MSN Nurse without clinical experience please help!!

joanna73, BSN, RN · Feb 9, 2016

Although not impossible, I wonder how successful anyone would be reviewing policy, participating in working groups or working in quality control without any bedside experience?

All of these functions are part of my current role which I graduated to after having worked the floor and then worked as a unit manager. In order to truly understand where the gaps are and where the needs are, bedside experience is important.

Just because you can work in these roles does not mean you should.

Editorial Team / Moderator · Feb 9, 2016

Regarding plantar fasciitis, there is definitely treatment â€” I have dealt with it in both feet (as well as chronic right hip pain due to a deployment injury/labral tear) and I work on my feet in a busy ER. See a podiatrist, get some inserts, do the home stretches and treatments. It takes work, but it's worth it to be pain-free and mobile.

Regarding the experience, or lack thereof â€” if you want to be an effective leader and manager of nurses, get some experience, ideally enough to at least be competent (if not proficient or expert) in the meaning as defined by Benner. And initially, be prepared to NOT be paid more for having that MSN. You're essentially a new nurse if you haven't really been really working in a nursing role.

bhouse113 · Feb 10, 2016

As a school RN, I do not believe this is a job for a nurse without clinical experience. I would have been lost my first few years as a school nurse without a clinical background for perspective.

Not_A_Hat_Person, RN · Feb 10, 2016

I'll be brutally honest. In my opinion you will need some real world bedside experience before moving up the ranks of administration. I'm honestly tired of students getting advanced nursing degrees that have never and don't ever want to touch a patient. It's just ridiculous. Experience in patient care is an automatic requirement prior to nurse management in my opinion. It's like a dental student saying they never want to touch a mouth or a student in car mechanics saying they never want to touch a car; but they want to be the boss of those that do. It's BS.

With the lack of jobs for new grad nurses in the last few years, I wouldn't be surprised if situations like this become more common.

toomuchbaloney · Feb 11, 2016

As with the management positions, one shouldn't be teaching without the clinical experience to back it up and know what they're teaching. Not the instructor I'd want.

I agree completely.

joanna73, BSN, RN · Feb 12, 2016

I work with a few nurses who have the qualifications on paper, yet lack bedside experience. It's obvious, and they aren't well received by staff.

Again, just because you can doesn't mean you SHOULD.

loriangel14, RN · Feb 12, 2016

Has the OP even been back?

Editorial Team / Admin · Feb 12, 2016

Has the OP even been back?

OP last logged in on the morning of 2/4. So it doesn't look like it.

nurseqt77, ASN, RN · Feb 15, 2016

Um..... Perhaps you could work as s home health nurse manager. Without several years of acute care experience..... You shouldn't be a nurse manager in acute care. I think you shoul really focus on getting a job that moves you towards your goals .....

I do home health. You cannot possibly be a case manager in the office or a patient care manager in the field without several years of experience. Talk about in the trenches, you are out there all by yourself, with your only resource being Google (when you have service on your cell), or calling your boss (when she isn't eating, smoking, peeing, or bossing someone else). Home health is a very unique area of expertise. I have been doing it 12 years and i still learn new stuff every day. I definitely couldn't supervise anyone for at least 3 years field experience, and I wasn't considered for that without at least a year on med/surg. I don't believe you could be a manager in any field of nursing without first being managed by someone else in that field. That would be very unsafe. Trench work, jumping through hoops, and paying your dues is absolutely necessary to be safe, effective and thorough.

NurseDiane · Feb 15, 2016

Thank you for your insight. I would love to do L&D or ICU, I am not afraid of hard work what so ever. I have applied countless times to all the local hospitals and have heard the same story of no acute care experience. Which I have none because I am unable to get in anywhere. Recently I have accepted a position at a nursing home, but I really don't want to be in that type of environment for a long period of time. I can see management in the future, however I wouldn't mind some type of administrative behind the scene type of work.
I'm finding it frustrating jumping through all the hoops and feeling like I end up in the same spot. The reason why I am trying to get away from intense floor nursing is because I have plantar fasciitis and long hours are difficult. Again, thank you for your input.

My question to you is how are you going to manage anybody or anything if you don't know what you're managing? If you've never done clinical work, how can you possibly manage the nurses that are doing the clinical work? Why did you go into nursing if you didn't want to be "a nurse"? It would be the same if I wanted to manage a hair salon. I have no idea how to do hair, how long it takes to give a perm or highlights or haircut----how can I possibly manage that?

A nurse is someone that has experience being a nurse and doing nursing tasks. How can you possibly write policy/procedures if you have no idea how to do anything? Even to be an instructor at a nursing school, you have to know how to do things.

NurseDiane · Feb 15, 2016

I can just imagine 2 high schools talking about their college plans..
Emma: I want to go to school to become an ER nurse.
Olivia: Oh ugh, I don't want to do patient care, I want to be your manager.

This reminds me of one of my nephews. Many years ago, during the summer after he graduated from high school, he was looking for a job. His mother was the office manager for a local landscaping company that was VERY BUSY in the area. She said that she could get him a job as a landscaper. Do you know what his reply was? I don't want to DO the landscaping, I want to supervise. Now, this was a kid who wouldn't be able to identify a lawn mower in the shed, forget about starting it.

I think this is how a lot of "young people" today think. They don't want to start at the bottom of the totem pole & work their way up. They want their first jobs to be as CEO's of the company, without any experience. I don't exactly know how that thought process begins. Does it start when they're young, in their home, with their parents? Are they raised to think of themselves being "above" doing the grunt work? It's funny----many people get out of law school, pass the bar & get their first job in a law firm where they are working 80 hours a week, doing legal research & writing pleadings and motions. They are miserable because they wanted, and thought they were going to be, standing in a court room litigating multi million dollar cases. They don't want to do the grunt work to learn how the legal process works, what the backbone of litigation is & how the big time trial attorneys became big time trial attorneys. They graduate from law school thinking they're hot sh**, and then they get a big taste of reality when they learn that they are lower than the receptionists that answer the phone.

NuGuyNurse2b · Feb 15, 2016

^ that's the same everywhere these days, I think it's just millennials. But it's extra in nursing. There are really a lot of people who shouldn't be in this profession.