Any RNs involved in community health education/promotion/prevention?

Our health educators are not RN's, but I think it would be very helpful. They do a ton of community work- Lamaze, CPR (for community and staff), tobacco education (in conjunction with our tobacco prevention person), healthy diet and living...

I have a ADN in nursing but am not a RN yet. I did just pass the PN exam. I am also a Certified Health Education Specialist with a Master's in Health Education. I think my varied experiences and education puts me a cut above educators who are not nurses. Nurses bring a different aspect to health education that a Health Educator may miss such as how certain things can affect the body systems. Health Educators without clinical experience will not be able to relate. Conversely, health educators are taught a systematic approach to educating about health topics such as tobacco cessation and HIV. RNs are involved in Community Health and Prevention everyday with teaching. I see many RNs as educators on the West coast where I am but on the East coast I have seen many CHES (Certified Health Educators).

I am an RN with BSN and am very interested in being a health educator, will I need an advanced degree and if so in what MSN, MPH?

Also, in areas such as Texas you need a CHW license or Promotoro/a license to be a community educator, but do not need to be an RN. In areas like California you need a high school diploma or equivlant and a health background to be a CHW but no qualification. To be a Disease Management RN you just need a RN license and it helps to have a background in chronic illnesses, no special qualifications there

I worked in Public Health for ten years. I believe the best use of your talents or education would be at the State level unless you work in a very large health department. You would probably be underutilized at the local level unless it was in a large juristiction. Great degree to have, good for you - thinking outside the box.

From what I see going on, I believe they are farming more and more health education out to health education specialists that have only a BA or BS degree, or even LPN's. They don't want to pay nursing salaries, and I think you risk taking a huge pay cut if you work as a health educator. However, that said, one good job, if you are into women's health, can be a lactation consultant in a hospital. You can serve the community well by educating young mothers about the advantages of breast feeding, especially in county hospitals where low income mothers go. It is not my thing, but I know a couple of lactation consultants who would not do anything else, they just LOVE their jobs. I truly believe the MPH degree is getting to be so ubiquitous, that for the time and money devoted to an advanced degree, you would be better served by going a more clinical route and getting an NP degree, or dual NP/MPH. If you don't want to do both, an NP degree with some masters courses in adult education can be a real plus. Good luck in your pursuits.

odinhoub2422:

i would check into what the qualifications are for your area. i am a adn and i have worked public health, school nurse, and taught in a lpn program, and i am currently a staff educator. i think every area is different. we have a shortage of bsn and advanced degree nurses in my area, so these positions are open to adn's. check your area.

CampbellRN, interesting. I am used to living somewhere where there is a vast oversupply of MPH's and a very healthy supply of BSN's, thanks to the numerous nursing programs. What part of the country or which state are you in. (I am in Texas-many nursing schools here.)

Same goes for my state-lots of BSN's and MPH's. I'm on the east coast. The MPH's are having a hard tme finding jobs. The pay is poor considering the MPH degree which is hard work to get. I did a temp position at my state's DOH- it was a very large dept. I was hired with an MPH who graduated a few years before- all she could get were these temp positions. one was with a pharmaceudical company doing research. What she really wanted was to be an epidemiologist.

Our DOH just recently had a big layoff- the head of the health education and an active 'hands on' participant in her own dept, couldn't keep her fingers off holding seminars type of dept head - was an older RN with her Master's in Education who had been in that position for many years and was well know through out the state in the Public Health circle. The person who took her place was an LPN.

I'm not quite sure I get the big push and sell job for us RN's to get our BSN, MSN and DSN's when all the PTB want to do is lay us off and replace with less educated level employees. A High school graduate only doing patient teaching, OMG. It seems to me that "hurry up get your degree, your debt so you can be unemployed and drowning in student loan debt while the nursing academia keep marching off to their daily grind, counting how they will spend their next paycheck!! I'm sorry- the big toot for the BSN- I think is just that- a BIG TOOT!!

katonk,

I am in a rural area of upstate NY. We have no BSN programs in the immediate area, hence a shortage of BSNs. I am in a RN-Masters distance learning program, but at the SNF I work in, I am the most educated. Even my DON is an ADN nurse!