Advice on my options to move on from bed-side!

[NRAJRN, ASN]

Hello Nurses!!

This is my first post to this site after visiting for many years to read advice given to other nurses out there. Now, I have a question of my own.

A little background on me: I am a newlywed (this is relevant, I promise ?) I'm a fairly new nurse, I'll be coming up on my one year anniversary of being a working nurse in about 2 weeks. This the first nursing job I've ever held; on a med-surg/oncology floor. And if I am to be completely honest, I do not enjoy bedside nursing. I never have, even while in school, and now almost a year in- I can say with certainty that it is not my cup of tea. I have much respect for the specialty of med-surg and to those that work in it. I will say, at 3 months in, I questioned why I even became a nurse. By 6 months, I started to get my footing a little bit. And now, although I am still not happy, I can see how much progress I've made and can now tolerate med-surg. I know this is how many new nurses feel and it's only uphill from here. I would prefer to be happy and enjoy my job instead of just tolerating it. Wishful thinking perhaps? ?

Now that I have 1 year of experience under my belt, I am interested in exploring other aspects of nursing. Some areas that have interested me are ER, PACU, endoscopy, school nurse, outpatient surgery, med spa. I guess the trend is high patient turnover and the last two I listed have a generally "happy", elective patient population. One of the reasons I have remained at my current job is because I am per diem (nights) with the luxury of self scheduling. Self scheduling is highly important to me because as I mentioned earlier, I am a newlywed and my husband's work schedule is determined for the whole year, so it is important that I can work when he works and be off when he is off. He works a rotating schedule of 4 on, 4 off. (Ex: works M-Th, off F-M, works Tues-F, off Sat-Tues, etc.) And because he works in a completely different county, he is also away for 4 days at a time. Meaning our only time together is when we are both off.

I come to you today for advice on nursing jobs that offer self-scheduling, I'd prefer days, and generally "happy" patients, or just not bedside. I know this is probably an impossible combination of requests, and I may have to sacrifice one thing or another. But maybe there are jobs out there that I haven't heard of or considered.

A friend of mine has offered to train me in case management. When I shadowed her for a little bit, I was able to see myself in this position. I'm just not so sure that I would want to "lock" myself into that niche just yet. I was told after a year or so, I can find a "work from home" positions. A sacrifice with case management is it will most likely be a typical 9-5, M-F. Although I've heard of some 4 day, 10 hour positions. Yet I'm sure I won't be able to necessarily pick which 4 days.

I am a creative person and really enjoy makeup and cosmetic medicine. So, in the future I plan to go back to school to become an NP so I can fulfill my long term dream/goal of working in (and possibly owning) a med spa to be an injector.

I understand with every option out there, some sacrifices will have to be made; mainly with scheduling. I don't want to come off as naive, but I'd like to hear all of your opinions! I'm sorry if this post was rather long winded, I had so much to get off of my chest! LOL