Career advice

[mlittle]

Hello to everyone,

I am a surgical, trauma, burn nurse who will graduate with her BSN in May. Yeah! I am torn on which way to go with my career though. I know I want to go to grad school, but I am not sure excatly what I want to do. I know I don't want to be a nurse practitioner, I think I would get bored. I have followed a few CRNA's, but I don't think they deal with patients the way I kie to. I know I like to teach other nursing students or other nurses who are orientating to our unit about what critical care nurses do and why we do it. I don't think I would like to teach in the college setting because I like the patient care contact. I really enjoy educating people about the benefits of caring for themsleves through diet, exercise and well-being and finding happiness within yourself. I hope all of this makes sense to whom ever reads this, but I really need some solid advice. My husband is in a CRNA program and is very suportive of what I want to do. I thought I would go to the same program he is in, but the more I get to know myself I don't know if that is the career move for me. Thanks for time and support. Hope to hear from you soon.

[Rio, ASN, RN]

You may want to consider an Adjunct Clinical Instructor position. In my area the local community college, ADN program, uses adjunts to handle the student load in clinical rotations at area hospitals. The advantages are you get your feet wet without a long term commitment, the hourly rate is actually better than a full-time instructor and there are no papers to grade (other than care plans). The disadvantages are that it is usually a non-tenure track job, it can be eliminated, there are no benefits, like health, dental etc., and it's part-time, 2 -3 days per week.

Good luck,