Seeking non-clinical nursing position

U.S.A. Texas

Published

i am trying to get into a nonclinical nursing position in the dfw area. i would really like to get into education, promoting commmunity awareness, and maybe even a little research. however, i only have 1 year nursing experience in a picu-trauma-neurosurg unit! i am very much determined to get into this type of nursing and was wondering if anyone knew what direction i should take or any type of advice that would helpful.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Hi Ashes and welcome. Have you considered looking online at facilities? What about your education? Do you have at least a BSN? Good luck.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

I suggest you do a thorough self-assessment of your qualifications and compare those qualifications to the types of jobs in which you are interested.

Then make a career plan for yourself.

For example, if you want to be a nursing instructor at a college, you will probably need a Master's Degree plus a few year's of clinical experience in the area in which you want to teach. If you want to teach LPN's or in some ADN programs, an MSN may not be required -- but you will probably need more than 1 year of experience. At the 1-yr experience mark, nurses are just reaching the stage of basic competence and are ususally not ready to teach.

If you want to focus on research, then get the certifications (and experience) that will help you land one of those jobs. etc. etc. etc.

Buy a book or two on nursing careers (do a search on Amazon.com) and read about the types of careers available and what the qualifications are.

Make an appointment with a Nurse Recruiter or nursing leader to conduct an "informational interview" not a "job interview" to learn about the different career paths and qualifications they are aware of. Tell them that you are new to the area and are trying to do some long-term career planning and would like to learn about the various career paths available there.

Lurk on this board for a while. Look at some of the jobs people talk about and the paths their careers took to get that job. If you don't understand something or find a particular job interesting, ask that person a little more about it.

Use the basic problem-solving/nusing process .... assess ... plan ... intervene ... evaluate.

Good luck,

llg

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I do have a BSN. I have tried to look online but not coming up with anything? I do not think I am looking into the right areas\locations. I know that I really do not want to teach in a nursing progarm or anything like that, at least not right now. I really want to work on community outreach programs and things like that. Thanks for the replies.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

I attended LVN school during the 2004-2005 school year and the majority of my instructors were either ADNs or BSNs with a few MSNs thrown in the mixture. However, schools will normally hire instructors with a minimum of three years of clinical experience. Since you have one year of clinical experience, perhaps you could find a research position or non-clinical job at an insurance company for the time being.

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Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Education.
I do have a BSN. I have tried to look online but not coming up with anything? I do not think I am looking into the right areas\locations. I know that I really do not want to teach in a nursing progarm or anything like that, at least not right now. I really want to work on community outreach programs and things like that. Thanks for the replies.

UT-Southwestern is an option for clinic/research nursing. Have you looked there? Also, have you considered school nursing? It has evolved into so much more than ice-packs & bandaids!

Good luck in whatever you choose!

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