Mid-forties Nurse - Thinking about my future

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.

Hi Nurse Beth,

I am in my mid-40's and have 6 years of nursing experience which is mostly in acute care. I am thinking about my future a lot, especially my old-age, but would like to go into a specialty which I could grow old in. Knowing that I am not getting younger, and is fairly new to the field, I would like to make sure that the area I would be choosing is a best fit for me. Which area do you think is advisable for me to go into considering my age and the background I have? I am thinking of signing up for a continuing education opportunity either in ICU, Nephrology or High Acuity Nursing. What other factors do you think I should consider in choosing right? Thanks very much!

Dear Thinking About your Future,

It's wise to think ahead so it doesn't take you by surprise someday when you realize you want/need to do something other than bedside nursing. And at your young age, you have plenty of time to prepare :). You are well positioned, as your acute care background will make you eligible for many different roles that can take you into the later years of your career.

For now, pick the clinical specialty that appeals to you to work in, and pursue continuing education. You will gain valuable experience in any of the areas you mentioned. Then, start to envision where you see yourself down the road to establish your long-term goal. Leadership? Do you see yourself in more of an office setting? Working with patients? Orienting new nurses? Then look into the requirements for the job you want, and start to meet them. Network and find a mentor to guide you.

Here are just a few opportunities that can be great for nurses transitioning away from the bedside. Many provide Monday-Friday work hours:

  • Case Management
  • Nursing Leadership- influence nursing practice
  • Pre Admit Screening- meet with patients before surgery, patient education
  • Quality- meeting core measures
  • Regulatory- meeting regulatory requirements, helping with surveys
  • Staff Development- great if you enjoy teaching other nurses and nursing staff
  • Infection Prevention
  • Sales- work with a medical equipment vendor, travel, inservice clients
  • Informatics-where nursing practice meets computerized order entry
  • Coding- a friend of mine does this from a remote location- her home! It was a wonderful opportunity for her. She lives in a family-friendly town in Montana, with goats and chickens for the kids, and works for a hospital in California remotely! Just had to share that story.

There are so many opportunities for nurses, and new roles are being created all the time, such as Telephonic Nursing. I think most people have NO IDEA all of the different career paths that exist for nurses.

Keep us posted on what you decide.

Best Wishes,

Nurse Beth

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Coding sounds like something I want to do. I absolutely love your great tips! :D

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Specializes in Psychiatric, Aesthetics.

I love this post! :up: As a allied healthcare professional/nursing student in my mid forties, I'm concerned as to where I'm headed also. Thanks for the question and response.

In learning coding, and to "jasmine", coding sucks! Well, maybe it's just me. :arghh:

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Specializes in Med Surg, Informatics.

Gerat suggestions. Coding is interesting and convenient, but I don't think the income is on a par with nursing.

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Another option is telephone triage nursing. This is currently the role I'm in for a large IM group. It's never something I imagined I'd do, but it's afforded me the opportunity to take care of some elective medical procedures I'd postponed. Also as I'm knocking on 40's door it's much easier on my body than running around the floor for a 12 hour shift straight!

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.
Gerat suggestions. Coding is interesting and convenient, but I don't think the income is on a par with nursing.

Good news- when a nurse is the coder, the pay is "nurse level " pay, not "non-nurse, clerical" pay. I'm waiting to see if this becomes a growing field, because hospitals are beginning to realize that nurse coders save them money.

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.
Another option is telephone triage nursing. This is currently the role I'm in for a large IM group. It's never something I imagined I'd do, but it's afforded me the opportunity to take care of some elective medical procedures I'd postponed. Also as I'm knocking on 40's door it's much easier on my body than running around the floor for a 12 hour shift straight!

Love it! Telephonic nursing is a growing specialty :)

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Specializes in Med Surg, Informatics.

Thanks for sharing this. Had I known this years ago, it might have been something to pursue. Clinical Informatics has not been as satisfying as I had hoped, so I now work in the IT department as a Systems Analyst. My nursing background and years with the organization are valuable assets.

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Thanks for sharing this. Had I known this years ago, it might have been something to pursue. Clinical Informatics has not been as satisfying as I had hoped, so I now work in the IT department as a Systems Analyst. My nursing background and years with the organization are valuable assets.

This is interesting Donnakhamm. When I was interviewing for my current Telephone Triage position I was also interviewing for a Clinical Informatics job.

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Specializes in Med Surg, Informatics.

Clinical Informatics positions vary so much from organization to organization. For my enterprise, the Clinical Informaticists are basically Epic experts--since Epic is our source of truth. Epic is the epicenter of all quality, Meaningful use, workflows, etc. I find it more challenging to work with the groups who have applications that must exist outside of Epic that will never become part of Epic: CareWebQi for Case Managers, TrackCore for Tissue Tracking, and many others. WE often interface with Epic in a variety of ways--always a learning curve!

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The position I was going to take would have been on the system wide team of 'experts' on Cerner. My current position uses EPIC which dare I say it? Is much easier and intuitive to use.

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Specializes in Med Surg, Informatics.

I share with folks that I am "Epic Ignorant". Each of us as Ancillary Analysts has different access into Epic--don't get me started on templates--and none of us have any idea what the workflows are. When we ask the Epic analysts, they often don't know either! It makes for some interesting times. I am impressed with how integrated Epic is and very glad we just implemented Beaker, their Lab module, but a lot of information is siloed. I have no experience with Cerner. We were Meditech 6.0 before we became part of a large enterprise. Apples and oranges!

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