Career Options with RN

Nursing education does not include enough hard science to qualify us for traditional laboratory or 'sciency' type jobs. However, if a laboratory needed someone to educate patients about some aspect of their services, we could certainly do the job!

The basic fact of any job - your work has to provide sufficient value to the organization to justify your salary or the organization goes broke. The problem with health promotion and 'wellness' jobs - people won't pay out of pocket for these services, and there's insufficient reimbursement under our so-called health care system in the US.

You are not alone. Even if nurses want to remain at the bedside for their entire career, it's pretty much impossible due to the physical workload involved. If you're lucky enough to make it to middle age without a back injury, the long hours and physical strain make it nearly impossible for us 'oldies' to do the work. It's best to adopt a larger view toward career development... like you are.

Look around you in the organization. There are a lot of jobs that are not 'bedside'. Talk to these folks and find out how they moved into those jobs. Some, such as clinical supervision, case management, etc. are still very connected to patient care while others (informatics, infection control, risk management, etc.) are not. Which ones are interesting to you? I would also suggest connecting with a mentor - preferably someone already in the field you like. He/she can help you with the journey.

Best of luck to you. Keep us posted on your progress.