Are you really not a "real nurse" unless you work in acute care?

[tenderfootjoe]

I am an RN in a peds clinic, and it seems nurses who work in outpatient settings are not looked at as "real nurses" by their acute care RN counterparts. Is there a future in outpatient nursing?

Also, what are some ways I can "stay current" with my nursing skills as much as possible while working outpatient? I may want to work outpatient my whole career. However, I do want to stay up to date/marketable just in case I one day decide to move into the acute care arena.

[Emergent, RN]

Where did you hear that? Nursing has many specialties. Anyone who told you that is full of it.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

Where did you hear that? Nursing has many specialties. Anyone who told you that is full of it.

This.

Unless there has been a nursing convention on what real nursing is , nursing is nursing is nursing.

[Libby1987]

I doubt they're actually saying that.

Other than my initial acute care experience my career has been in the out patient setting, specifically home health. Our clients and providers most definitely see me as a real nurse.

Experience and what you do with it make a difference but I've had enough acute care nurses and med students blown away by what I do and accomplish in home health. Common feedback is observing how much nursing we actually do. Paperwork often scares them away but it's the actual nursing care using clinical skills that is the draw.

[vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN]

In patient close clinical setting nurses are just as valuable and important as acute care nurses! Period. Point blank.

[NOADLS]

I used to have a thing against nurses that thought like that. I soon realized that they are of benefit because they are freeing up all the easy jobs by taking the difficult ones.

[canigraduate]

Weird. Nurses are nurses.

If you want to keep your skills up, practice them. Offer to participate in skills days at local nursing schools. Volunteer for company sponsored employee health screenings. Join volunteer organizations that help the disenfranchised.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Is there a future in outpatient nursing?

Actually, as acute care jobs continue to decline in number due to the shifting of patient care to cost-effective settings outside the hospital, the wave of the future is outpatient nursing (home health, private duty, subacute rehab, clinics, doctors offices, personal care group homes, adult daycare, LTC, chronic dialysis centers, etc).

I've been a nurse for nine years and have never worked in an acute care hospital, nor do I really want to. If other nurses are willing to bust their butts in med/surg, telemetry, ortho, emergency departments, critical care, and stepdown, they can have those jobs.

[Jules A, MSN]

I personally could care less what others think. You will hear this about psych nurses also but for the most part the feedback I have gotten from nurses in other specialties has been very supportive. I hear more "I could never do what you do" in a positive way than negative comments. The truth is I am in awe of those power nurses in critical care because I could never do their job competently but on the other hand they might not be great at what I do either.

There is room for us all and I think much of it goes back to our own self esteem. Really who cares what others say?

[BSNbeauty, BSN, RN]

Maybe you can get PALS if you don't have it already.

[klone, MSN, RN]

I've never heard or got the impression that inpatient nurses say or feel that way about outpatient nurses. And even if they did, I know it's a crock of baloney, so it would go in one ear and out the other. My estimation of my value as an outpatient nurse does not hinge on what the inpatient nurses think about me.

[frenchtoastwaffles, BSN, RN]

I've never gotten that impression, though I am a nursing student- I've been working in home care and other outpatient clinics for several years now alongside nurses who come from different paths, schools, etc.

Nursing is a beautiful thing in the portability that lies in the heart of it (from what I've learned so far, anyway!) it applies to all specialties. If you feel like you're not being a nurse because someone told you you're not, screw them! If you feel like you're not as much of a nurse because you think other people see you that way, perhaps you may consider reflecting on what you want to contribute to the profession. Did you always have your heart set on acute care?

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