Good Fit as an LNC?

[NHGN]

Hi all,

Really just found this career tonight as I was searching through the allnurses site. While I'd heard of a "legal nurse", I was never sure about the details of the job.

You guys sound so nice and helpful here that I can't help posting!

My story:

I'm a SICU RN in a large prestigious hospital. I've been here for 2 years, starting for a new grad nurse residency program (happy to spend 3+ if it helps me for LNC), and my original plan pre-Nursing school had been to become a CRNA. Unfortunely because of health reasons, that looks like it may no longer be a possiblity. While I like being a staff nurse, I do not want to stay in the high-stress, fast-paced ICU area forever (though I'm sure LNCs also live in a high stressed/fast paced world at times as well).

Though I haven't read much about it (only on this forum for a couple of hours), legal nursing sounds quite interesting. I don't know much at all about law and the legal environment. I think I'd enjoy working at home or working at an office and being social. Though I'm organized, a great writer, and can speak well, I'm not extremely outgoing to strangers and I am not the person who steps on other's toes to get ahead (okay that's a little harsh, but you get my point). To be able to market myself, do I have to be an extremely Type-A, self confident, life of the party type of person? Or I can be a little more quietly skilled, efficient, and friendly person?

Also, knowing that I may not be ble to go the CRNA route has made me think about my other passions in life. I have always been around horses and have often wanted to work with them full time (if not for the lack of $). When I first read about LNCs, I thought - wow, I'd love to be able to work from home (with a horse farm and somebody else to run it while I'm working away from home), as an LNC, and fill in any slow months with per diem bedside nursing. Horses are expensive and I'd also like to live pretty comfortably. Am I under appreciating the work and stress of an LNC? I've thought briefly about benefits (health insurance!) being a problem, but I'm not going to worry about that just yet!

...So I got maybe a little too detailed there! :imbar Anyways, I'm excited to do more research on this area of nursing -- thanks for having a positive and friendly forum that attracts people to this career!

Eliza

PS- rereading my post, I felt I may have made it seem that I think being a LNC is a walk in the park -- definately don't think that!!