Hello!! Hated the hospital? Clinicals bored you? HAVE NO FEAR! Nurses are needed EVERYWHERE.
This is meant to inspire my new nurses who are scared they'll never find a job, or a job that suits them, or never found their niche etc.
I knew I NEVER wanted to be in the hospital. N-O. Boring to me. But that is the BEAUTY of nursing. So many options for us non-hospitals RNs.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE working in a prison. It's what I've always wanted and now what I am doing. Prison nurses have autonomy and see pretty much everything. Not a day goes by that is boring. It is also nice to be a positive influence to those who need it most.
Hated the hospital? Have no fear!! There are PLENTY of options. Doctors offices, LTC, dermatology, prisons, research nurses, public health, mental health, infectious disease, diabetic education, home health, and SO MUCH MORE!!!
You can make a difference as a nurse outside of the hospital :)
I am currently a Nurse Educator who teaches nurses to use a computer-based assessment. I get to use my extensive IT skills and my nursing assessment skills: I have qualifications in both areas. I work hard and I have spent most of my career engaged in both learning and teaching.
Apparently I am one of those nurses who must change places about every 4 years or so. (I think I get bored with being in the same unit at about that time!) I worked 4 years ER, 4 years NeuroICU, 1year travel nursing (still NeuroICU). Now I do private duty in home for the same patient for 12 hour nights...and I have finally found they joy of not being in a hospital! (no administration, no managers, no running around looking for equipment, no 0200 trips for head CTs, no rounds, only deal with one family, who has made me part of theirs)
I wonder sometimes where my path will turn next after this patient passes (and he will, I know that) but like Scarlett O'Hara, "I'll think of it tomorrow...After all, tomorrow is another day"
Hospital nursing is educational, I think all nurses should have some hospital experience, but it's a killer. Emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting.
That's the beauty of nursing, the variety. I was the opposite situation, as a new grad LVN no one was hiring them within the hospitals in California anymore, they were being phased out. I worked in the following environments:
SNF (props to anyone who can hang in that environment, I couldn't)
Adult group home for developmentally delayed
College Student Health Center
I'd still be at the college health center if they would have rehired me as an RN though, I loved that place. Best job I ever had.
Now with my RN, I'm working in Emergency, definitely have a love for it but I'm sure someday these bones/muscles will not be able to hand the physical nature. Hopefully I'll be able to find a clinic job or move on to education at that point.
I think the challenging part now is because of the turn of the economy, most employers are going to pick the nurses with the most experience, acute care experience included. Not always, but it frequently happens.
I am surprised you found the hospital setting boring.....I find it more labor intensive, scary, hard, stress, etc...I know hospital nursing isn't for me. However all the non-hospital jobs require experience...so i plan to do at least 2 years in the hospital and then ill probably either switch to dialysis, drs. office, or home health.
I found my 3 years of hospital nursing to be the most educational and frightening years of my nursing career! I went on to work inpatient and home hospice for 11 years and now I am a school nurse.
I am absolutely settling into school nursing and believe this is where I'll be until I retire. The hours are wonderful 7:45-3:15, M-F, summers off, and holidays off. Long winter breaks, spring break, mostly great kids and families, and a great staff and faculty around me. I have one daughter who goes to the school where I work and I plan to stay even after she graduates and moves on. I am the only nurse in a private school so I carry the responsibility of the clinic myself and anything that is health-related for the school. My days are usually calm and easy-going. Nothing like the stressful hospital days from 15 years ago. I see roughly 25-30 kids a day, I keep the clinic clean and organized and in smooth, running order just like I like. I can see myself doing this for many, many years to come.
I knew hospital nursing wasn't for me. I fell into school nursing right after passing the NCLEX; started as sub, than landed a full-time job. I love it. Can't picture doing anything else.
This is exactly why I went into nursing: the flexibility is unbelievable. As much as I would love to work in the NICU, I could totally see myself working in a prison unit, at a school or in a clinic. There is so much out there; hospital nursing is only a sect of the profession.
Specializes in Cardiac, ER, Pediatrics, Corrections.
Thanks for all the responses! :) It was great to read the huge variety of settings you all work in. I love that we all can make a difference as nurses in so many different settings with different populations. CHEERS!
I am an LVN. Just passed my NCLEX a month ago. It's funny how I want to work in a hospital and there are RN's that don't want to. I don't want to do LTC or home health. I want to work in a hospital (some places still hire LVNs), clinic, psych. I know that I am a little older (I was a medical assistant for 8+ years) and got out of the medical field for awhile and did accounting. That was not what I wanted to do, I wanted to be a nurse. I will probably go back for RN, but in the meantime I think that it's hurting me to not do LTC first all my classmates are getting jobs left and right (in LTC) and I was the first to take boards and seems that I am headed to be the last to be employed. Any tips?
ANnot4me
442 Posts
I am currently a Nurse Educator who teaches nurses to use a computer-based assessment. I get to use my extensive IT skills and my nursing assessment skills: I have qualifications in both areas. I work hard and I have spent most of my career engaged in both learning and teaching.