries, for nurses. They have a fair bit of ER experience and are union members, as are all the people working in filmmaking. There are a few websites dealing w/ space nursing/medicine. NASA has needs for care in aerospace medicine and it's a new subspecialty at this point. In some ways it's a spinoff from medevac nursing---just higher-tech. A good friend of mine worked for Holland American Cruise Lines at sea and had LOTS of ER and some L&D under her belt. Hope these ideas inspire you! Good question to throw into the mix!