Hello, I've been a RN, BSN for about 7.5 years, working as a floor nurse for the most part on the night shift 7pm-7am. I started out my career at age 25-years-old on a busy Med-Surg Tele unit, worked my way up to a Preceptor, Resource Nurse and Charge Nurse within 2 years and have won the Daisy Award. I am now per diem at my old job since I wanted a change of scenery and better pay. Now, I currently work full-time at a busy Stroke Unit in a bigger hospital and I still don't "love" nursing. I don't want to go to ER or ICU, nor am I interested in management. I am tired of being extremely tired on my days off. I believe the night shift is wearing me down. The constant physical demands of the job is wearing me down. The mental demands of the job is wearing me down (constantly having to be fake-nice with rude coworkers and/or rude doctors, and demanding family members). I am tired of having all the responsibility of having lives at stake under my watch for 12 hours and having everything blamed on the RN no matter what. I am tired of hospital politics and dealing with mean higher ups who have forgotten what working the floor is like. Life is short, and I want a job that I LOVE going to, but still pays about the same or better. My question is, when did you leave bedside nursing? And what non-bedside nursing job did you go into? And did you love it? Any insight or advice is greatly appreciated!
Non-Bedside nursing jobs I'm considering: Nurse Educator or Clinical Instructor, Hospice, Home Health, Clinical Nurse Researcher, Corrections, Public Health, Nurse Writer, Aesthetic Nursing, or go back to school for NP to specialize in Dermatology. Please help me get out of bedside!! Do I have enough experience to leave?
1) Bedside nursing pays better than most less stressful non-bedside nursing. (I would consider management more stressful and pays some better)
2) People usually go into nursing out of a desire to help/take care of other people. This probably needs to be part of your new job.
I was working on my schooling, feeling burned out at the bedside and needed a less stressful job, I took a "nurse auditor" job. This job involved checking bills vs documentation at a children's hospital. Schedule was awesome, "Don't come before 6:00am, if you won't be here by 10:00am please text us." I was very successful, worth about $1 million a year to the hospital, however, I quickly realized that I was missing the taking care of people/benefiting society aspect of nursing.
I have also tried home-health, I didn't like it. My home-health job felt like necessary wound care mixed with unnecessary nursing (this is just how it felt to me, I realize not everyone will agree).
I now teach nursing at my local college and again the schedule is awesome and I feel like I am benefiting society again.
Wanting to leave bedside, I suggest more schooling, in my area a BSN can do clinicals for the college and teach LPN courses, you need at least a Master's to be full-time faculty. My Master's took 3 years part-time, but I have some co-workers complete an MSN in 6 months at online schools.
Go for utilization management or case management, especially for payor/insurance side; they offer lots of work-at-home opportunities; can you imagine waking up from bed, grab cup of coffee, kill about one hour and turning on your computer to work in your pajamas instead of being stuck in traffic to work? I plan on getting MBA or MHA then go up the ladder.
Also, I get paid way better than working at hospital; if I took a day shift, I will probably lose more than 13-15k a year. The only way to keep what I get paid is night shift and may even need over time here and there to keep up with what I make now.
I hated bedside nursing so much; the worst was all the politics and stupid presganey scores that made people think hospital was a hotel; I bet if patient killed a nurse because he didn't like a tuna casserole in his lunch tray, the administrator would find ways to blame the nurse to avoid litigation, and then reprimand food services for not foretelling that patient did not like tuna in his casserole.
Out Patient Surgical Centers are sooooo easy. Monday to Friday, no nights, no weekends, no holidays, no call. The patients "have" to be healthy enough to go home the same day after surgery.
You still keep up "some" nursing skills in. The pay is a little less but it is worth it.
I went to WGU and completed my MSN in Education in 11 months. I am in my first semester as a full time nurse faculty member in an ADN program and I LOVE it. I always liked orienting new hires and precepting new nurses but in a busy ER, I didn't always have time to explain everything. I get to teach full time now. My contract includes holidays, nights, and weekends off. I get 2 weeks for Christmas and summers off (some teach through summer too). I get state benefits. I am only expected to actually be on campus or in clinical 30 hours a week so unless I am exceptionally busy, I can usually leave work around 3:30. I can actually eat lunch and pee when I want. I have a nice office to myself. Truly, it's the best move I've made in nursing.
Hello, I've been a RN, BSN for about 7.5 years, working as a floor nurse for the most part on the night shift 7pm-7am. I started out my career at age 25-years-old on a busy Med-Surg Tele unit, worked my way up to a Preceptor, Resource Nurse and Charge Nurse within 2 years and have won the Daisy Award. I am now per diem at my old job since I wanted a change of scenery and better pay. Now, I currently work full-time at a busy Stroke Unit in a bigger hospital and I still don't "love" nursing. I don't want to go to ER or ICU, nor am I interested in management. I am tired of being extremely tired on my days off. I believe the night shift is wearing me down. The constant physical demands of the job is wearing me down. The mental demands of the job is wearing me down (constantly having to be fake-nice with rude coworkers and/or rude doctors, and demanding family members). I am tired of having all the responsibility of having lives at stake under my watch for 12 hours and having everything blamed on the RN no matter what. I am tired of hospital politics and dealing with mean higher ups who have forgotten what working the floor is like. Life is short, and I want a job that I LOVE going to, but still pays about the same or better. My question is, when did you leave bedside nursing? And what non-bedside nursing job did you go into? And did you love it? Any insight or advice is greatly appreciated!
Non-Bedside nursing jobs I'm considering: Nurse Educator or Clinical Instructor, Hospice, Home Health, Clinical Nurse Researcher, Corrections, Public Health, Nurse Writer, Aesthetic Nursing, or go back to school for NP to specialize in Dermatology. Please help me get out of bedside!! Do I have enough experience to leave?
I left for corrections a few years ago and my only regret is not doing it sooner. I treat everyone with common courtesy as I did @ bedside nursing with difference being they actually have to treat me same. Unlike hospital nursing if jail patient gets belligerent or violent deputies take them back to cell. I have not done my homework but I would guess there are less assaults given hospital security could be 15 minutes away.
Hi HelloWish. When you made the decision to leave bedside nursing work in outpatient oncology, was there a huge decrease in pay (if any)? I am thinking about making the same change and although a decrease in pay is a possibility, I am finding that I am being offered way less in pay than what I could even imagine when making the change from being a bedside nurse to working in an outpatient setting.
Although not as physically tiring, you woukd have to deal with many of the same issues.
Home Health is heavily measured on patient outcomes, reduced readmissions and customer satisfaction. I'm compelled to meet all 3 and I don't resent the, seemingly unnecessary and non sensical to many, hoops to do so including the tremendous amount of documentation that everyone underestimates prior to experiencing it.
Home health is not for everybody but with every nurse that I've worked with or hired that came from a burnt out position they remained dissatisfied.
I left bedside nursing for a school nurse position. If you don't want to take the huge leap check the school districts in your area about sub positions - be a substitute nurse a couple of times at the different grade levels - elementary, middle and high school and see if you like it. I did take a little bit of a pay cut when I made the transition but my sanity was totally worth it - I am paid on a teachers pay scale so it is decent money for what I do. Hours are great, no holidays, no weekends, same schedule as my kids, no call, no mandatory OT are just some of the benefits.
1) Bedside nursing pays better than most less stressful non-bedside nursing. (I would consider management more stressful and pays some better)
2) People usually go into nursing out of a desire to help/take care of other people. This probably needs to be part of your new job.
1) This has not been my experience, at all. The year I left my bedside nursing position, by the end of the year I made $20k more than I did been the previous year. I will say that year was a bit of an anomaly because when I left my bedside position, I worked 2 jobs and I got a large PTO payout when I left my hospital job that added to my pay that year but my salary was still higher. Every non-bedside position I've held has paid significantly more than my staff nurse position did. Since leaving bedside nursing 6 years ago, my annual base pay has increased by $35K and I don't have to work nights, weekends or holidays. That's an average of almost $6K/year raise. My annual raises in the hospital would have amounted to probably $600-$1200.
2) In all of my Mon-Fri jobs, I've still felt like I'm helping people. As a home health manager, I helped people keep their kids at home. As a home infusion liaison, I helped people learn how to take care of their kids at home thereby shortening their hospital stays. At my current job, I help foster parents manage the medically complex children that have been placed in their homes.
Specializes in Adult and Pediatric Vascular Access, Paramedic.
My job is still at the bedside, but I feel it is a lot less stressful then actually being the primary nurse. I do vascular access at a children's hospital (which I just started three weeks ago. I did vascular access on mainly adults before that). A LOT less stressful in my opinion then typical beside positions. We just go do our thing and leave, so if their is a difficult parent no biggie. You also get to move around still and you still care for patients and make a difference in their care! Also no heavy lifting, wiping behinds, or doing any of the real labor intensive stuff that comes with nursing
I do think I want to get back to the bedside at some point though, as I miss caring for the whole patient, and being able to do that without have to care for adults would be totally awesome.
Hi HelloWish. When you made the decision to leave bedside nursing work in outpatient oncology, was there a huge decrease in pay (if any)? I am thinking about making the same change and although a decrease in pay is a possibility, I am finding that I am being offered way less in pay than what I could even imagine when making the change from being a bedside nurse to working in an outpatient setting.
I had a large increase in pay actually. I started out in bedside as a new grad. 9 months later I worked outpatient oncology and received a 10K pay increase. However it was salaried position and I ended up working 50 hours per week and also needing to study from home for some patient education.
I think it would depend on how much experience you have.
Matthew RN, MSN
54 Posts
Things to be aware of:
1) Bedside nursing pays better than most less stressful non-bedside nursing. (I would consider management more stressful and pays some better)
2) People usually go into nursing out of a desire to help/take care of other people. This probably needs to be part of your new job.
I was working on my schooling, feeling burned out at the bedside and needed a less stressful job, I took a "nurse auditor" job. This job involved checking bills vs documentation at a children's hospital. Schedule was awesome, "Don't come before 6:00am, if you won't be here by 10:00am please text us." I was very successful, worth about $1 million a year to the hospital, however, I quickly realized that I was missing the taking care of people/benefiting society aspect of nursing.
I have also tried home-health, I didn't like it. My home-health job felt like necessary wound care mixed with unnecessary nursing (this is just how it felt to me, I realize not everyone will agree).
I now teach nursing at my local college and again the schedule is awesome and I feel like I am benefiting society again.
Wanting to leave bedside, I suggest more schooling, in my area a BSN can do clinicals for the college and teach LPN courses, you need at least a Master's to be full-time faculty. My Master's took 3 years part-time, but I have some co-workers complete an MSN in 6 months at online schools.