Research internships if you're not a student?

[coffee&scrubs, BSN, RN]

Hi there! I am interested in a future in research and would love more experience before making a decision on school. I loved the research experiences I had in school but feel like I need more exposure to what a nursing research career could look like. However, I am having trouble finding any type of internship or experience available while not enrolled in school. While there are a decent number of nursing research internships, I have yet to find one open to those who are not students. Does anyone know of such opportunities? If not, would it ever be worth it to just enroll in an online class or two to give myself student status and become eligible? Thanks! ?

[SiwanRN]

You may have luck just contacting your local schools of nursing to see if you can volunteer for research experience.

[llg, PhD, RN]

By their very nature, "internships" are targeted towards students. In many cases, they are funded with money earmarked for students (e.g. research grants given to schools with the intent of supporting their students.) So while there might be something out there that is a true internship not targeted for students, I doubt it. You may need to enroll in a couple of classes to be eligible to receive that money.

You might have more success looking for a job (part time or volunteer) such as "research assistant" or clerical work, etc. with a group that does research. That would put you in the environment so that you could see inside the process of research and the research environment.

You also might want to look into Continuing Education offerings related to research. Taking a couple CE courses related to research might give you some idea. Johns Hopkins Nursing offers a lot of CE courses to prepare nurses for research career. You should probably check out their website.