NON-Patient Care Employment for new R.N.s

Good for you if you find a position that suits you, but just for interest's sake, what posessed you to train as a nurse if you didn't want to work with patients? Seems like there are lots of alternatives...?

I cannot think of a job where you would not need to have some experience with patient care/of some capacity at least......

I will wait and see if anyone can think of anything...

I am with canoe on his question?

renerian

I agree with the 2 other people who responded to the OP's question. I can't think of any job for which the employer would not prefer to hire someone with patient care experience.

If you feel strongly about not working with patients, then perhaps a career in nursing is not a good fit for you. There are plenty of jobs out there that don't involve direct patient care (mine, for instance), but all that I can think of require a knowledge of patient care that can only be obtained by actually doing it for a while.

llg

Pharmaceutical companies love nurses as salespeople if they have the "look". You could also be a monitor for pharmaceutical research studies -- they also love nurses -- but it can require a lot of travel (hard for folks with small children at home). Two options for you!

Cali OT,

I have not come across an RN program (diploma, ADN, or BSN) without a hefty clinical component. Maybe some poster knows of one which you could research for information.

Even pharmaceutical companies and technology companies often prefer to hire nurses with clinical experience instead of a new grad with no clinical experience. The customers want a salesperson with some knowledge and experience ... someone they can relate to ... someone who understands the work they do and the type of care they give. In other words, they often prefer someone with clinical credibility.

You might get lucky and find an exception, though.

llg

Even pharmaceutical companies require a nurse to have at least a year of direct patient care experience. Just about every nursing job on the face of the earth requires some kind of patient care experience and I know because I have seen the job announcements and postings throughout the country. Nursing is a caring profession and most of us who go into nursing do so to care for the sick. Many of us leave bedside nursing due to the staffing situations, (short staffed all the time). Many of us go work for doctors, hmos, health departments, clinics, etc. but we all have had at least 1 year or nursing experience under our belts.

I beg to differ on the two examples I gave.

Research study monitors do not need to have had direct patient care. Not all of them are nurses; one lady I know has a BA in Music; another gentleman has a BA in psychology; a third was previously a lab tech who worked with AIDS viruses. None of these three have ever done anything in the way of patient care. The companies however tend to like nurses as opposed to other degrees because they have the medical terminology across a wide range of areas, they can spot AEs, they know their drugs so they know if a drug was being taken for an event that was not the event being studied. I think about half of the monitors I've worked with are nurses.

Pharmaceutical salespeople (and other medical salespeople, such as EKG equipment) are also not all nurses although they do all have some degree, preferably a four-year science oriented degree...but even that is not set in stone. The important thing is being able to SELL. But again, nurses do seem to be on the preferred list of job candidates.

Job postings always target the "perfect" candidate. That doesn't mean someone who doesn't fit perfectly won't be hired (or won't do a good job).