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As the healthcare industry continues to grow and evolve, Registered Nurses (RNs) no longer have to stick to just one path but have the option to change the direction of their career. In addition to being a noble and virtuous profession, nursing provides opportunities to offer your services in different work environments and in diverse roles. The career path acknowledges individual temperaments, personalities, and the preferred pace of the work environment.Apart from working in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and clinics, RNs can also pursue opportunities in research labs, physician’s offices, NGOs providing healthcare services,corporates, insurance and law firms and in many other specialty roles. These options have multiplied with specialties and niches for nurses from all education levels. Apart from the bedside care, here is a list of diverse career options for a modern nurse and where they can pursue them:-

Physician Offices

Working as a primary care nurse in a physician’s office can be less stressful and exhausting as you will rarely have to deal with emergencies, and you will have a predictable schedule with fixed “office hours.” However, nurses working in a physician’s office need to be skilled in a variety of daily nursing procedures as they are often the first medical professionals that most patients come in contact with. Primary care nurses typically have to provide care for minor illnesses such as colds and allergic reactions however, they can choose to specialise in certain branches of medicine as the patients that you encounter might vary depending on your expertise. As primary care nurses encounter their patients on a daily basis, many form close personal relationships with them. Primary care nurses are most often employed in physician offices however, hospitals and other healthcare facilities also hire these nurses.

student thinking about her nursing career — A degree in nursing opens up a plethora of fulfilling career options

Research Laboratories

If academics are your calling then you can opt for becoming a nurse researcher. A research nurse works hard to help create, evaluate, and perfect new and old medications and treatments for various medical problems. As a nurse researcher you are at the forefront of new medical discoveries, and help develop breakthrough cures and medical treatments. As this is a highly specific category of nursing, a specialised educational background is required to train you for the profession. Moreover, you must be able to effectively communicate with scientists, physicians, researchers, patients, and corporate executives as you will be working alongside them. Qualified research nurses have the option to work in a number of different settings including research organisations, universities, pharmaceutical companies, teaching hospitals, and government agencies.

Nursing Care Facilities

Transitioning from a bed-side role to a managerial position requires a combination of clinical expertise and leadership skills. The role is instrumental in creating a professional environment and fostering a culture that contributes to optimal patient care along with the opportunity to grow. Apart from supervising nursing staff in a hospital or clinical setting nurse managers oversee patient care, make management and budgetary decisions, set work schedules, coordinate meetings, and make decisions about personnel.

Nurse Ethicist

Ethics influence every facet of a nursing practice. However, despite being challenged with ethical problems on a daily basis, many student nurses never get the opportunity to explore and resolve its complexities. A nurse ethicist works in hospitals, clinics and research facilities to help the staff in combining science with principles and morality. Their duties are three-fold:-

Clinical ethics consultation, education, and management
Syllabus development and execution for medical student clerkships and residency programs and
Research and publication

Nursing Informatics

As effective communication is at the core of nursing, an informatics nurse boosts the management of information and communications in the profession. They take the clinical and the technical languages of the healthcare industry and make it user-friendly and patient-centric while driving improved outcomes for patients and enhanced clinical workflows for healthcare staff. Documentation is the major emphasis in the field of nursing informatics.

Private and Public Education Institutions

As demand for the nursing profession increases, so does the demand to train qualified nurses. Becoming a nurse educator allows nurses to get the combined satisfaction of providing learners with the technical skills, refined skills, as well as the depth of knowledge that are instrumental for improving the quality of patient care. In order to train future nurses of the world, nurse educators must possess excellent communication skills, critical thinking abilities, and have a solid clinical background along with comprehensive and substantive knowledge in their particular area of instruction. The work setting is diverse ranging from long-term care facilities and hospitals, to universities, community colleges, vocational schools, etc. In addition to working in educational institutions, many nurse educators also work in clinical settings.

Doctor — A medical expert in a private or public educational institute is a rewarding career prospect for a nurse

NGOs

Although nursing implies care of the vulnerable, the role is often misunderstood and restricted to a traditional hospital setting. However, nurses can also assist by filling the gap in communities without the access to physicians by working in NGOs. While this might be a highly rewarding experience, RNs working in these settings need to acknowledge the lack of resources available for undertaking the care of patients and require strong critical thinking and stress management skills to best serve their patients. Nurses who are interested in pursuing this objective can also work for ‘Doctors Without Borders’ or for the UN in countries such as Africa, Asia or other Middle Eastern countries having refugee crises such as Iraq, Yemen and Syria. They can undertake leadership positions overlooking care of patients within the most critical zones. Expertise or experience in emergency, pediatrics, infectious diseases, tropical diseases, and/or public health is particularly applicable to the field. Organisations such as these also recruit nurse-midwives, nurse anesthetics, and neonatal nurses. Nurses expecting to work for Doctors Without Borders can expect participating in mass vaccination initiatives for measles or triaging an influx of displaced people fleeing conflict. Working in these challenging settings ensures that you are offering your services to those who are in desperate need of your care and attention thereby confirming a greater social impact.

Insurance and Law Firms

A career as a legal nurse is in demand with so many lawyers handling medical cases requiring well trained and experienced people with medical knowledge. Legal nurse consultants assist attorneys in the litigation process, and alternatively can also assist in evaluating healthcare and medical insurance claims, conduct medical research, and use their knowledge of both the legal and nursing fields to make recommendations and select medical expert witnesses. To become a legal nurse apart from a degree in nursing and some on-ground experience in the profession, some legal education is also requested by employers.

Providing medical legal help is a well-paid career option for a nurse

Private Companies

Nurses can choose to offer their services for occupational roles in private companies. Nurses in private companies are expected to provide high-quality care to the employees of the organisation, however they can also choose to work in nursing homes, or provide care to patients in a hospital. Responsibilities include initial patient assessment, monitoring vital signs, and nurturing patients to recovery.

Conclusion

To conclude, with the constantly evolving medical practices, an education in nursing can open up a diverse range of career options. With rising demand for qualified and trained nurses, the profession offers many worthwhile opportunities that can be pursued suitable to your personality type, especially if you are a little open-minded. To identify the best option for yourself the only way is to be bold and explore them, be it in a hospital or non-hospital setting.

“Written by Siddhi Latey (Weloquent)”

Every year, brand-new nurses enter medical circles across the world – donning scrubs, clipboards, nursing shoes that help them be on their feet longer, and a heart full of excited trepidation. For most nurses, their first year is the most exciting – and terrifying in their whole profession.

Gone are the days of simulation labs and clinicals; now real lives are in their hands.This often overwhelms and alarms newly registered nurses, many of whom may choose to abandon this line of work because of an inability to cope or balance real-world risks and pressures.

That’s why this article will detail the most prominent challenges that graduating nurses will encounter when they start their first job. Study these possibilities, so that you know what’s coming when stepping out of your classes and into your workplace.

1. Physical Strain

The nursing profession is hard on the human body. Once you start working as a nurse, your body will hurt after almost every shift. Expect to be on your feet for most of the day, not to mention rushing around the hospital, lifting patients and equipment.

Expect to experience serious physical discomfort, especially in the first year when your body is not used to it. To combat this, follow a self-care routine (diet, exercise, stretches) beforehand. Stretch regularly. Purchase and wear compression stockings. Invest in good-quality shoes made specifically for healthcare professionals.

Klaus Nielsen — As a practicing nurse, you may have to deal with biases from colleagues as well as patients. Remember to open up about them with someone you trust and discuss ways in which you can overcome them.

2. A High Learning Curve

Nursing school teaches you many valuable skills, but nothing can replicate the real world. What is learned in school is at most, basic when compared to the situations, an actual hospital will throw at you. Expect a high learning curve in all spheres of not just your specialty, but of your day-to-day life in your workplace.

Nurses have to deal with multiple emergency situations, which will be terrifying without experience. They will need additional in-service training in multiple competencies: basic life support (BLS), advanced cardiovascular life support (ACLS), using electronic clinical management system (CMS), entry of in-patient medication order (IPMOE), performing venipuncture and blood extraction and much more.

Be it studying and practicing technical skills, figuring out the nuance of team dynamics and communication between colleagues or the standards for presentability expected by your employer, you will have to expend yourself to absorb more knowledge and apply it practically.

Wildan Zainul Faki — Do prepare yourself with what real world nursing entails after you graduate with your nursing degree

3. Orientation on Protocol

Every hospital and medical facility has a distinct set of operational protocols. This doesn’t just apply to global, national and state-level medical regulations the particular establishment must follow. It also refers to both passive and active protocol systems put in place by individual healthcare institutions. All first-year registered nurses (RN) must attend detailed orientations on protocol, as well as extensive documentation they have to study and commit to memory. They will have to adhere to these protocols in all situations, especially emergencies. That means they have only about a couple of weeks to learn what guidelines and regulation their work will be subject to.

Joshua Macknight — Wear your nursing badge of honour proudly, it’s been a tough road training to be a nurse, and you deserve that respect.

4. Workplace Bias

Expect to run into some measure of workplace bias. Work cultures vary between employers, but in a high-stress environment such as healthcare, hierarchy and bias can be more emphatic. In their first year, RNs might face alienation from some seniors. This can be difficult to work with because new nurses need all the guidance they can get. Since good relationships with colleagues enhance one’s sense of belonging and facilitate self-development, the lack of it can be disheartening and create additional pressures on the individual.

Nurses can also be affected by bias is also a factor in nurses’ daily interactions. Bias can occur on the basis of almost anything – religion, culture, ethnicity, gender, etc. As an example, have a look at this account by a male nurse who relates his experience with a young patient and their mother.

“As I introduced myself to the mother of my patient, a three-year-old boy, I noticed that she seemed hesitant…..As we talked about his favorite cartoons and after he seemed more comfortable and started engaging in play, he started to trust me and even tried to take his medications. When I returned to check on him later, his mother seemed less tense and opened up about several issues that she did not fully understand and were concerning her. Later, she told me she was initially concerned about how a male nurse would interact with her son because, in her culture, men were not associated with being compassionate or emotionally expressive.”

5. Team Dynamics

This paper on the challenges of fresh nursing graduates during their transition period reveals that new RNs were hesitant to ask their seniors for help about clearing up their uncertainties because they were anxious about being criticised for insufficient knowledge. Participants in the study reported being criticised after committing minor mistakes.

While you are expected to work independently, you are also going to work in collaboration with other RNs, supervisors and doctors. They come with their own experiences, preconceptions and expectations from new joinees. Some of them may not have the patience for gently guiding graduating nurses. There might be some friction, which new RNs will have to work through without aggravating everyone else. Since they are at the bottom of the workplace hierarchy, they might face their share of unpleasantness on the job.

6. Patients’ (and their Families’) Expectations

Patients and their families do not care (or know) that you are new on the job. They see a nurse wearing the uniform, they assume that he or she is a professional who can answer their questions and tend to their needs. Every RN, no matter how experienced they are will have to deal with patients, relatives and everyone else in the ward.

Patients are often stressed and panicked, as are their family members. They are mostly frantic about having their questions answered and trying to find assurances about the health of their loved ones. First year nurses will have to learn to comfort them, and sometimes, convey bad news. They will have to learn how to endure and defuse emotional outbursts with compassion – all while providing appropriate, timely care to those who are sick and scared.

7. A Massive Workload

Every graduating nurse will experience a heavy workload. The average ratio of nurse to patients is 1:12, whereas the highest ratio is 1:21. Their workload entails reams of never-ending paperwork as well as managing multiple activities at the same time. Some of these tasks would be providing doctor-prescribed treatment after every round, answering patients, monitoring medicine intake of patience, etc.

Joshua — Remember your job as a nurse is one that the whole world is grateful to you for pursuing!

Most hospitals and medical institutions are understaffed. Working with insufficient manpower will increase workload, and consequently stress. This is particularly true of nurses in their first year. It is not uncommon for them to work overtime, pull all-nighters, miss meals and have to forego some sleep.

Undoubtedly, your life as a nurse will be exhausting and seem thankless once in a while. But, you will also be one of the most important people in the world, saving actual lives every single day. Obviously, walking this path won’t be easy. But with the right tools and training at hand. It will be the most worthwhile thing you’ll ever do.

Category: Blog

Career Options Available for a Modern Nurse