Thoughts on public health nursing?

[EDNURSE20, BSN]

I have been deciding what my next step is, and I’m leaning towards public health. I have study health science at Uni before nursing, I did a lot of papers on health promotion, public policy ect that I really enjoyed, which makes me think I would enjoy public health. But also Having regular hours, and some sort of routine to life, would be amazing too. I have recently paid off my student loan, so would be OK with a pay cut. However I do like a job that’s largely has direct pt contact, autonomy, and would hate to be stuck at a desk all day. As well as being young, 20s, I’m worried one day I would like to go back to acute care and not be able to. 
 

what do public health nurse exactly do daily? What’s the pros and cons? Thoughts in general.. 

 

background info, if your interested. 

I have been a nurse for nearly 4 years in acute care. I started off in float pool, which normally isn’t recommended for new grads, but for me I thrived in that environment. I learnt a lot and found what I like/dislike about nursing. I have been in ED for over a year now, and I’m ready to move on. I do shift work, so work mornings/afternoons/nights, with no sort of routine. It changes from month to month. The rosters are truly awful. Also I can tell I’m heading towards burning out, the department is always overrun and chronically understaffed. Not to mention my manager Is a complete b****. However the nurses on the floor are mostly pretty good. 

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

I work in a small county health department, so my experience may not be typical. The nurses have a variety of roles, and we are spread among several "programs". I started in immunizations--working with clinics that provided Vaccines For Children-I would review their monthly inventory and approve orders, review yearly authorizations, answer vaccine questions, and once a week, I gave immunizations to kids without providers. Now I work in TB: I case manage acute TB disease, rule out potential TB, screen new immigrants  and monitor their LTBI treatment. And answer questions from clinics. 

I have 3 co-workers that work in communicable disease: they follow up on all reportable infections (except TB), do contact tracing , and enter data into the state data base. One of them facilitates a sexual health taskforce, one is on an infection control committee with providers and facilities, and one works with harm reduction for injection drug users. Another nurse also works on harm reduction and is also our employee health nurse. 

6 coworkers are in the Nurse Family Partnership program, where they case manage at risk expectant mothers until their infants are 1 year old. 

Of course with COVID, it is all up-ended, with most people doing case investigation and contact tracing, some doing testing and immunization. 

Very few of us actually have face to face contact with patients. We think of the public and community is our patient, and we facilitate other providers to provide care at the individual level. 

Yeah, hours are 40 hours a week, we have insurance, but the pay sucks. If I was still at the hospital where I worked for 22 years, I would be making double what I make now. And my vacation time is very slow to accrue. 

[KCNewRN8]

I’m not sure if you’re still debating on this, but public health has some great roles and is largely a low stress environment. Hours are usually normal Mon-Fri with no holidays or weekends. That being said, I have had a lot of patient contact at my TB job, however I transferred depts and it is largely a desk job. Some home visiting programs have more face to face contact but minimal to no skills. If you live in a city where it is competitive to land an acute care job and are planning to go back one day, I don’t know if public health would be the best option. If acute care job marker isn’t too competitive and you can get back into acute care quickly, I think it would be a great move to see how you like it!