Weirdo

So what happened?

I'd suggest reading some Richard Dawkins.

Helloooo I'm an RN working in a Level 3 NICU. I have 2.5 years experience at the bedside. The whole time I was in nursing school and working as an aide at the hospital, I was also doing freelance writing for a local newspaper. Now, I moonlight doing some copywriting on the side for a marketing agency, in addition to my full-time job as a bedside RN. It's a long story, but some of the administrators of my local hospital system got wind of my experience in marketing and writing and took great interest in me. They are now interested in putting me in more of a marketing role within the Communications department. I'm flattered and excited—I've always wanted to make my living as a professional writer—but I don't want to take a pay cut or make a rash decision that I may later regret. I work 3 12s (nights) right now. I love my differential and my 4 nights off. I'm nervous about becoming a 9 to 5er and working in an office instead of on the floor. I'm just wondering if anyone's made a similar move or switched roles so drastically. Are you glad you did? Are you making more or less money? Thanks in advance

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You sound so angry.

Yeah! My classmates think I'm crazy, taking anything but nursing classes. They also don't work. Meanwhile, I'm working full time on the unit, while completing 1-2 features a week for the local alternative newsweekly. This is part of what's lead me to this question, as I seem to be more motivated than the average nurse, at least as far as I can tell. Also, working in this miserable unit has me thinking about other options.

Haha! Awesome! You guys are great. I love this forum! Weirdo + Allnurses.com forevs!

I'm very interested in that. I will look into it.

Agreed. I'm more in this for the long game.... Years from now someone might be googling "nurse history" and have this come up.

Mmmmm popcorn! I'm toying with the idea of continuing on with a Bachelor's in history while working on my bank. Forgot to mention that in my original post. Also I was hoping to hear from people who've done something similar to what I'm talking about. Not interested in hearing from a bunch of nurses who just want to tell me I can't do it.

Some great ideas! Thank you so much. I definitely will be looking into the AAHN. I didn't realize that organization existed.

Pending response. I don't know how this site works. Lol

HeySis, It is with all due respect that I say, "well duh." I don't expect to get rich, and I don't have an aversion to long hours and hard work. My problem, and it may be specific to my hospital/unit, is we are constantly understaffed, have terrible ratios, and really sick patients, without decent compensation. I know for a fact that people who've left the unit to do home health care make more money with less stress, so that's what I plan to do when I graduate. Enough about that though. From now on, please no one reply to this thread unless they are a fellow Weirdo like me. That is, a nursing history nerd who makes money doing something with the combination of nursing and history, or a writer who either has a side hustle writing about nursing,or for whom nurse writing is their main gig. I'm looking for my people! I know they're out there somewhere! I have dreams of sitting on my couch, making a modest but reasonable living writing in my underwear all day.

Okay, first of all, let me say I am amazed that I was able to register the username "Weirdo" to AllNurses.com, a website that has been in existence, what, 15 years at least? That's crazy! I am the only weirdo here? That's basically how I feel at school and in my career. Anyway, I'm a student, who will be graduating in December with two associates degrees—one in Nursing and one in History. This whole time I've been in school, I've been doing freelance writing work for various print and web sources around town (not about nursing, but about events around town and such), and I've also been working as an aide on a surgical cardiac split advanced care/med-surg unit. I'll be enrolling in an RN to BSN program upon graduation. Anyway, I don't really get off on trauma, nor do I find excitement in the grind of a 12-hour shift with 6 patients all high acuities or any of that. I'm more of a "path of least resistance" kind of guy. I'm wondering if anybody here, or anybody in the world, has a similar skillset. Anyone study Nursing AND History... I mean, I know a lot of people go into nursing after studying history because there's no money in history, but does anybody DO anything with both of these fields of study? I'm thinking with my background in writing there may be something I can do. Every nursing textbook has, like, that chapter about Florence Nightengale... who writes that? A quick google of "Nurse Historian" comes up with nothing. So what can I do? Also, I want to make a lot of money, and I'm not opposed to going to graduate school after getting my BSN or anything like that. So, is there anyone else out there similar to me? Or am I seriously the only weirdo out there?