Are there REALLY that many different nursing jobs?

[Burlshoe114]

I am currently job hunting after working in a hospital for 5 years. I really did not enjoy my hospital experience, and keep hearing that "nursing is a broad profession."

As in there are more available nursing jobs out there than just bedside hospital nursing.

I am not seeing it.

Sure, there are case management jobs... IF you have a master's degree.

And there are clinic jobs.... IF you happen to be the personal friend or cousin of the doctor, otherwise they are few and far between.

And there is parish nursing and school nursing... IF you you don't need a paycheck and can afford to do it on a volunteer basis.

And there is teaching... IF you have MSN teaching credentials and don't mind only working two days a week IF you are one of the lucky few selected.

And there is dialysis nursing... but that doesn't seem to be too different from bedside nursing. Same thing with adult family homes.

And there is research... But again, that seems to require graduate work and being in the right place at the right time.

It just seems to me that the only real full-time jobs for nurses that an average nurse can find full-time employment in is in bedside nursing.

Am I off base here?

[bree*]

No, not really. Nurses in denial will tell you otherwise though.

[Burlshoe114]

I don't mean to sound like "sour grapes," I just keep hearing people say there are so many other options in nursing, but these options seem to be more the exception than the rule.

[Mulan]

No, not really. Nurses in denial will tell you otherwise though.

:rotfl:

[netglow, ASN, RN]

Well there ya go OP. You got the straight truth before the goody-two-shoes posters could get at your thread.

[bree*]

Well there ya go OP. You got the straight truth before the goody-two-shoes posters could get at your thread.

Lol! True.

[bree*]

I don't mean to sound like "sour grapes," I just keep hearing people say there are so many other options in nursing, but these options seem to be more the exception than the rule.

Oh yeah. I forgot..the nurses who are in denial will also call you sour grapes if you didn't condition yourself to accept the crummy reality of nursing...that it's just not the best field out there! I'm a believer in being realistic.

[JulieCVICURN, BSN, RN]

I would say that it's true that the vast majority of nursing jobs are in bedside nursing (this, of course, is without doing any actual legwork to see if that's accurate, but that's my gut feeling). However, there are a ton of jobs for nurses that don't even involve touching patients, jobs that you don't need an MSN to get. BSN, probably, but not MSN.

Clinical Informatics - this is what I do, after having done about 4 years in ICU. I do not ever touch a patient, I work as a liaison between the hospital staff and the IS department, and I am a physician-IS liaison, as well as project manage our EMR stuff. Our IS department also prefers to hire nurses to maintain and build our EMR systems and handle upgrades, etc. It also seems like our software vendor hires an awful lot of nurses to do sales, demos, and other types of project management for them.

Then there's also legal nurse consultant, nurse manager, risk management, education (at our hospital, all of our educators are also nurses and some of them do not even have a BSN, only an ADN), pharmaceutical sales, insurance triage (my cousin does this and got the job right after passing her NCLEX - never worked bedside at all).

I will not try to sugar coat it and pretend it's easy to get these jobs, but there is still a lot of diversity in nursing positions.

[tyloo]

Full time, decent wage, ADN/BSN prepared, non managerial, non bedside nurse??? Keep looking if you find one take a picture of the mystical creature!!!

[meandragonbrett]

Infection Control

Quality Improvement

Utilization Review

Telephone Triage

Hospital based nurse educator

Outpatient diagnostics

Outpatient Infusion

Surgery Center Administration

Physician practice managers and liaisons

Information Technology

Nurse Recruiter

Sales

Medical Device Rep.

Overwhelming majority of nurses do work at the bedside!

[ebear, BSN, RN]

Meandragon...WHERE???

[noahsmama]

Full time, decent wage, ADN/BSN prepared, non managerial, non bedside nurse??? Keep looking if you find one take a picture of the mystical creature!!!

This is exactly how I would describe my job in public health nursing. And you can throw in "great benefits, including a pension". In fairness, I should add though that I consider myself incredibly lucky to have this job. Most county public health departments in our area are not hiring, but my county is one of the few that is -- our budget has not been slashed due to political maneuvers that I do not fully understand.

Of course, "decent wage" is in the eye of the beholder. It does pay less than the hospital job I used to have, but not a lot less, and for me as a single mom, the decreased salary is more than compensated by my decreased child care costs.

Also, I do know people who have case management jobs without having a masters degree, in fact one friend has done case management for years with just an ADN. It's true that having a masters does help though, and in fact that same friend has recently completed an RN to BSN program, and is now embarking on a masters in health care administration, because it will enable her to advance further in her career.

The comment the OP made about clinic jobs is one that many are making about hospital jobs these days -- and in the current job market there may well be some truth to it. I suspect that, with clinic jobs as well as hospital jobs, persistence may eventually pay off. There are definitely clinic jobs advertised in my area, and I even managed to get an interview for one as a BSN-RN with less than 2 years acute care experience (wasn't offered the job, but I guess I was close enough to what they were looking for that they were at least willing to consider me).

I have also seen clinical research nursing jobs advertised which do not require a masters or research experience -- they did require a BSN, plus hospital experience.

OP -- good luck with your job search -- I hope you do find a new job soon that you like better than your old one!