Sick of the bedside. SOS

I don't think a year is enough experience to transition into case management.

I have made the transition away from bedside to a normal M-F schedule and, after doing it for 6 years, I can't imagine going back to shift work. And I NEVER thought I wanted a M-F when I was working bedside because I liked being able to go to yoga on random weekday mornings and to the grocery store at 2pm on a random weekday afternoon when no one was there.

What I value more, nowadays, is having the same schedule as the rest of the world and knowing that my schedule just is. And being able to go away on weekends if I choose. Also many of these jobs will afford you flexibility that staff nurse roles simply cannot. I have never had to take a day off for a doctor's appointment, for example. I just take the 1st or last appointment of the day and come in a little late or leave a little early. I have only held salaried M-F positions, I don't think I'd take an hourly position because I need the flexibility I'm talking about here.

I worked nearly 5 years inpatient, then did home health/clinical management for 3, home infusion liaison for 3 and now am working as a complex care manager for medically involved children in foster care.

Thanks for your input! I figured 1 year wouldn't be enough to do case mgmt anyways...

Do you think the paycut from working 12hr nights with shift differential to a M-F clinic job is worth it? I have truly loved my ability to work Friday thru Sunday one week then not have to come back until the following Friday...it's been awesome to have that many days off at a time without having to take paid time off.

At a year beside you have very limited options for moving into case mgt or anything away from direct patient care so that's not really a viable plan. Look, each and every job has it's ups and downs there isn't one that is perfect. Never ever had one that I was 100% happy at, made the money I wanted or had the schedule I most desired. You have to pick and choose. When i worked three 12s on the floor I hated how burnt I was after day 3 in a row but loved having 4 off. When I worked in home care I loved working days and enjoyed the patient contact but hated working weekends and being on call. When I was a boss I flat hated everything about it including being in charge and on call 24/7. Now I work M-F salaried with normal people hours but I hate having to take time off for every little appointment.

See where I am headed with this? Sometimes you just have to write down on a list pros/cons of making a move. Frankly, being that you've less than a year at your current position jumping around doesn't look good on the resume. Pick a direction, say case management and obtain the experience to get that job. Sometimes ya got to settle for less than ideal in the moment in order to shape your future.

Change of scenery for sure. Yeah there's always crappy shifts but if you are consistently counting the hours until the shift ends or your next set of shifts off then a change may be good.

I left my previous unit, loved most of the staff/the patient population but trouble sleeping, anxiety before walking into work and dreading phone calls from staffing when I really should have been picking up shifts. But huge difference for me is that I'm no longer in the charge nurse role like I was on my previous unit so I'm in a much happier place knowing I'll only have my set patients and not in charge of a 38 bed med-surg unit.

You've got to do what's best for you and weigh the pros and cons

I won't predict that you will not find employement outside of the bedside. It depends on location, who you know, how determined you are and possibly other variables. I can't tell you much about bedside nursing because I did not do it very long myself. I can tell you that the grass is not much greener outside the bedside, in my experience. Yes there are some Monday through Friday jobs and if a 9 to 5 is your wish, then you might be happy. I work a 9 to 5 and I can tell you that it's very difficult to get a day off as an RN, because there are few other nurses to cover in the outpatient when I'm not in. This may not be a problem for you if you don't have children or others that require a flexible schedule.

As far as patient's and their needs, not much different than the bedside. There are nice patient's, but mostly there are mean patient's with extreme expectations of customer service. I have experienced plenty of stress in the outpatient area also. Supervision of coworkers in the outpatient setting is not easy. I have worked with demanding, and sometimes Rude physicians.

I work clinic triage for a university hospital. My coworker who sits next to me is a casemanger. She calls patient's to assist with provision of home services, medical appointments, DME and so on for the purpose reducing readmission or hospitalizations. I should say she tries, as many patient's will choose there own path, regardless of recommenations or cost to insurances, medicare or medicaid. When healthcare created quality initiatives, they forgot to tell the patients what is expected of them. When employers have quallity outcomes for insurance or medicare compliance, they are not happy when the nurse cannot guide patient's in this path. It affects the bottom $$$. She tells me it's stressful.

Just thought I share my experience outside the bedside. Yours may be different.

I won't predict that you will not find employement outside of the bedside. It depends on location, who you know, how determined you are and possibly other variables. I can't tell you much about bedside nursing because I did not do it very long myself. I can tell you that the grass is not much greener outside the bedside, in my experience. Yes there are some Monday through Friday jobs and if a 9 to 5 is your wish, then you might be happy. I work a 9 to 5 and I can tell you that it's very difficult to get a day off as an RN, because there are few other nurses to cover in the outpatient when I'm not in. This may not be a problem for you if you don't have children or others that require a flexible schedule.

As far as patient's and their needs, not much different than the bedside. There are nice patient's, but mostly there are mean patient's with extreme expectations of customer service. I have experienced plenty of stress in the outpatient area also. Supervision of coworkers in the outpatient setting is not easy. I have worked with demanding, and sometimes Rude physicians.

I work clinic triage for a university hospital. My coworker who sits next to me is a casemanger. She calls patient's to assist with provision of home services, medical appointments, DME and so on for the purpose reducing readmission or hospitalizations. I should say she tries, as many patient's will choose there own path, regardless of recommenations or cost to insurances, medicare or medicaid. When healthcare created quality initiatives, they forgot to tell the patients what is expected of them. When employers have quallity outcomes for insurance or medicare compliance, they are not happy when the nurse cannot guide patient's in this path. It affects the bottom $$$. She tells me it's stressful.

Just thought I share my experience outside the bedside. Yours may be different.

Having worked outpatient care, all I can say is that I second this! Working four ten hour shifts sounded like a dream, until I realized that they rarely were just ten hours. On average, I was pulling in at least 10.5 hours a day, four days a week, MINIMUM. Sometimes I'd average 12. Why? It wasn't due to the acuity of the patients and it was not because of my poor time management, but because of the physician's poor time management. And I don't mean just that the doctor ran over in office visits because of caring too much...I mean just poor time management. Then, of course, the patients would take running behind out on us, not the doc (not much different than bedside!). As a staff nurse, I was required to scribe, room patients, triage (in person and the phone), case manage, do procedures, collect specimens, and oversee those pesky quality initiatives and make sure we somehow tried to get the patients to comply so that we (er...that is to say...the doctor) could get a bonus (we were supposed to get a bonus, but WE never did, just the physicians). Any time I wanted/NEEDED to take off (for my own medical appointment) it was like pulling teeth. Yes, we had a great PTO benefit setup, but because of the manager we had it on paper only...much like at the bedside.

I miss my noc shifts. It's nice to have M-F clinic hours but like others have said, it's rarely over by 5 (or whatever). The noc hours were rough but we all (techs and RNs) had each other's backs and teamwork was there. It was nice not having clinical people in my face all day.

You will always get rude customers...I mean, patients, and some rude doctors and clinical people. Another poster made a great point about trade offs. Decide what's worth going for and what's not.

Thanks for your input! I figured 1 year wouldn't be enough to do case mgmt anyways...

Do you think the paycut from working 12hr nights with shift differential to a M-F clinic job is worth it? I have truly loved my ability to work Friday thru Sunday one week then not have to come back until the following Friday...it's been awesome to have that many days off at a time without having to take paid time off.

I worked 5 years nights on an Oncology unit, until I switched to days on another one. The pay cut is 100% worth it to feel like a human not a zombie. I absolutely loved loved loved working nights but I just couldn't do it anymore.

I would encourage you not to give up bedside until you at least try working the day shift. It really made all the difference for me.