Is There a Nursing Career that Will Allow me to be in the Lab and Help Patients?

[jlamar11]

Hello all,

I know this is a weird question, but I'm wondering if there's a nursing career path that I could take that will allow me to also utilize my lab/bench science skills?? The closest thing that I could think of is becoming a Research Nurse, but I'm not sure if I'll still be able to analyze and study tissues, cells, viruses or other things.

I have a B.S in biochemistry and currently working at a biologics company as a cell biology technician. I'm also getting ready to start training later this month in order to become a CNA, just to see if the nursing arena will be a good fit for me. However, I also love working in the lab. In case I fall in love with nursing, my plan is to go through an accelerated program at a nursing school that someone gave me info on. But before I make that commitment, I also want to see if there's a path for me to practice hands on science with clinical care without having to get an MD/PHD.

Thanks in advance!!

Jacqueline

[mvm2]

I am afraid I don't know about you first question of combining nursing to lab work, but getting your feet wet as a CNA can be a good experiance for you in that you will know what it is like to be in the caring feild. but I will say that taking a CNA class and being a CNA does not necessarily mean you will know what being a nurse will be like. There are plenty of people that did not like being a CNA but love love love being a nurse.

[ArrowRN, BSN, RN]

Go here Johnson & Johnson Discover Nursing | Campaign for Nursing there's like 104 nursing careers...try explore specialities, browse all or use their find your speciality to see if anything that interest you comes up.

I don't know if something like forensic nursing is what interests you. I'm sure there are others.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Our (nursing) profession is focused on treating/caring for people's reaction (physiologic, emotional, etc) to disease or illness rather than curing the illness itself -- that is the purview of medicine. BTW, only physicians practice 'medicine', the rest of us practice our professions in the healthcare industry. Even though research nurses may participate in the collection of specimens, the 'nursing' focus of their jobs would be participant education and managing any symptoms or reactions they may have. Infection control nurses must have an in-depth knowledge of microbes, but their work is primarily administrative rather than direct care.

If you are interested in hard science, nursing is probably not a good fit.

[jlamar11]

Thanks for the responses! As you could probably guess I know very little about working in the healthcare arena. I thought I might give it a try and see where it takes me. From what I've heard from others, nursing is a very hard but promising career with plenty of growth opportunities (which is what I'm looking for). I'm a very empathetic and compassionate person by nature so I'm hoping those characteristics, along with having a love for science (mainly biology) will make this a good career choice. Meanwhile, I'll continue to do more homework :-)

[jlamar11]

Thanks for the link! Very helpful :-)

[jlamar11]

I am afraid I don't know about you first question of combining nursing to lab work, but getting your feet wet as a CNA can be a good experiance for you in that you will know what it is like to be in the caring feild. but I will say that taking a CNA class and being a CNA does not necessarily mean you will know what being a nurse will be like. There are plenty of people that did not like being a CNA but love love love being a nurse.

Thanks for the link! Very helpful :-)

[SeattleJess]

Our (nursing) profession is focused on treating/caring for people's reaction (physiologic, emotional, etc) to disease or illness rather than curing the illness itself -- that is the purview of medicine. BTW, only physicians practice 'medicine', the rest of us practice our professions in the healthcare industry. Even though research nurses may participate in the collection of specimens, the 'nursing' focus of their jobs would be participant education and managing any symptoms or reactions they may have. Infection control nurses must have an in-depth knowledge of microbes, but their work is primarily administrative rather than direct care.

If you are interested in hard science, nursing is probably not a good fit.

HouTx, thanks for your definition! I've been reading ahead for when nursing school begins for me at the end of September. I floundered and flailed in the books about "nursing diagnosis", trying to grab the slippery words and terms and to figure out just what it was. Took a long time to pry the meaning free from the meaning of differential (medical) diagnosis!

I'm still not convinced that "nursing diagnosis" is an apt term for what nurses do. Does anyone else suspect that the relatively recent implementation of this terminology is an attempt to get nurses respect for what they do by using high-impact words?

Still, I'm at peace with the term now as long as I can insert that key word.

di-ag-no-sis

ˌdīəgˈnōsis/

noun

noun: (nursing) diagnosis; plural noun: diagnoses

• 1.
  the identification of the nature of... (a RESPONSE TO an) illness or other problem by examination of the symptoms.
  "early diagnosis and treatment are essential"
  [TABLE=class: vk_tbl vk_gy]
  [TR]
  [TD=class: lr_dct_nyms_ttl]synonyms:[/TD]
  [TD][COLOR=#1a0dab]identification, [COLOR=#1a0dab]detection, [COLOR=#1a0dab]recognition, [COLOR=#1a0dab]determination, [COLOR=#1a0dab]discovery, pinpointing More"the diagnosis of celiac disease"
  
  
  [COLOR=#1a0dab]opinion, [COLOR=#1a0dab]judgment, [COLOR=#1a0dab]verdict, [COLOR=#1a0dab]conclusion
  "the results confirmed his diagnosis"
  
  
  [/TD]
  [/TR]
  [/TABLE]
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 2.
  the distinctive characterization in precise terms of a... (RESPONSE) phenomenon.
  
  
  
  
  
  

[SeattleJess]

jlamar, I shared your interest in combining nursing and research lab work. I spent time looking into it and concluded that it's an either/or proposition. There are gazillions of opportunities for nurses to combine their expertise with other areas but primary research is not one. I'm interested in cancer research and what I've found is that the role of nurses is pretty much limited to caring for the patients who are undergoing experimental treatments.

I stand ready to be corrected on this, though!