Fleeing the Bedside

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

Dear Nurse Beth,

I have worked on a medical floor for 14 months. Started there as new grad. Acuity levels are through the roof with 7 pt./ nurse ratio. The stress is terrible.

Can you tell me of other nursing occupations that are not as back to the wall?

Dear The Stress is Terrible,

Unfortunately, only California has nursing ratios, which include 1:5 on MedSurg and 1:4 on Tele.

It makes better business sense to me to reduce nurses stress, reduce turnover, increase patient safety, and retain nurses than to give nurses seven patients. Especially when it's not seven patients, it's seven beds. With admissions and discharges, this may mean ten or more patients on a shift.

So the solution for many nurses is to flee from the bedside, or to look for units that typically have lower acuity patients, such as post-partum. Pre and post-anesthesia units are considered by some to be less stressful and less physically taxing, although they are not without stress. Some hospitals are hiring documentation specialists, which is a non-clinical position.

Here are a few other ideas:

• Case Management Nursing
• Informatics
• Infection Prevention
• Interventional Nursing (diagnostic and interventional radiology)
• Palliative Nursing.

Check out 8 Jobs to Work from Home for more ideas.

It depends a lot on if you have your BSN, opportunity in your area, what interests you, and if you are ready to leave clinical nursing practice or not.