Nurses with Disabilities

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I was looking for any advice on what type of job I can look for, being a RN (with almost no experience) with a VERY bad back...6 screws + kind of bad.

I had no idea my back was crumbling until I was in the homestretch of nursing school. After a period of denial, and not getting a great job because of my injury, I finally went in for surgery. A year later, I tried working home healthcare. Sadly. I kept finding myself in situations where I had to lift/move patients. 3 herniated discs later, I quit. I've been trying to find a place in the nursing world ever since.

The problem I keep running into is the lack of experience. I'm willing to learn, but nobody will give me a chance. Part of the problem is where I live. There are 3 HUGE hospitals, which means lots of nurses with 10+ years of experience. Those are the nurses that get the case management, documentation review, desk jobs. How do I compete with that?

ANY ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm just out of ideas.

Thank you all!!

~Stacey

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Specializes in ER/Tele, Med-Surg, Faculty, Urgent Care.

Think about working with smaller patients, nursery NICU pedis, clinics, schools etc

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Specializes in Emergency Medicine.

As bad as it sounds you might have to look harder or maybe even out of your area a little bit. I'm unsure as to what state you live in so I can't give you specific advice but around here in NYS there are a ton of nursing homes which have strict no lifting policy's. You might have to do some minor positioning but nothing too strenous. The case management jobs often do go to nurses with experience as they have that clinical experience they can draw on when needed.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Moved to Nurses with Disabilities for more answers.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Peds homecare/ private duty will offer you a number of little people for whom lifting is not an issue.

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I was injured on the job in 2005 and left in a wheelchair for 3 years. I worked in psych as a charge nurse. I also worked in psych intake. But I did have 20 years experience by then but none of it was in psych. Thankfully through lots of rehab I've been able to return to my first and true love in nursing, surgery/pacu

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