Need advice please

[tenjuna, MSN]

Hello all, I am coming up to a crossroads in my relatively young nursing career, and I really could use some advice.

Graduated with my ADN and received my license in 2014. I moved to North Dakota to work in Ortho as a new grad, but after 9 months had to return to Iowa because my daughter was having a lot of problems in school. I felt at the time that being a good father was more important than my new career. When I went back to Iowa, I worked on an Ortho unit there as well, but it was an incredibly toxic environment, and we parted ways after 3 months.

Since I had already started working on my BSN, I went ahead and concentrated on finishing that before moving on. I also worked a few PRN positions during this time, but I got some really bad assignments that honestly almost got me out of nursing entirely. Got some good advice to use my 25+ years of IT experience and get into Informatics Nursing, and I was lucky enough to find a position back in North Dakota, and I have been working on my MSN in Informatics at the same time. Which leads us to today.

I am a few months away from finishing the MSN and I already have my Informatics Certification. I am completely lost as to what to do next. Where I am working now there is no upward mobility and they don't really care about the Master's degree or cert. While I am grateful for the opportunity they provided, I do still want to learn and grow and do more than I am doing now. This leads me to believe it is time to move on, but my question is WHERE?

I feel like the events that occurred early on are a problem as most places seem to want 3-5 years of clinical experience anymore, even with the Masters and Informatics Certification. I also don't have enough experience overall to be considered for a leadership position, even though I have lots of leadership experience in IT. I am also considering another Masters in IT and maybe a DNP in Informatics as well, but I am holding off until I figure out what I am doing.

All in all I feel like I am underbaked, but I also feel like my IT experience should mitigate a lot of that. Anyway, that's the circle my brain is spinning in right now, hence the need for advice.

Anyone have any thoughts of what I should do next?