Need advice on changing careers please help me.

[brturner]

I have been a software engineer for 10 years. I work for a medical staffing company (AMN Healthcare) you might have heard of some of our child companies (RN Demand, StaffCare, Med Travlers).

I am 32, and I've come to the realization that I don't enjoy what I do. I am good at it but I don't like it. I think it is sad that we have to decide our careers at age 22 (when I graduated college)

Saturday, I had my second child; a baby girl. while going through the process, I found myself in awe of the importance of the work these people were doing and have a strong need to do something more important that writing computer code all day in a cubicle.

Here is my dilemma and where I need some help. I currently make good but not great money (right around 100k / year.) That is the root of the dilemma. I have two babies (2 day old and 2 yr old) and my wife makes about half of what I make working evenings as a therapist for abused / foster children.

I want to do something important. I like the idea of something medical like nurse, physician assistant, etc. I can't drop everything and go to medical school and 8 years of training. How can I ease into something where I can maybe take some evening courses, or online courses, and get into a field where the pay has some potential to get to 80k or more within the first couple years. My biggest concern is that choosing a different career path means that I will have to stop working and go into a program where I am not making any money until I am certified. I can't afford to not be bringing in money.

I also can't afford to drop down to a 30k job.

Can anyone give me tips on changing into a more important career without having to stop and start from scratch. I need to provide for my family, but I need to do something more important.

Are there careers that just take a couple years for a cert, and I can quickly get to a salary that will not make my family scrape by?

Thanks for any advice.

When I think about those doctors and nurses doing important work for my babies, I never want to write another line of code.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

brturner,

i totally understand your search for more meaning in your life... but also want to caution you against making a change that could undermine economic security of your family. nursing salaries will not compare to your current income. the stress on your family would undoubtedly offset any sense of personal satisfaction you may feel. there are many clinical careers that provide higher incomes than nursing but if you want to move into an area with the same earning power you now have, it will require a significant amount of time and money for the education required.

here's a thought - for now, why not just make a 'left turn' that would take advantage of your current experience/expertise and apply it more directly on the to the health care industry? those of us in the clinical arena need people with your skills and talents to develop & support the infrastructure that makes patient care possible. i would encourage you to take a look at biomedical informatics. i know of several physicians and advance practice nurses who have made a career switch to informatics - they are finding it much more rewarding than their previous jobs.

take a look at this website http://www.amia.org/. there are a number of really great bmi programs out there -- i happen to know because my oldest child has a masters in bmi and has had opportunities to work on some research projects to improve patient-safety . since you are already sort of involved in healthcare, it would seem to be a natural progression for you. with your background, and formal informatics education or certification, you would be very attractive to potential employers.

you could work with medical researchers or more directly with software systems to support health care services. there will be an increasing demand as federal stimulus money is pumped into health it. we desperately need better infrastructure such as nurse-centered electronic charting (can i hear an "amen" ?) that actually helps bedside nurses to manage the enormous amount of information that has to be processed on a continuous basis. as a nurse, you would help one patient at a time -- in informatics, you could have a positive impact on the care of a huge number of patients.

just a thought.

[brturner]

I will look in to that today.

My bachelor's is in Computer Science. My hope is that I can get some courses done online like a kaplan university type thing and get credits toward a medical degree. Not sure if it would be nursing or what but I would expect to work on it for the next 3 or four years and when the kids are in school, I would take the plunge and and get that first job in the medical field. I would like to possibly be an anesthesiologist in 10 years. That seems like a reasonable timeline (I think)

I dunno, none of this may ever come to fruition, but I do feel the need to be more important than a guy sitting in a cube all day writing code.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

You should really look into moving into Informatics. I know that there are online programs available. Good luck!

[PacoUSA, BSN, RN]

I currently make good but not great money (right around 100k / year.) That is the root of the dilemma.

Wow, by the standards of most people this is definitely great money.

[meluhn]

Rbezemek is absolutlely right. Informatics is a field I have been hearing about alot lately and the adds I am seeing are offering salaries comparable to what you are making now. If you got your associate degree RN and worked for a year or 2, you would be a perfect candidate for this type of job. The companies want RNs with a backround in computers. You could go to NS part time and still keep your job. It would be tough but it has been done. Good luck to you. Congrats to you and your wife on the new baby!

[NurseAmy]

I don't think that the job you do to earn a living has to always be the thing that gives you the most satisfaction. I think sometimes in our culture we are too career focused and put too much of our idenity into what we 'do' which becomes then the definition of who we are. In actuality, you are more than a cube dweller writing code already- you are a father, a husband, a son, a friend etc. You are doing something "important" already. Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.

There are plenty of ways to connect with others and make a difference other than through a career path. Honestly, after many years of working as a NICU nurse, I don't know that my 'job' has really been that important. It has actually been my volunteer work outside of nursing that has made the difference in my life and the lives of others.

So my suggestion is rather than rewriting your entire career path, maybe look at other ways to find fulfillment. There are so many organizations that need volunteers and leaders that give as much satisfaction as being a healthcare provider/nurse/etc. If by 'important' you mean fame and fortune, if you create a nursing charting system that really works for NICU, you could name it after yourself and be forever remembered!