From Bedside to Bench? Maybe Bedside and Bench?

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Hi all! I'm still caught in a heavy debate with myself over going into nursing. I do want to be a medical practitioner, but I would also like to be a medical researcher. To be more specific, I'm very much interested in physiopathology and pathophysiology and would love a chance to work in a lab, learning more about disease processes at the cellular/molecular level and then applying that information to develop new treatments that interrupt the disease process (rather than just treating the symptoms). However, in conjunction with that, I would love to work directly with patients, caring and treating them.

From what I've been able to find, the primary group able to complete both of these tasks are MDs, and within that group, MD/PhDs complete the bulk of the research. While that could possibly be an option for me, it would be an extensively long, expensive, non-income producing road, as my current degrees are all in mental health/human services.

I'm not interested in being an MD, solely because of the reduced level of interaction between practitioners and patients. Nursing allows for the establishment of relationships, which I feel enhances medical treatment plan adherence, as well as eases the stress/fear that comes along with needing medical treatment. Oh, I guess I should say that I'm very interested in chronic illness/internal medicine.

I guess what I'm wondering is:

(a) Are any of you aware of nurses (advanced practice) that conduct biomedical research? If so, what degrees/training do they have and what which schools?

(b) Does it seem even remotely possible to be a medical scientist and a nurse?

I've been reading a lot about nurses and research and recently came an article that discussed nurse principal researchers, and while they are very few in number, they are definitely out there. I figure, if nurses can lead medical research, how much of a leap would it be to actually conduct it?

Any information that anybody can say would be greatly appreciated!

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Hi... I think you probably should do a lot of googling to help you answer your question.

Intuitively, I would say that nursing and pure biomedical research are not natural allies, but I can't say for sure.

By the way, a principal researcher is someone who is conducting research (not just "leading" it), so I'm not sure what you mean by that particular query...?

Good luck!

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There are PhDs offered in nursing but I am not sure the type of research they do will exactly align with what you have described, hopefully someone more experienced can chime in. It may be worth reading published research articles from faculty members at top schools to see if what they are doing interest you.

ETA: I saw a previous post you are interested in Duke's ABSN. I am attending Duke Days next month so I think you may find it helpful to read some of the previous threads on the North Carolina State forums. Duke's website and even facebook often updates with the latest research their faculty is doing. You can then go on their website and look at faculty's bios to get a feel for their education and experience.

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Honestly, I think you need to focus on a field and go with it. You are trying to combine nursing and medicine, two models of care and practice that don't go together. There are many opportunities for advanced practice nurses, but I suspect you aren't really looking for that based on what you wrote...and there are many avenues for those who hold medical degrees, but that isn't what you want either.

In order to get to the "research" level in nursing, you're looking at PhD status and ALOT of time and experience gained in the field, not in school. School is a start, but not a qualifier alone. You'd have to be a working nurse for many years first.

It isn't a list of schools that you need, it's the understanding that the kind of work you're looking to do must either be obtained after attaining years and years of nursing experience OR years and years of medical training.

Which model do you prefer?

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

You don't make any mention of wanting to care for patients.If you want to be a scientist I would recommend you don't go to nursing school.The things you want to do don't match up with being a nurse.

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Thanks for your response. My comment referred specifically to nurses that are PIs. Of the few that I've been able to find, all were leading research, but it wasn't their own work. A person can be the PI for a study without it being his/her research; I prefer not to run another person's study.

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Thanks for responding. I've got quite a bit of searching to do yet. So far, I'm not quite finding what I'm looking for...there was a poster here that stated that one of her nursing professors worked in basic research. She hasn't posted since, however, so I'm not sure how to get more information about that from her.

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Nursing is medicine...I'm not really sure where you were going with that statement. I'm quite aware of the hard road ahead of me, so I don't really need to be spoken to like a child off on a wild goose chase. What I would like to do is clearly not something that is being done frequently, but I won't allow that to stop me. Thanks.

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Please read carefully:

"However, in conjunction with that, I would love to work directly with patients, caring and treating them. "

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I appreciate that you all took the time to respond; I think the information that I'm looking for is best provided by advanced practitioners and researchers in the field. I realize that what I'm trying to do is virtually unheard of, and those most likely was not the best avenue through which to gather information. Thanks again.

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Was so excited to find the Journal of Biological Research for Nursing (http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/2678_1BRN00_.pdf). I'm feeling infinitely more hopeful now that I know that there are biological nurse researchers out there, even if the field is still relatively small. Biological nurse researchers are also a small (but growing) component of the NINR (part of NIH). Just for those that have the same interests as I; there are a few other threads on this topic, so hopefully, those other posters will find this information helpful.

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I have a lot of my nursing instructors who are are researchers BUT nursing research is about nursing like double gloving, quality control issues, hand-washing. Basically, what practices can nurses incorporate to help with quality of care. Sounds like you need to work in something like CDC lol or epidemiology (if that's even a degree). Maybe an infectious disease dr or immunology dr? Really disease processes isn't, to me, the scope of nursing practice. It's important to know them I feel like, but it's really not about finding cures I wouldn't think. I may be completely wrong lol I am only a nursing student and I am currently in my nursing research class and I feel like that's what it's mostly about.

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