Do you see yourself being a nurse for the rest of your life or do you have an "after nursing" plan?
I've always jokingly said that in "another life" I would have been a pastry chef. The other day I was thinking about it and realized, why "another life", what's wrong with this life? I now have an "after nursing" plan. I'm 42 and I've always said that I would retire from nursing between 45 and 50...and I will. That's when I will go back to school and train to be a pastry chef. Then I will start my own little business creating and selling a variety of sinfully decadent sweet treats. I'll be doing the thing I love doing the most....singing over the never ending drone of my mix master. :chuckle
I've been a nurse a long time now, and currently work as a gerontological care manager and part time nsg instructor at the local community college. In no other profession-not even medicine-do you have the diversity of choices that you do as a nurse. I hear people all the time in this forum and elsewhere b*tch about their units, the hours, etc. I don't have any sympathy for it. I hated acute care too, which is why I moved out of it as quick as I could, but I'm still a nurse.
I have been in the field for nearly 40 years and cannot imagine any other career. I started as cook assistant in a nursing home and quickly graduated to feeding the residents and helping them into bed. Before graduating high school, I worked as an aide. Those were the days of on-the-job training. My plan was to become a MD in a small town in New England. After 7 years in the Army as a medic, I only wanted to be a nurse.
I returned to school for my BSN. I have worked as a nurse in many positions in nursing homes, home health care, and a physician clinic as charge nurse, public health nurse, staff nurse, CNA instructor, and staff development coordinator. I recently finished my MSN and am again teaching CNAs (our future nursing students).
My "retirement" plan is to get a doctoral in nursing education. I believe the key to "nursing for life" is a variety of positions, continually improving self through education, and loving the work that you do. I usually change jobs every 6 or so years for new challenges and to remain fresh in my committment to the field of nursing.
I still enjoy what I do, about 95% of the time. However, I fear being one of those burned out nurses who have no other options, so I've added a couple of strings to my bow. This year I'm tutoring medical students as well as working full time in acute care; next year I start PhD in sociology or ethics (with nursing component), with an eye to teaching.
I can see where it would be confusing--I'm confused a lot myself. Does it help to say that I get a pension from the first place and a paycheck from the second?
I hope to continue working for another 7/8 years, then I'll start quilting or something.
Well you're not retired then really are you..you still work 2 12's a week...I'm confused. (??)
One of the wonderful things about this career is all the wonderful jobs, and even some of the weird ones. I figure I'll just bounce around from one area to another as time goes on, I've already tried travel nsg, mgmt, and had ataste of quality mgmt. I still enjoy med/surg, but am working towards getting the degrees to teach. So many things to do and be!
ldkrn
43 Posts
I've been a nurse a long time now, and currently work as a gerontological care manager and part time nsg instructor at the local community college. In no other profession-not even medicine-do you have the diversity of choices that you do as a nurse. I hear people all the time in this forum and elsewhere b*tch about their units, the hours, etc. I don't have any sympathy for it. I hated acute care too, which is why I moved out of it as quick as I could, but I'm still a nurse.