Nursing as a career

[cortneyrileyRN]

Have been a nurse for three years. The majority of it was in LTC but now I work in community health. I absolutely love my current job but it is not very nursey nursey. It is a lot of patient education, my clients are not sick, and there aren't any invasive procedures. I'm not really taking care of them, just educating them. It is not what you would think of as a nursing career. I absolutely hated LTC. I was miserable. I am going to school for my MSN in Education and will be finished in March. I am overly concerned that I actually may not like being a nurse in a regular setting. Any thoughts? I don't want to be a bad educator because I don't like to do it myself.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

Let me see here. You don't like a job that is mostly teaching because you don't think it "nursey" enough, and you're getting your degree in ... education?

I haven't worked in places where I have to wash my hands every five minutes for years, and my job is 100% nursing. So it seems to me you have a few choices to make, and at least two involve attitude adjustment. :)

[cortneyrileyRN]

No. I love my job! Absolutely love it. What I am slightly worried about is the fact that I don't like working LTC or MedSurg. I feel it may be difficult to teach nurses how to do something that I don't have much experience in or enjoy doing. But I do love the education side of it and the content of the curriculum.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Good point. Most MSN programs in Education only focus on the education curriculum - without a clinical focus - so I understand your conundrum. In order to function as a clinical Nurse Educator, we have to have clinical expertise in that area. I have actually witnessed an (academic) clinical instructor for a 'well known BSN program' who couldn't figure out how to spike an IV bag when she was trying to demo it for a group of students . It goes without saying that you are very unlikely to be hired as a non-academic nurse educator unless you have relevant clinical experience.

So - I would recommend that you figure out how to get some clinical experience. It's not hopeless. I have noticed that schools are beginning to include a wider variety of clinical rotations - many are using LTC as an intro experience. Also - get certified as an instructor for BLS & ACLS. This will give you some practical experience in an area that is universally valued by employers.

A final thought - students are pretty intuitive when it comes to some areas, especially how their instructor feels about nursing in general. If you harbor negative feelings about the work of nursing, I guarantee you that they will sense it. Becoming a nurse is hard work. They need and deserve positive role models in order to facilitate the process.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

Oooh, I just thought of another thing. In legal nursing there's a place for what are called "fact witnesses," people who can explain physiology or anatomy or nursing standards, for example, to a jury. You have to know a lot about the topic, obviously, but mostly it's your ability to explain, to teach, that is valued.

You could also teach in nursing school without being a clinical instructor. You'd need to have or be able to acquire in a hurry some expertise in the subject matter-- fluids and electrolytes, say, or hematology, or complications of bedrest ... but never be in that embarrassing position of not knowing how the IV pump works or how to get into the Pyxis, or being all thumbs when it comes to sterile technique.