Nursing specialties for the moms out there.

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Hi everyone,

I've been a nurse for 9 years. All ER nursing, peds ER and peds SANE with travel nursing in the mix, so lots of diverse experience in that arena. Super fun but mentally and emotionally taxing.

I recently took a job as the director of nursing in an assisted living setting. I was really burnt out of all the adrenaline and drama in ER and wanted a big change.

I have 3 small kids at home and was hoping for less stress at work overall, more peaceful setting, etc.

I'm finding that I'm disappointed. I am salary and work an insane amount of hours to get the job done and manage employees. I'm the only nurse. I was apparently naive in thinking it would be "better". I hear a lot of negative in general about nursing when I inquire about what other specialty might fit best for me with a good work/life balance.

Is there such a thing?

Is this the norm for nursing as a profession?

Is there a better specialty I should be looking into as a mom who wants to be present more for my kids? I have friends who have full time jobs (not in nursing) who don't feel so overwhelmed and overloaded all of the time.

Would home health maybe be a better option?

Just looking for advice from you all who may have been through the same.

Thank you in advance for your respectful replies.

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Clinic nursing? Public health? I don't know many of either that put in a lot of overtime.

I wouldn't do home health since I know a lot of HH nurses that take paperwork home with them.

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Hi everyone,

I've been a nurse for 9 years. All ER nursing, peds ER and peds SANE with travel nursing in the mix, so lots of diverse experience in that arena. Super fun but mentally and emotionally taxing.

I recently took a job as the director of nursing in an assisted living setting. I was really burnt out of all the adrenaline and drama in ER and wanted a big change.

I have 3 small kids at home and was hoping for less stress at work overall, more peaceful setting, etc.

I'm finding that I'm disappointed. I am salary and work an insane amount of hours to get the job done and manage employees. I'm the only nurse. I was apparently naive in thinking it would be "better". I hear a lot of negative in general about nursing when I inquire about what other specialty might fit best for me with a good work/life balance.

Is there such a thing?

Is this the norm for nursing as a profession?

Is there a better specialty I should be looking into as a mom who wants to be present more for my kids? I have friends who have full time jobs (not in nursing) who don't feel so overwhelmed and overloaded all of the time.

Would home health maybe be a better option?

Just looking for advice from you all who may have been through the same.

Thank you in advance for your respectful replies.

Per diem is great if you have a spouse providing insurance and don't have to work a set number of hours. You can often work full time hours, but may find yourself canceled during occasional low-census times. You can schedule your work around your life that way.

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You're the "Director of Nursing," but you're the only nurse? How odd.

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Management or LTC would not be where I would go if I were looking for what you are describing. Outpatient/clinic nursing is probably what I would seek out. You are there for a set number of hours, the workload is reasonable, and you clock in and out and leave your work responsibilities at the door for the most part. In peds outpatient, nurses spend a lot of time doing phone triage, and then obviously vitals, immunizations, updating charts, etc. That to me seems like the ideal low stress job.

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I'm the only licensed RN as it is an assisted living setting. I manage CNA's, med-tech's and healthcare aides. I realize other facilities can have 1 nurse for 100+ patients and I only have 76 but I do still feel very overloaded. I want to do my best for each resident but in order to provide quality care and case management it takes a lot of extra time I am not getting paid for and that I should be spending with my kids. Just trying to feel out my options as I don't know many other nurses that work in a setting other then ER.

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Thank you all

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

Have you thought about working in Education? Your experience would lend itself well to that! My hat's off to you for the peds SANE, I did adult and that was hard enough.

I transitioned into trauma education which has been amazing, but I am moving into infection prevention next month.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

I was a director of nursing services for a 90-bed assisted living facility, and I can sympathize with you. I was salaried too. I sat down once and figured out what my hourly wage would have been given my 50-60-hour weeks, and I came up with something like $14.75/hr. It would have been much lower had I figured in 24/7/365 responsibility for my staff and residents. Of course, I did have all weekends and holidays off, which was family friendly, but I'd never do it again.

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