RNs who have never worked bedside - What do you do?

Despite the propaganda there is more to real nursing than hospital nursing. Long term care, home health, clinics, school nursing...the list could go on and on. I doubt any of these nurses would describe their education as a "waste".

I passed NCLEX and got a job in LTC. I consider myself a bedside nurse.

I worked as an LVN bedside, but didn't work long as an RN bedside. My husband died of a medical incident, and I lost my trust of the medical field and lost my love of hospital nursing. So now I work independently.

So what have I done as an RN? I worked as a public health nurse in the immunization clinic, the infectious disease clinic, and the pregnancy prevention clinic. I have done home health, worked as a RN one on one with a child for my local school district. I worked at a birth center, and assisted in home births with a CNM/LM. For 7 years I was the nursing director of an extreme sports camp.

Currently I have my own business doing medical standby for special events (bike races, skateboarding/BMX events, open houses for businesses, festivals, gymnastic meets etc) and have worked a few movie sets. I am a high end nanny, and am booked as a newborn nurse for a family in Oct-Dec. I just worked a camp because a nurse had to leave for a few weeks. I do private duty, and occasionally care for infants-adults with special needs. It's either feast or famine! But have I wasted my RN degree? Not a chance-there is more to nursing than bedside.

Wow awsmfun!

I'm 'just' an LPN but I work at a homeless clinic with LPNs and RNs. My job is amazing, incredibly rewarding, 9-5, and can be all patient care or all paperwork or somewhere in between depending on the exact position and needs on that day. I dont begrudge anyone their position anywhere, bedside or otherwise, but I couldn't imagine anywhere being more rewarding to me than what I do now. Granted, I dont do a lot of the things I learned in nursing school (wet to dry dressings, etc) but you can really see the difference you make every day, and our patients trust us and know us very well...something not easy to come by for many of them.

**awsmfun what you have done w/ your license sounds amazing. I would love to assist in home births some day. It was my original hope to become a homebirth midwife (before I realized they are practically illegal here for all the restrictions)

I've known some RNs who got their AD or BSN just to go into management. Sometimes experience doesn't matter...it's just the alphabet soup after their name that some employers want in management.

These are great ideas. I entered nursing school with the plan of hospital work, but after the economy tanked, my husband had to extend his hours to 11-12 hours per day. Both of us cannot work these hours with 2 active teenagers, so I have started to consider niches with more conventional hours for when I finish in February 2010.

I recently looked at some stats for distribution of nursing jobs...it seems to me that somewhere around 55% of nurses work in the hospital setting...and of course we know that not even all of them are "bedside" nurses.

There are a gazillion options for employment as a nurse...as long as you can be flexible in the pay and benefit area...

I have now been out of the hospital setting as long as I worked within it...and it is very challenging and very rewarding...some of it even pays pretty well.

I am a MDS nurse for a LTC I love it.