newbenurs

I have empathy for you. I wanted a rewarding 2nd career, not something that might shorten my lifespan....My story sounds similar although I'm not looking to get away from physical work (I've lost 15 pds my first 2 months) and I'd like more time to talk with my patients instead of passing pills although there are days when I think I could go back to a desk job and be happy. The jobs I think I'd be good at often require experience in jobs I don't think I can handle, for ex. working in OR often requires yrs of ER experience. Right now I'm working on a LTC dementia unit - I have 8 hr shifts but it's 3-11 & every other weekend - I never get to see my family and by the time I sleep in on Sat I rarely feel like I have a whole weekend off. Day shifts are hard to come by and full of more drama, at least where I'm working. I'm also trying to explore my options so it will be interesting to see other people's suggestions. I have thought about a hospice house, oncology, day surgery centers, Endoscopy/colonoscopy centers, and wound care clinics (I would love to pursue this). Wish dr's offices paid more, I need to get out of debt before taking a pay cut. Some of the desk jobs I've heard about still require yrs of experience -case workers for insurance companies or Medicare auditors/educators for hospitals. I'm sure there is more out there that I do not know about but how do you find the information? Not willing to go into more debt by going back to school until I pay off what I already owe (unless it is the 10 wk wound care/ostomy class) - there are no guarantees I'll like those jobs any better and being in any more debt would be crushing. I hope some more helpful comments come in ...

I did the same but also used a recorder. I didn't try the recorder until half way through school and it was really helpful. I rarely had time to relisten to whole lectures in fast mode but made time for certain difficult lectures and fine tuned my notes while listening. Whenever I found myself drifting or I didn't catch something I would write down the time from my recorder in the margin of the page and then I could go back and just relisten to that portion. I would also relisten during exercise or in the car for certain things. You can also record your own voice with specific study material that requires memorization like lab values and replay them during exercise or driving time. At the end of each 5 week course I would load it onto my computer to clear the device but not lose the info if I needed it. That pen sounds awesome, though. I would try it. Sometimes I would need to relisten to something on my recorder and not be able to find it. That pen sounds like it would solve some problems and make it easier. Hope it works. The one thing I was never able to resolve was finding a program that would take my audio files and change it into a text file that I could print out or finding a program that could make a text file from a 3 hour lecture. But I may be a lttle behind the times. I have to have paper, write things, underline things, highlight, draw pictures, etc. to learn.

Thanks for posting. This was the perfect thing for me to read right now. Felt like I just got a big pat on the back before walking into my first nursing job.