Lowest stress (still great pay) nursing specialties?

Hello all,

This is my first post here so bear with me. I am a current RN student and while my main focus right now is finishing the program I am nevertheless interested in finding out more about different specialties from nurses who have been there.

I have yet to decide on a nursing specialty for sure. To be honest money is a big motivator for me..but a post I read from forum member THE COMMUTER really struck me as exaclty how I feel. It stated id rather love my personal life and tolerate my job than tolerate my life and love my job. By this I mean im never going to enjoy work, I mostly enjoy traveling, exploring , cars..etc..(hence money motivated).

So begs the question...what nursing specialty out of the seemingly hundreds...would be very low stress on a daily basis and very good pay ( even if masters level as I have considered the NP route after RN school).

Any suggestions? ( I know im kinda asking for the best of both worlds here but im looking for things closest to what I seek). Thanks in advance everyone.

146 Answers

If someone knows of a very low stress nursing job that has very good pay I'd personally like to see it.

Aliens, it doesn't exist. You already know that the nurses you know who are working in the group home are low-paid, but you like that they have low stress. You already see, then, that the two ideals of low stress and high pay don't go together.

The nurses earning higher pay are in higher-pressure or higher stress environments which is why they get more money.

Get a degree, get a license, then try to get a job. Depending on where you are you might have trouble getting anything so you might want to be careful about setting yourself up for disappointment at finding yourself in a low paying low stress job, or a higher paying, high stress job.

I would depend on you. I would find working with infants stressful. My aunt loves them.

ICU isn't my cup of tea. I like to move on. ER suits me better, but I've heard other people say they can't stand that.

I personally find that good coworkers decrease my stress level, but that doesn't narrow specialties.

I would use your clinicals to find something that either pulls at you or interests you. That area is likely to be the least stressful area for you.

Correctional nursing comes to mind or mental health. My friend works for a state mental hospital in California dealing with sexual predators , which is in that middle of nowhere. He's not a nurse, just a tech, but he's going back to school to be a nurse. The pay is great, retirement benefits and he said the work is so easy compared to the acute hospital. That's why he wants to work there when he becomes a nurse

I work med surg tele, and it's demanding and stressful. I am considering other easy options like yourself. Sure you may not be able to practice skills working at those places but that's a trade off.

The best kept secret in nursing is home health,particularly Private Duty nursing working 1 on 1 through an agency!

Specializes in CEN.

I've heard that preop testing is great and many of them get paid hospital salary. Ambulatory surgery is pretty good too. The thing is though, the nurses in these places love it so much they never leave. That's ok for me. At the moment, I'm really enjoying working on my unit. My job is a littke stressful, but boy does the time fly!

Specializes in Oncology.

I feel like you're setting yourself up for a negative self fulfilling prophecy if before you even start you're expecting not to be able to love your job and your personal life. Like it or not, if you work full time you're going to spend nearly a third of your life at work. Low stress jobs can tend to be dull jobs. My job isn't low stress, but I work with a great group of people and get some fantastic stories out of it. You might as well aim for more than tolerable.

There is almost always a trade off somewhere.

Lots of people want what you want and are willing to take a paycut to get it.

Low stress often means low pay. The ones that do pay, require specialized experience, connections, working in a place where you can get training, and perhaps an advanced degree; really, it can take years to get into things like lactation consulting, staff development and education, transplant coordinator, ECMO specialist, wound-ostomy nurse, etc.

Over the years I have come across nurses who I thought had plum jobs but gave them up. One guy worked nursing informatics, but went back to ICU when he could no longer handle the 60 hour work weeks- he did get lured back when offered a hefty raise though.

One thing to consider is that "low stress" can also mean monotonous, boring, stale, dry...........you get the picture. To me, being bored is an awful thing in a job. I would rather have some level of stress keeping me on my toes and keeping me challenged. When I was in nursing school, people would often say to me, "Nursing is not an easy job." Well, I didn't go into it because I wanted an easy job.

The only low stress high paying nursing jobs out there are filled by people not carrying their weight. They simply don't exist. Every nursing position has a productivity expectation.

Finding something that you have an aptitude and relevant experience for can feel low stress and potentially pay better. Commuter's, and I think BTDT's, jobs are no doubt manageable for them due to what they brought. I had a work from home insurance job that I thrived in whereas a coworker hired at the same time struggled and thought it much more difficult.

School nursing and post partum. I've don't both and currently doing PP.

If I knew how to make buckets of money with no effort, I'd be off somewhere with no internet access.

Specializes in ICU.
RNperdiem said:
Low stress often means low pay. The ones that do pay, require specialized experience, connections, working in a place where you can get training, and perhaps an advanced degree; really, it can take years to get into things like lactation consulting, staff development and education, transplant coordinator, ECMO specialist, wound-ostomy nurse, etc.

ECMO specialist? Not low-stress. Soooo not low-stress.

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