Laywer to Nurse - does JD help?

Nurses Career Support

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I just finished law school at a third tier school in May 2009. You can in fact find a job as an attorney after going to a lower tier school. But, you need to graduate in the top 25% of your class. I still have friends looking for jobs.

I knew before my last year of law school that I did not want to be an attorney. But, I was so close to being done I finished it. I do not entirely regret that decision. I have now been able to work and get a good salary for a year. The firm I work at includes many great individuals. So now I know for sure that no positive environment as an attorney will help be enjoy being alone in a quiet office will never fulfill me.

I did work at several law firms during undergrad and law school. I always thought that either a) the area of the law was not for me or b) the firm was not a good fit. I have now worked at very large and very small firms. None of it feels right. I can do this job fairly well. But, I do not like it.

I am now taking my pre-requisites to go to nursing school here in Kansas. I am going to do some nurse shadowing at an area hospital. You have to go through the "education" office to get this set up. Many hospitals were quite resistant b/c I am not in a nursing program yet. But I think I found one. I am also doing a CNA course to try and work part-time in the area and make sure I like it.

Anyone that has been an attorney - now a nurse. Does your JD help at all with advancement within a hospital after you have experience? I could see myself enjoying administration at some point.

Thanks so much!

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A JD may help you advance on the administration side. It will not likely help you advance on the RN side. You'll still need your BSN and MSN to advance on the nursing side, and quite frankly, you'll still need them for administration, too. The JD will not replace the nursing degrees, just augment them.

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Specializes in Functional Medicine, Holistic Nutrition.

One area you may want to look into is risk management- a part of health care quality. This is an area where the RN-JD combination will definitely help you. However, you will need some amount of direct care experience for this. Make sure that it is the direct care experience that you really want. Otherwise, a health care administration degree may serve your purposes.

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If I were you, once established in nursing, I would look for a way to combine nursing and law in a way that allows you to benefit from your knowledge and abilities in both areas. You will have so many doors open for you and can go from one to the other, when it suits your personal and career plans.

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The way you feel about law sounds like how I felt about nursing. During rotations, I never felt "aha! this is where I want to be!" and questioned whether I should continue. But I had just one more year and I figured there's so many different kinds of nursing I'd find my place. Like you, I don't really regret finishing up. But. After trying several different things, reflecting on my experience and looking into my options again, I had to admit to myself that I kinda like the whole "alone in a quiet office" thing. I really enjoyed patient interaction but non-stop 40hr/week is a whole 'nother thing!

I do enjoy collaborating and having others around to bounce things off of. That is, I don't like working in complete isolation. Still I'm very systematic and logical and like to be able to sit down and think things through... and in many health care environments one has little time to process everything and take action. It's often 'catch-as-catch-can' 'seat-of-the-pants' craziness. Personally, 'never a boring moment' is a bit too exciting for me!

On the other hand, many of the more non-acute clinical Nursing Jobs can tend to be relatively routine and monotonous (though very busy!) with the off-chance of something going terribly wrong with nothing but 911 as your back-up in an emergency.

Administrators may be able to step away from the front-line fray, but they are still dealing in a system that is, well, far less than systematic - human bodies & reactions just aren't that predictable!

I'm now working for a health care facility in a more administrative type capacity. I'm not sure what I would do if I had to do it over again or if there's a specific direction I want to head now. I'm kinda interested in at health information systems. Law school sounds very interesting to me, but I imagine it might be like the nursing degree, something I find really fascinating but not necessarily something I want to practice professionally.

So I wonder if maybe there aren't some careers out there that are closely related to law that could utilize your background but get you out of that quiet office without having to start all over again.

On the other hand, if you want to be a nurse, you should go for it! Trying to shadow, like you're doing, is a great idea! Ask around friends and family as well. There may be a friend of a friend or a third cousin who is a nurse who could let you shadow them and/or give you advice.

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Oh yeah, in general, previous degrees don't mean a whole lot when getting started in nursing.

Also, keep in mind that a nursing degree is much more valuable when in combination with years of nursing experience and clinical expertise. The RN license grants you the ability to *start* one's practice as a nurse but often what is valued in a nurse is their experience as a nurse as opposed to their nursing degree. I imagine a law degree might be similar that way?

Anyway, best wishes to you!!

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Does your JD help at all

Your JD is an education which is heavily weighted in the liberal arts, and contrary to what may be stated otherwise, is most certainly of significant merit in this business. One need only spend a short time perusing this very forum to see examples where a solid command of the English language would have been, shall we say, "preferable."

That having been said, I would agree with the poster recommending a "Risk Management" track. In this case your JD degree and background would be augmented by the Nursing experience and not the other way around. This is because Risk Managers are more often than not of a non-Nursing background with a specific certification body unto themselves.

I would recommend a one year accelerated RN program (as was mine), with a further educational focus in Risk Management specifically.

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