nursing career without touching people

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I am about to graduate with my BSN and I absolutely do not want to be a nurse that has patient contact. My second semester of nursing school I had an exposure at clinical and I have since been diagnosed with PTSD and OCD. I have been taking medication and I am currently going to therapy but I am absolutely terrified of anything relating touching people of any nursing tasks. I was wondering what I can do with my degree that would not entail touching people (preferably office work) with no experience. Thank you so much

Specializes in ICU, Informatics.
Thank you again for your suggestions. I have looked into teaching and I liked the idea of Informatics....

Sorry to hear about your traumatic experience. Just want to caution even in Nursing Informatics, employers are expecting experience (Information Technology, Clinical nursing, and/or both). It would be difficult to enter the field with no experience. A degree alone is not enough. Best wishes to you!

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Specializes in I'm too new to have a specialty.
I think the fact the OP identified she is PTSD is sufficient, along with her statement that she prefers a nursing career without touching people....

The details belong to her and her treatment team. Not any of us...

ouch!

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How do you get OCD from a traumatic experience? OCD as in the disorder, or OCD as in the personality disorder? There are mental requirements to being a nurse mandated by the board of nursing, so I suggest getting treatment for your disorders and then you will be able to get a nursing job with patients after you are better.

Can I speak for all of us nurses that we have all had an experience (not to downgrade yours) that could make us PTSD if not multiple.

My understanding is that when PTSD symptoms come up (the flashbacks, hypervigilence, etc) an OCD behavior of repeatedly checking locks, etc would help to ease the symptoms, but eventually becomes as troublesome as the symptoms they're trying to 'fix'.

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Specializes in Gerontology.

I'm not a Mod, but I really think the time has come to close this thread.

The OP has been given several good suggestions. Now people are just bickering with each other.

Give it a rest people. Some people mis-judged the OP, given the circumstances of the post it was easily done.

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As a new grad, you take what you can get. I think even like insurance company nurses have years of experience, if they did not how could they know what to do and say and what advice to give.

I got one interview as a new grad as a case manager, and I want patient contact so I did not want to get stuck as a case manager with no real experience being a nurse. Plus, how can a manage cases I do not know how to be the nurse taking care of the patient.

May be a stupid question and I am not trying to be mean but why did you continue with your degree and not change majors to like healthcare administration once you knew patients were not ur thing?

Company cue cards....no joke. Not that all of the ins company nurses don't have experience, but their scripts require a book format :)

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legal nurse consultant? not sure what experience is needed.

i got my present lnc consulting job precisely because i have many years of nursing experience in a broad range of settings. many (not all) required a great deal of patient contact. makes it possible for me to evaluate nursing and medical charting, labs, reports, and such, and have that ineffable sense of "this just doesn't make sense" when someone is trying to bull**** my client with a long and involved medical malpractice story that just doesn't hang together.

if you have somehow made it through the rest of your clinicals having to do some patient touching, you can ask your therapist to help you do more. you might not have to do it for long but if you really want to have any kind of future in any kind of nursing, that will open more doors from you than was apparent in your original post.

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Specializes in I'm too new to have a specialty.
True- less chance of contact- but some also spit, bite, go bonkers and have to be manually restrained until the nice white jacket shows up, etc.... Psych "juices" are more likely to fly at you than be in a nice pile or puddle somewhere :eek:

Nurses are expected to touch people- even if only to get a job that will minimize it.

Maybe a drug rep? But I can't imagine them wanting NO bedside experience.

Before the traumatic situation, how did you do? Is there any chance of going through some sort of desensitization process w/therapy so that it's not an issue- even if you don't handle patients? It's got to be a major pain just having the thoughts/feelings :( Not sure if the therapy you mentioned is aimed at that - and it's none of my business :) just a thought )

You forgot the feces and menstruation fluids that come with psych. Plus, physical assault is often common? I just thought WHAT ABOUT PEDS??? You can control children easier than adults? What about Peds, or working with nonverbal, nonmobile, nonharmful patients that cannot do anything? Just came to mind.

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Specializes in I'm too new to have a specialty.
Considering the OP just registered this month and this is their first post....I'm thinking it's a troll trying to get attention and responses.

The topic is so ridiculous and hardly believable.

Here I am sitting here trying to figure out an option. Good point, though I just joined today.

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You forgot the feces and menstruation fluids that come with psych. Plus, physical assault is often common? I just thought WHAT ABOUT PEDS??? You can control children easier than adults? What about Peds, or working with nonverbal, nonmobile, nonharmful patients that cannot do anything? Just came to mind.

Ever put an IV in a 2 year old? :eek:

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Specializes in LTC, Psych, Hospice.
i was diagnosed with ptsd after having a child die of cancer. sending you great big hugs. i lost my husband to cancer. while it's very painful, i cannot imagine the pain of losing a child.

i still don't think i belong in oncology or hospice. but if i encounter an oncology patient on my floor, i will be able to handle it and i am going forward with a positive feeling

. you may find one day to choose hospice. i have been a hospice nurse for 12 years, and since the death of dh, i find i have even more empathy for my pcgs.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

OP a friend of mine told me recently she just sent in an application to a radiology (imaging) group and got a job there. Could you do that perhaps? All my friend does is help people with getting changed, does VS/obs, soothes the kiddies and sometimes does bloods (not very often). The radiologist does the contrast stuff. Would that be an option?

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How about Correctional Nursing? I started there right out of nursing school. Depending on the position, prison level, medical level of the prison, etc., there is some contact. This is one area of nursing that I can think of that touching and physical contact are kept to an absolute minimum required to do the job. There is some physical contact, and of course during emergencies and codes you would have to "grit your teeth and just do it", but it would give you experience and more time to work through therapy to recover.

I'm not saying someplace like a level 5/supermax, (although there may be even less contact there than I had in a level 4) I am talking a lower/moderate level local, county or state correctional facility.

I learned a tremendous amount and got some very valuable experience.

No matter what you decide, I wish you the best!

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