What are the pro's and con's of specializing in Case Management Nursing?

[Valerie916]

Hi. I am an RN student graduating in less than four weeks! I am very excited to begin my career as a nurse and love to talk with RN's in different specialties and get their opinions on them. I recently talked to someone that told me their daughter started on med-surg., but soon switched to Case Management and absolutely loves it. Honestly, I found this surprising because I assumed after graduation new nurses would want to dive into all of the hands-on care and interventions. I understand that we are all unique and nurses can definitely find their passion in case management, but I am curious what experienced Case Manager RN's advice for new grads is concerning where to start and what they like and dislike about their specialty. ?? Thanks!

[JerseyLilly]

Hi Valerie!!!

Many new nurses find that nursing school practicals are quite different from real hands-on nursing on the floors as an employee!!!! Many new nurses find that the "honeymoon" phase is over rather quickly and ofentimes, find that hands-on nursing is not for them! Case managment nursing is basically hands-off nursing, unless you do some field work for the company such as home care/hospice case management. To get in to case management it is usually required to have hands-on clinical experience prior, especially in a hospital setting. There are many venues for case managers, but most have a basic med-surg foundation. I guess the rationale is if you are managing cases, you know by experience what the procedure or process is.

Good luck in school!!!!

[d'cm]

Here's a few:

Advantages:

1. High demand and expected to increase

2. Usually, no weekends/ holidays/ night shifts.

3. More autonomy.

4. You really get to do the whole nursing process which is intrinsically rewarding.

Disadvantages:

1. No overtime (usually exempt status)

2. Inherently difficult role. Case managers are the friction point between hospitals desire to cut costs, decrease length of stay and physician ambivilance to do either.

3. The above often can lead to high turn over at the Director level causing chronic instability within the dept.