Ever left a nightshift hospital job for a day shift low stress job?

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Curious who’s ever been in my shoes and what you chose to do instead. I’ve been a nurse for 7.5 years total, 6.5 being RN (1 year working as an LPN while finishing RN degree).  Except for a few short stints, my career so far has consisted mostly of nightshift, and most of my time has been spent in hospital nursing. (Med surg and then NICU). I enjoy my current job overall  but I’ve just reached a point where I can’t do nights like I used to, and I’m just sick of hospital nursing in general. Like many, COVID related stress has added to that, although that wasn’t the main driving factor for me initially. Nights is not an option for me anymore. Even though I don’t think nurses should necessarily have to “pay their dues”, I have nonetheless in terms of working those dang nightshifts, haha. Something day shift, low stress, and outpatient sounds fantastic. What areas have you gone into and enjoyed? I understand that every job can be stressful at times and I’m not looking to be lazy, I rather enjoy being busy and having the shift pass by - I’m just done with the unpredictable hospital scene. ? I have my eye out for private practices as they seem to pay better than clinics owned by the hospital.  Perhaps there are even day shift units in the hospital that are low stress? If so what are those? I’ve heard that endoscopy or PACU are good inpatient areas. Thoughts? I’ve Also considered these areas as I hear they are good outpatient jobs:

Clinical appeals 

Clinical research 

Home infusion 

Aesthetics/plastics 

 

 What have you or someone you know transitioned to that you enjoyed after having worked hospital and/or nights? 

 

thanks ?

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Specializes in NICU/Mother-Baby/Peds/Mgmt.

I've done it 3 times,  once in the military and twice in civil service.  All 3 hospital jobs were rotating shifts but I worked more nights than days in all of them,  by choice.   The hospital shifts were 12 hours, clinics 8.  I won't say I'll never do a clinic again but I hope I never have to.   Even though I didn't always sleep well on nights  (or even days) what I didn't like was working 5 days/week instead of 3.  I was used to doing chores during the week when most people were working but that doesn't happen when you work M-F.  I felt like I had much more free time on 12s.  

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Consider focusing on work from home jobs. I know a new grad that started out working from home! Scour the job boards  for these jobs. Insurance jobs and disease management jobs are out there.

Good luck.

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

Years ago, I transitioned from  hospital FT to every other weekend and started in homecare perdiem then Hospice 3 days week. Totally left hospital ~ 1994 for home infusion and home care --able to schedule visits around family life.

 

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Geriatrics, Wound Care.

I left doing med-surg nights to inpatient wound care days. I really miss working nights, though, but not "bedside nursing".

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Specializes in ER, Pre-Op, PACU.

I left the ER for pre-op/PACU and have never looked back. I would like to try endoscopy nursing at some point maybe, but am happy where I am for now. The only thing to think about is the on call requirements for Pre-op/PACU as those can be draining sometimes (or it is at my hospital as it has turned into we work all day and sometimes at night too for admitted patients that don’t have rooms upstairs). However, the job itself is very nice and relatively low stress - much more so then inpatient or ER nursing. If you want to stay bedside, it’s a good idea to look into. 

 

 

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On 8/25/2021 at 10:17 AM, Nunya said:what I didn't like was working 5 days/week instead of 3.  I was used to doing chores during the week when most people were working but that doesn't happen when you work M-F.  I felt like I had much more free time on 12s.  

That’s the only thing I *do* really like about inpatient hospital hours. Getting long stretches off. However, with our staffing, more often than not I only get 2-3 days off between shifts, and when you work nights, you’re spending half that time just recuperating from exhaustion. I could sometimes work more shifts in a row and be off longer, but again - back to staffing - you’re putting in a looooot of work in those 3+ nights to the point where I question if it’s worth it to have multiple days off. In the past, I’ve worked night shift jobs where I had 1-2 days off between 3 night stretches then 6-7 days off every other week. But we had more staff and better patient ratios so it worked out. I feel like I’d actually be more productive doing 8 hour shifts more times per week. That wasn’t always the case - but at this point in my life, even though I’m still young, those nights just don’t work for me anymore! I work wiry way older nurses who are *still* doing them and functioning fine at home with families and all - but I don’t see that being me. 

but yes I do hear you when it comes to the length and # of shifts per week. Definitely pros and cons to leaving 12 hour shifts! ? 
 

 

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On 8/26/2021 at 4:07 PM, Been there,done that said:

Consider focusing on work from home jobs. I know a new grad that started out working from home! Scour the job boards  for these jobs. Insurance jobs and disease management jobs are out there.

Good luck.

Yes, I am looking into those!! I know a lot of people will say that they are hard to get because everyone wants them, but on the other hand, I hear people at work all the time speaking about “oh I should leave for x,y,z job”. But so many people I know have been doing a certain specialty for so long that they won’t actually ever leave and learn something new because they like the familiarity of their current job. I on the other hand am open to something new! You never know if you can get it til you go try! ? I’ve also heard of people say it’s socially isolating and they even returned to bedside because they missed people!!  while I enjoy my coworkers’ company, I’m someone who can go long periods of time without being around people and I like it. Haha! My mom worked from home (different line of work than nursing although still the medical field) and it worked for her. It’s suited for some people - I feel like I could function “alone” in my job without being surrounded by people. Thanks for the recommendation!  

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On 8/27/2021 at 9:10 PM, speedynurse said:

I left the ER for pre-op/PACU and have never looked back. I would like to try endoscopy nursing at some point maybe, but am happy where I am for now. The only thing to think about is the on call requirements for Pre-op/PACU as those can be draining sometimes (or it is at my hospital as it has turned into we work all day and sometimes at night too for admitted patients that don’t have rooms upstairs). However, the job itself is very nice and relatively low stress - much more so then inpatient or ER nursing. If you want to stay bedside, it’s a good idea to look into. 

 

 

Bedside isn’t priority for me, but I’m not opposed if it’s more low stress. I’d have to look into the on-call requirements at my hospital,  but something to consider! 

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On 8/26/2021 at 10:21 PM, CalicoKitty said:

I left doing med-surg nights to inpatient wound care days. I really miss working nights, though, but not "bedside nursing".

What kind of hours does that entail? Day shift 12 hour shifts? 

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On 8/26/2021 at 5:50 PM, NRSKarenRN said:

Years ago, I transitioned from  hospital FT to every other weekend and started in homecare perdiem then Hospice 3 days week. Totally left hospital ~ 1994 for home infusion and home care --able to schedule visits around family life.

 

I really like this option. I’ve worked briefly for home health (a couple of those short stints I spoke of) but neither job was quite suited for me. One I was barely a new grad and they were desperate for warm bodies and ended up throwing me under the bus. Another was EASY PEASY and I *loved* my patients but the agency I worked for was ran poorly and I left only because I was afraid of getting tied up in medicare fraud, the owner was nice but kinda sketch. I’ve heard of some people loving home health and some being overwhelmed and overworked. But I would love to find the right fit in home health! I definitely enjoyed being able to be flexible with my patient visits and being able to spend part of my “work day” driving around with the windows down and music on going house to house ? thanks for your input! 

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I applied to endoscopy and got turned down immediately because I don’t have surgical or OR experience.  ? I know plenty of people who went into endoscopy without that and did just fine - and it would help if they listed this required experience in their job description. Same with the remote jobs I applied to. After talking with the recruiter those are all “on site” jobs. So why does it say they are remote/work from home  in their description? It can take a considerable amount of time out of your day to apply to jobs depending on the application process and it’d be great if companies could list their requirements or accurate info in the description so we don’t waste each other’s time. Super annoyed. I’ll keep looking.

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