Injured on Job and Fired

Dear Nurse Beth Advice Column - The following letter submitted anonymously in search for answers. Join the conversation!

Updated:  

Injured on Job and Fired

Dear Nurse Beth,

I have been a nurse for several years, ADN prepared. I have spent the majority of my career working in surgical ICU where I developed a lot of specialized skills. I loved my job and planned to stay until retirement. I never furthered my education.

I was hurt on the job, had to have surgery, and was then fired. I am in my 40s and after surgery, I possess permanent restrictions which make bedside nursing untenable.

I have to start over and have no idea what type of nursing-related job I could do with restrictions and an ADN. Ideally, I would like a job that would allow me to utilize my vast knowledge of critical care. I am unqualified to teach with just an ADN. I am willing to advance my education but need to support myself in the meantime. I don't even know where to begin my job search.

Share this post

+ Add A Comment

8 Answers

Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.

Dear Starting Over,

I'm sorry about your injury and that you were fired. Unfortunately, it seems we've all heard that scenario before  happening to a colleague.

The good news is you are still young and have time to advance your education. The sooner you start, the better. The not-good news is what you already know, that many non-clinical nursing jobs require a BSN.

I wish every nurse with an ADN who is working bedside would read this and plan ahead because at some point you need a backup plan.

Without knowing your restrictions, it sounds like any patient care, such as dialysis, is off-limits for you. In an emergency, you would be required to lift or pull a certain amount of weight. Job descriptions are built with lifting requirements to protect the employer, so often even non-clinical jobs, such as management, include them.

Register on indeed.com and as search words, use "RN" and "remote" to get started. You will see there are a lot of non-clinical jobs out there, including triage nurse, case management, clinical documentation, care coordinator, and much more.

Many require a BSN but there are many that only require recent hospital experience. If it says "BSN required" don't apply. If it says "BSN preferred", go ahead and apply.

It's important to land a job as soon as possible to minimize your employment gap. Like you said, you are starting over in your career, and that can be exciting to see where opportunity takes you.

Best wishes,

Nurse Beth

20 hours ago, Nurse Beth said:

I wish every nurse with an ADN who is working bedside would read this and plan ahead because at some point you need a backup plan.

That and personally I would say don't become hung up on having a hospital job or tying your value/self esteem/identity to your highly-regarded nursing specialty.  I couldn't get that out of my system for many years and now that time of dragging my feet (in leaving) is one of a couple of serious life regrets. Just time wasted mostly due to false and erroneous beliefs and perceptions about myself and nursing (along the classic lines of: hospital nurses smarter/better, etc). What a bunch of baloney and clearly I'm still mad for being such an idiot. ?

To the one who wrote this: If you can't do bedside ICU then some part of your nursing identity is going to change. Trust me, it'll be okay. Grieve it a little, and get over it. Your experiences are part of your holding knowledge now forever and will serve you well whatever you do next.

(That said, can you do a care management/RN care manager role??)

Specializes in BSN, RN, CVRN-BC.

Search for opportunites away from the bedside that will let you start with your ADN with the agreement that you will earn your BSN in 2 years.   My hopsital hired a manager and a quality nurse with these provisions.  They probably have hired even more of which I am unaware.  Nursing informatics might be a good place to look especially if you were a super-user at some point.  Take what you loved and were good at in the ICU and look for opportunities.  If you loved CRRT then see if any of the companies that sell CRRT equipment are looking for educators.  If you love IABP then look at companies that sell ballon pumps.  I'm certain that the SICU had some specialty equipment with which you worked.

Those are some ideas.  Hopefully at least one of them is helpful.

Good luck!

Specializes in Clinical Manager.

Hi,

Try being a utilization review nurse. They do not require a BSN and are mostly remote. I in fact have had several non bedside nursing jobs with just an ADN. Quality improvement at a home care agency, utilization review, medical policy writer for an insurance company and now I am a clinical program manager for a palliative home based medical care. My job description said MSN preferred but I was recruited without one (I didn't apply for this job). So do not lose hope. I didn't get my BSN as I do not want anymore debt and I do not want to owe time to a job for them paying for it.

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Great advice as usual Nurse Beth. I would go a little further and say there are many ADN to MSN programs that are online and offer career opportunities that would take you into retirement. Would you be able to do an office job? Primary care NPs are in demand. I went back to school in my 40's for an MSN and a couple of post-MSN certifications. I'm now uh in my mid-60's and easily able to cont doing what I do until I'm 70 or so...

Best wishes. 

Specializes in Director of Care Management.

Please consider Care Management. There are also so many other jobs you can do as a nurse, if bedside is no longer an option.

Specializes in oncology.
Nurse Beth said:

I would like a job that would allow me to utilize my vast knowledge of critical care.

Nurse Beth said:

I am unqualified to teach with just an ADN. I am willing to advance my education but need to support myself in the meantime.

There are very few faculty jobs for teaching entry level students (ASN, BSN) critical care nursing.  And when some critical care nurses transfer to teaching medical-surgical nursing there can be conflict with the role. 

Nurse Beth said:

I was hurt on the job, had to have surgery, and was then fired.

Why is there no 'workman's' compensation....no investigation into unemployment insurance...(yes unemployment insurance can help even when you are fired)

Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

Please look into clinical documentation improvement (CDI) roles in your local hospitals. Many of those roles have gone remote, as a bonus, but hospitals will train nurses in CDI when they possess a critical care background like you do. Your knowledge is valuable. Remote/work-from-home jobs are ridiculously competitive right now with market saturation seeming to drive down wages (I am part of a facebook group called Remote Nursing Jobs, it's full of great info and discussions like that). Finding a local job might help you get a foot in the door. Also consider looking into quality and risk management jobs. It's hard to give up your nursing identity (I still self-identify as an ER nurse even though I'm no longer in the ER, so I get it!!), but you can and will make your peace with it; I have. ❤️ Good luck!!

+ Add a Comment