I'm a nurse with 8 months of experience. I've been working on a very busy MS floor in a level 1 hospital and honestly, bedside isn't for me. I appreciate the nurses that can, but I causes so much anxiety for me. I've been looking into education, research, essentially anything that's away from the bedside and I found Diabetes Education really interesting! So I applied and interviewed and I was notified that I got the job. However, all of my friends think I'm making a huge mistake. They all said I should at least have 2 years of bedside experience to give myself time to really see what I like and not just jump in. I'm also considering going PRN to keep my skills fresh. I'm just a little worried to accept the job now because everyone keeps saying it's going to hurt my career in the end.
The only situation that might hurt your career is to not work in nursing at all for an extended period of time. That might elicit an explanation during a job interview. All nursing managers understand that your skill set will be strongest in the area in which you are currently working.
If you don’t want to work in a hospital, why on earth would you need to gain experience working in a hospital??
I do a lot of diabetes education in my job at an FQHC. It’s incredibly important and needed. As evidence: My patient today was diagnosed with T2DM in 2016, has been under the care of a series of PCPs since that time, and did not know what “carbohydrate” meant. He said “Nobody ever talked to me about what I should eat.” They just give him Lantus and Metformin and call it a day. (And then they wonder why his A1C was 10.)
Scary.
I do wonder if they have talked to him about diet, but he just didn't understand. Who knows? Anyway, glad you got through to him on that.
caliotter3
38,333 Posts
The only situation that might hurt your career is to not work in nursing at all for an extended period of time. That might elicit an explanation during a job interview. All nursing managers understand that your skill set will be strongest in the area in which you are currently working.