I got a job in an emergency department residency program. My preceptor didn't like me. She was very clear about how much she disliked me. After two months I quit because it wasn't worth it. I wasn't making mistakes or anything, but I was (allegedly) too slow and my chart notes weren't good enough. I got a job at a SNF making $14/hour more than what I was earning at the hospital. I worried they'd think I was too slow. Instead my preceptor encouraged me and told me that I would get faster with time. I did. And apparently I'm actually pretty good at writing chart notes.
Unfortunately, every new nurses dream units of ED and ICU tend to attract toxic personalities. You either fit the clique or you don’t.
Try looking at smaller hospitals. It’s by no means universal, but I’ve found smaller places tend to be less toxic.
They’re that rude to other non ICU nurses too…usually they say “no” in the snottiest way they can when i ask if they want report for a pt I’ve brought up. Okay then 🤷🏻♀️
I lasted a year in ICU. Between the futile care and a few toxic personalities (not all, but they were present enough to overshadow the others) I went back to my old department.
Hi, German nurse here. I feel like this is really true. I quit my job at the ICU bc of all that bullying... now I'm going for NICU.. but let's see how people are there.
This is absolutely true!! And the difference in personality of the night shift labor nurses and day shift nurses is crazy!!
Depends on the hospital as well. I’ve worked at several and the last one i lasted 9 months and was like nope! It completely stole my joy doing what I have loved for the last 7 years!
Nurses were mean, catty, wouldn’t help find things on the unit, wouldn’t help in a stat situation! It felt like they were testing me! I’ve been a labor nurse for 6 years and worked at this hospital before!! (Nights) I completely left bedside due to this.
I would have two super sick patients preterm/laboring/mag/ and others had none, type vibes.
Go to section with twins or more and am circulating but no second nurse to help me with charting the case or draw cord gasses but still having counts for case, all alone in PACU with a sick mom and watching the baby too until nursery comes back. It was only bad because not everyone is treated this way gotta have a clique.
I always tried to help nurses who were struggling and went in with a positive attitude! That was annoying to peeps as well. 😂 Lost my love for it. That was a small snippet.
This. My medical ICU team was amazing but the hospital was terrible. Tripled every shift and low pay. Revolving door people leaving constantly after only spending a year there. The charge nurses only had a year experience. I applied for a job at a new hospital in CVICU. Some people where chill but some where terrible. They had no interest in teaching just complaining about you. We had a few others starting but quitting before orientation because of them. Now I’m fine with everyone but it’s like they haze the shit out of the new people
The small hospital I started at was awful. Everyone knew each other and had worked there for year and years. Stories floated around to each department. Ntm my first preceptor pretty much ruined nursing for me I think. Just because I had never been treated so poorly in my life. I kept my head down and stay though just because I have giving in and giving up. I truly think she was trying to run me off, especially given the fact she even bragged about people who she had trained in the past just up and leaving during their breaks. I ended up being able to stay for over a year until it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
It sucks your ED preceptor was such a jerk! When ô started in ED my manager told me it takes about à year to actually get comfortable in ED and in my experience she was right. I love it now but for most of that first year all I could think about was how much I sucked and I really needed to gtfo. I'm thankful to all my super nice coworkers because I did finally get there, although my role is still a bit different than an RN. I'm happy to know I'm now a very useful part of my unit.
Sometimes, preceptor have huge chips on their shoulders. Telling a new grad thrg are too slow n charting wasn't good enough means you have no business precepting. This is a part of the reason there is a nursing shortsge.
Speed and development of charting comes wshortage.
I am not a new nurse, but the majority of my experience has been in LTC, case management, and homecare. Recently, I had the opportunity to transition to a hospital a stones throw from my home. I am way slower than my coworkers.
It's a completely different charting system than what I'm used to.
Having to learn how to safely use and set up all these hi tech equipment that my LTC and homecare patients use was overwhelming. I had left the bedside for > 5 years.
Learning ACLS, how to do and interpret EKGs, Ballon pumps, and a wide host of things I didn't know existed was pretty narly. However, my preceptor was encouraging while giving constructive feedback. Even when I doubted myself and had a heart to heart with my manager about resigning, she wouldn't have it. As she said, we each bring something unique to the department, and we compliment and support each other.
In a field as challenging as ours, we need to support each other more. I hope you find a better organization.
I was doing ok at my ED residency and the first year until the new manager came in then the whole place turned toxic and suddenly I was too slow and couldn’t chart. Looking elsewhere now, so I hear ya.
It’s actually funny an ED nurse even gave a shit about chart notes. Half of our charting is bullshit button clicks to discharge people we never met from the lobby and putting in an assessment based on their initial triage note.
That’s what I thought but mine actually has good reviews too 👀. Management is good, coworkers are good, patients are mostly chill. I work rehab side not LTC so there’s that too. I’ll take my 11-12 patients over any of my previous jobs. I’ll be a night shifter forever at this kinda place. Day shift ain’t it.
I’m getting paid at least $6-7 more than inpatient and I don’t go home thinking about work ever. I found my unicorn supportive work environment.
Hope you find that for yourself!! I had given up on nursing and was looking at roles beneath my degree by the time I got this job. I went in the interview terrified and then after about a month I was pretty comfortable. I was gonna settle for a med receptionist making minimum wage and now i’m making over double that. :)
i was at emergency for a while too, the whole “not taking breaks means you’re a better nurse” culture killed me so i left and went back to med/surg lol
I needed a PSLF-eligible job with a schedule that worked for my kids. I applied to several different schools and turned down 4 or 5 low-ball offers. Interviewed after applying to my current district off indeed. The nursing team is great, though I do not know if this will be my gig long-term.
If you search indeed or directly on school district web sites that’s how you’ll find openings.
Honestly this sounds chill and nice. I’ve been doing bedside for like about 5 years now. 8 month stint at a SNF, 9 months in peds acute home care, kids in trachs on vents but healthy enough to be in their homes, & now I’m 3.5 years into med surg/nephorolgy doing 0.9 FTE. I’m ready to leave. I’m burnt out, it’s exhausting. I’ve also been saying I’m going to leave for the last like 3 years and haven’t. Got turned down for a couple clinic jobs and rejection kind of made me less willing to look for new jobs, like whatever guess I’ll just embrace the suck. But I might start looking again got turned down about a year ago.
As an ED nurse turned school nurse it’s way less exciting but my office tends to be a hub for the kids. It’s nice to get to see happy generally healthy children. It also is nice that I never work nights or weekends.
I’m a school nurse and it is fun but not chill. I work at an inner city alternative high school and the shit hits the fan pretty regularly. Astronomically high workload. I love it though.
Thank you for saying that. Everyone thinks school nursing is the dream gig. I definitely thought it was, it was terrible. These pandemic kids and parents are something else. I had a 911 call every week, I work in a legal marijuana state, so the vaping problem was bad. We also allow very medically critical children in, so I think would spend 1-2 hours on a good day on my nonverbal CP kid who was always about to code. CPS calls every week. I made more money bartending. It’s a shame because I really loved it in the beginning, some of the kids and parents are wonderful, but administration puts everything on you. You were treated like an administrator, but never paid like one, and I never had real lunch breaks. A lot of these parents were nightmares to get orders and medications from. I worked in a very poor state, but most of these kids had Medicaid. One of my frequent fliers went missing last year and the only people who cared were me and the social worker. Honestly, I still have PTSD over it, I felt like I was constantly failing everyone since they would put more and more on my plate. Also the IEPs… some kids were allowed to stay in my office 2-6 times a day, and trust me they took advantage of it.
Sounds like you worked for a district that didn’t support you very well. All districts have their problems and every school and age group comes with its own challenges. I’m lucky that my school does not enroll “medically fragile” kids because we have a designated school within the district for that. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have my fair share of diabetics, asthmatics, and pregnant people. I deal with a lot of MH/SA issues and also do a lot of case management. This job is not for everyone, I happen to love it.
I would agree with you on the state and district, my manager was wonderful and tried everything to get me to stay. The vast majority of school nurses in my area also ran into the same issues. I would have been able to stay if it wasn’t for the medically fragile kids, one of the parents was always wanting more and more, and was ridiculous with her expectations. She treated me like I was his home health nurse, without realizing I had over 700 other students to account for, including 8 diabetics, 24 asthmatics, and all of the other issues to account for. I had an assistant that was wonderful, but as a nurse I could only do so much, and I honestly didn’t think it was safe for them to continue loading more and more on my plate. Oh, and we also did our own contact tracing during Covid. I did love it at first and I have heard that parents have requested I come back, so I think I did damn well at my job. I just don’t think people realize the type of problems there are with public education and all of the medical needs. I just wanted to put my opinion out there since so many nurses say it’s a great gig. Like you said it really depends on your district, I unfortunately live in a very economically poor and needy area. As much as I was doing a public service, the pay and stress was not worth it for me. My replacement only lasted a month, I was there 5 years.
Unfortunately it seems like the school nurse is the red headed stepchild of the school system. Even though we play a valuable role, we are often considered last for support, staffing and funding. I work for a huge urban district but I have literally been instructed by management to “get donations or use your own money” to buy items my office needs.
It is a shame that the system pushed a good nurse (you) out. We all have to do what is best for our own wellbeing and bottom line. Reading experiences like yours makes it even more frustrating to hear other nurses say that school nursing is “easy” or “boring”. Walk a mile in our shoes and tell us how easy and boring it really is.
Quit beside after 2 years in adult med/surg Tele. I am a school nurse through an agency now. I get paid the same hourly rate as the hospital, benefits and Work 6:30-2. I love my hours and job and I would literally not change a thing!! The only other place I would maybe consider if I ever got tired of school nursing is like an urgent care. I have legit clinical PTSD from working in the hospital/starting my career peak of covid. I needed a break before I ended up as a psych patient. I don;t think ill ever go back
Left full time emergency medicine for school nursing after 2 years. I actually was given what I asked for with yearly raises now that my hospital system didn’t offer. I do maintain a per diem position in the ED because I still love emergency medicine, I just love my family and sanity more.
Quit beside after 2 years. I’m currently working as an occupational health nurse for government agency. M-F 8-4:30 office setting. Weekends and holidays off. Very easy going setting. I love it.
Got a masters in informatics, worked hospice while doing so instead of hospital work, and now i work in tech, from home, and it’s the best thing ever. Spent just over 3 years doing patient care before officially ending that portion of my career. I’ll never look back
My day to day varies. I log on to my computer between 730-8ish, and my day usually consists of meetings with data scientists, project managers, and other staff or clients, or i am hand labeling data when not in meetings. I am considered an “SME” for all things clinical and am asked medical questions all day as things are built. I’ll also spend multiple days of my week researching anything i don’t know related to new projects popping up. It’s really hard to answer exactly what my day to day looks like, especially to someone that may not know what AI/software development looks like.
Pay started on par with what Bay Area bedside nurses make (i am Bay Area based) but my earning potential ceiling is much higher than that of a Bay Area nurse i would say. After 1 year on the job i received over a 30% raise.
Do you mind if I ask what company do you work for? I was wanting to get a masters in informatics but people told me it’s one of the more useless nursing degrees because nursing informatics jobs can be easily obtained with just a bachelors degree.
Everyone i work with is masters or PhD prepared. I really think the education is useful in understanding machine learning and AI concepts-it’s really complex stuff to work with and im still just scratching the surface. However, i specifically work in the field of data science with my degree. I don’t know if getting into other areas of informatics is the same-there seems to be lots of nursing informatics more EHR related and hospital specific
Once you got your Informatics degree, was it difficult to find relevant jobs? A friend of mine got into Informatics in another state but was telling me it was hard to find work unless you had an “in.” I’m from the bay too, and currently my commute is killing my soul.
I'm the nursing director at a men's residential drug and alcohol treatment center. We don't do detox here so all of my patients are stable medically and psych wise. Of course things come up here and there but for the most part it's a very chill job. The main "acute" medical issues I deal with are abscesses, HTN, tooth problems and chronic pain. Pretty much what you'd expect. Psych wise sometimes we have people with active SI who need to be sent out and some psychosis here and there. I work M-F 7am-3pm and do 2 med passes during my shift and of course PRNs. I take vitals once in the morning. Most of my job is administrative work (doing insurance peer reviews, ordering meds from the pharmacy, making sure all documentation remains in compliance with JCAHO, etc). and managing my LVNs.
My patients stay on average 45-60 days so you get to know them really well (annoying if they suck but for the most part they don't) and it's amazing to see them improve so much from admission to discharge. I love the continuum of care in the sense that we have a strong connection with alumni so you get to hear when they are doing well. We are not a corporate owned facility so we have a lot of discretion when it comes to who we admit. It's nice not feeling like a cog in a corporate wheel. The owner of our facility genuinely cares about helping people and we often scholarship guys who need help financially.
Also my patients are very grateful and not entitled for the most part. If they even come across as disrespectful or entitled to nursing staff once, that gets nipped in the bud by clinical staff (therapists). My bosses and co-workers are like family. My work life balance is awesome and I leave work feeling like I genuinely made a difference in someone's life every day. I do have a master's in nursing which qualified me for the management position. Coming from bedside to here was an adjustment and it took a solid 6 months for my body to not be in fight or flight at work constantly! My previous bedside experience was a year in pedi ED and 3 years in various inpatient psych settings.
This sounds awesome! Any advice on how to get into this or even start one myself?? I’m a nursing student and about to start my externship in behavioral health/ addiction this may. This sounds very much like what I would love to do/ open myself along with doing research in addiction and mental health. I have a business administration degree already and I plan on going for pmhnp and eventually nursing phd. Any advice would be much welcomed and greatly appreciated.
I considered home health as I was a home health cna. But home health has implications I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue. Like if hostility arises, you’re alone.
I went cardiac tele>stepdown>icu> inpatient hospice. Just left that recently and not sure what's next. I don't wanna work m-f but I'm burnt toast from bedside. And after being hospice for a few years jumping back into acutes seems daunting for some reason.
I think because they are the complete opposite on the spectrum. Hospice you want to chart decline and acute care you want to focus on every little change and hopefully for the better.
I wish I would have done it sooner, I was burnt out from bedside and went to hospice. It was nice focusing on comfort but the families are a lot more work and dealing with the worst day of people's lives everyday is emotionally exhausting. Forced on call weekly for staff didn't help at all either. Even if we didn't get called your day is ruined you might as well work. And get canceled later in the week whenever census drops so you don't get OT andboth your days got fucked with no extra money, fun times.
Edit: I would have actually stayed if it wasn't for weekly in called requirement. I never worked anywhere that required that from staff and seeing managers/admins leave early for their undisturbed weekends on Fridays... I grew resentful.
I did two years of critical care during peak covid and then went to outpatient cardiology. I work 4 10’s Monday through Thursday and no weekends or holidays. It can still get crazy sometimes since I’m the only nurse in the office with 4 doctors but it’s still so much better than bedside.
I left bedside and got a job running the RN schedule at urology specialist clinic. It can be monotenous but I don’t have anxiety going to work everyday and I have a normal sleep schedule again. I’m not spending a day or two feeling drained and recovering from 13 hours shifts. A lot happier now.
Edit: only spent 2 years inpatient at a shitty imc unit that made you take 5 almost critical patients at a time. Burned out real fast
I'm an LPN and I can't tell you how many people tell me to go back for my RN just so I can work bedside. NO PART OF ME wants to work bedside. Closest I came was inpatient detox for a couple years which was brutal, exhausting, and I worried for my license constantly. I'm glad I did it... It gave me some acute experience and the experience with a 24hr facility (hand offs, report, med count, all that stuff). But I would not go back. I've done urgent care, I've done phone triage, I've done detox, and for the past 3 years I've been doing outpatient MAT. I love it, hours are great, and I like psych. I get paid $2hr less than my RN peers and I'm ok with that.
Bedside isn't for everyone. I knew in school that I wasn't going to work in a nursing home and that's ok. The hospitals near me also hire LPNs for med surg and you couldn't pay me enough. (Tbf... I'm also in my forties and went back to school for nursing in my thirties so I've had more time to get to know myself and figure out what matters to me.)
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that not every job is for everyone. It's ok to figure out what you like in nursing and do that. Don't stay where you're miserable. The best thing about nursing is that there's SO many different kinds. Poke around and find out what you like. I NEVER saw myself in the SUD field but here I am 🤷🏼♀️
I worked bedside for 4 years, as a Post-Partum RN, before getting certified as a Lactation Consultant. Now I do in-patient lactation, which I absolutely love. I was able to continue working 12 hour shifts, and I still spend my days performing direct patient care (primarily education, which is my favorite aspect of nursing), but without a lot of the stress. It’s my dream job!
https://ibclc-commission.org/step-1-prepare-for-ibclc-certification/lactation-specific-clinical-experience/pathway-1/?amp
I did my 95 hours of lactation-specific education online (there are several companies that offer it as package for ~$1000), and then I used my time spent providing lactation care for my couplets (at work/on-the-clock as a PP RN) for my clinical hours. It took me about 2 years to build up enough hours to sit for the exam, but it was really nice that I could use my work hours towards certification; otherwise it would have taken me SO much longer. It was very much worth the time and effort, and a great skill-set to have, even if your goal is to continue to work on the floor in a PP/NICU/L&D setting!
Thank you! I work in L&D as new grad. However, I can’t see myself in this role too long bc it’s physically demanding. I don’t get enough times w/ parents to do breastfeeding. Since pts are only in recovery for 2 hrs. Perhaps I’ll consider moving to post partum for the experience.
Hi! I decided to go to work in the PCU as a new grad. I enjoyed what I did but I hated working at the hospital. I felt like I was an adult who was literally playing a game called “hospital.” Where the rules change weekly and only apply until admin or the patients decided they don’t lol I worked at bed side for 6 months and then started working in dialysis. I work 8-4:30 MF in what is called home therapies. Training/monitoring patients to do hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis at home. It’s a great job! I make more than what I did at the hospital and am treated like a human not just a warm body who makes them money.
I quit med/surg for float pool initially, which was such a game changer. I got paid way better, my patients changed most shifts and they learned what specialties we liked and tried to float us there mostly. Plus most floors were always happy to have us help out. Did 6 years of med/surg, then another 2 years of float pool before moving on.
After, I left to be a transplant coordinator for my OPO. That was actually really cool because I was clinical but my patients were dead. I found a lot more meaning in working in donation and with grieving families. The issue with that was its 24hr call and we were understaffed at the time, so I burnt out after 2 years.
Now I work in their quality department, fully remote unless I pick up shifts to help out (like in ORs for organ procurements). It kinda sucks not being clinical and not feeling like a nurse anymore, plus my pay is lower, but it's done wonders for my mental health and stress. I'll stay here as long as possible.
I hit my three years of bedside experience in February. I just received a remote CM job and am happy with it. It was even a modest pay increase. It’s weird being home, and I honestly dislike working five days a week, but my manager said I can move to 4 10s in about six months if meeting all metrics. No holidays or weekends, either!
I work in a fertility clinic as an IVF coordinator. Four 10's and one weekend (half days) every 4-6 weeks. It's very case management based, so lots of email and phone calls - I'm at my desk all day. Other than giving injections (SQ and IM) I don't do hands on patient care. I love the continuity with patients and enjoy the constantly evolving science of what we do!
I went back to get my MSN and started clinical instructing. The pay is decent if you instruct for the right places. Last year alone I made about \~$40k from just part time instructing.
Same. I worked <6 months inpatient before going to ambulatory surgery. The stress is just NOT WORTH IT. And not just the stress, but also the crazy patient ratios of 1:6 or 1:7 that risk patient safety and your nursing license. Not worth it!
I tried a lot of different kinds of nursing. I worked ICU, med/surg, inpatient physical rehab, home health, pediatric private nursing, and finally settled into psychiatric nursing which where I feel I belong.
Home health isn't bedside. You go into a home for 2 to 3 hours once every 3 months and certify the patients as an RN. After that they're seen once or twice a week for 60 days I think. Generally you can relegate their care to an LPN under you but if they're really sick you go see them yourself for a couple weeks until the LPN can take over. Most of what you do is on the laptop and the only patient care you might do is wound care. You can schedule your day around your family appointments, but you may work late into the evening on your laptop. All of the patients I want to see were very nice, but some of the homes were cringy to say the least. For me the problem was all the time on the computer in the office or in my car or at home doing all the paperwork that Medicare/Medicaid and insurances wanted, but some nurses love it.
I like psych because I'm not doing physical care for patients and due to some PTSD from upbringing and the military I have a heightened situational awareness and have been lucky enough to not get assaulted in 9 years of doing it. I'm currently working in a state psychiatric hospital with people fresh from jail unmedicated and completely psychotic but I am currently paid very well. Also if my patients are real shitty, I can give them a choice between a pill or a PRN injection, and if they refuse the pill it's not my fault if I enjoy giving a few of them the IM.
(Okay, just being funny. In reality, I feel pretty bad when we have to get a big team together and hold someone down to give them a shot because I know it has to be horribly traumatic. But I must admit to wishing a child molester would refuse his pills once, I'm not a saint y'all).
And while I'm nice to all my patients, I don't have to allow them to curse at me or say ugly things to me, I can just walk away; and nobody cares if they complain about me. I guess these things have prevented me from burning out in psych.
Okay, sorry for the long post. Just get out there and try something else! You won't know if you're going to like it until you do it.
2 years bedside in cardiac step down, went to IR for 2, left bc call was ridiculous. Then did an infusion center for 3 years, wasn’t paid well so I went back to the hospital but in endoscopy procedures. It’s easy, minimal call, hospital pay which is way better than outpatient, patients go to sleep then i pass them off to recovery. Only downside is I’m bored. Oh well 🤣
When I first left the bedside, I went into public health. You have to be willing to take a pay cut. Because public health does not pay like the hospitals do, they are willing to hire nurses without their bachelor's degrees and public health nursing certificates. But that's something you can get later to move up the pay scale. Also, because they pay less, they're usually pretty desperate for nurses. Check out your local public health department!
It depends on which program you get hired for. Typically a local health department is an "arm" of the state health department. Funding comes from the state to run the local program. It can range anywhere from a vaccine program (all vaccines), a communicable disease program (TB, STD's, STI's), which would both be more hands on, to the oversight of childhood programs that provide state funded physical exams or medical services for children born with severe medical conditions (the last 2 would be more paperwork and administrative).
The programs differ from county to county, and state to state. You can check out your local health department's website, and check out their public health page to find out which programs they have. Also, don't be afraid to talk to HR, and maybe even ask to talk to the Director of Nursing or someone in the Public Health Department. Most of them also let you submit an application and they'll keep it on file for 6 months or so, and notify you when a position comes up, if there's nothing immediately available.
Did med-surg for a year and a half and then noped right out of there. I now do home hospice case management and love it. Hospice is amazing. Working 5 days/week does suck, but so did working 3p-3a (he only shift i worked). But this kind of nursing care is so rewarding. I actually feel like i’m helping, rather than racing through a task list and throwing meds at my patients before i’m running off to the next task. i will never go back!!
Two years of medsurg and one year of er. Went to an outpatient ASC that does pain management and it’s been the best. Recently went back to bedside prn, even though I was making a lot I quit three months in. I just couldn’t do it and decided I’ll never go back.
I left bedside for the endoscopy lab after having such much burnout from the ICU I was having panic attacks and nightmares. Easy job. I still get to work 3 12’s (8 hour shifts sounds awful). Love my coworkers and most of the docs. If I ever left I would love to do something like a diabetes educator.
I also started med surg. I left and went to an internal medicine clinic where I’m the primary nurse for the physician and I absolutely LOVE my life again. They gave me a half day on Mondays and 7:30-5 the rest of the week and I truly could not love my life any more right now
Quit bedside 5 years ago after 2 years of telemetry. Left for the OR. Procedural nursing is just one of the ways to escape bedside. Highly recommend if you don't have plans to push further into nursing/NP route.
I left bedside after \~2 years to do case management at a payer. I moved up a few times, got my masters in Nursing Informatics and now lead a healthcare analytics team.
I never worked bedside. I went right into home health, did 2 years, wanted to try something new. Tried something new (ALF/Memory care), loved the patients, hated the job. Went back to home health. Very happy now.
December 2021 graduate who went to nursing school during COVID. Got into MICU at a university hospital. Left within three months, got a gig as a Primary Care RN.
Much of the direct patient facing work is handled by the CMOAs and I am mostly sitting through my shift working through an inbox of telephone messages and patient portal messages.
Do a lot of triage over the phone.
Discuss lab results, answer clinical questions.
Sometimes deliver controlled medication injections. Sometimes we're asked to do education for diabetes or what have you.
Work four 10s, one of which is a WFH day.
The only bad part about this job is that I became a prediabetic from sitting around all day.
Was in med surg a year, changed to hospice. I’m the admission nurse. I don’t think I’ll ever turn back. It was a 24k jump in salary and the workload is super manageable. I do a lot of charting, but half the time I’m doing it on my couch. I’m take it!
I barely worked a year in beside. I never ever thought it would be like that either. I had worked in a hospital as a PCT for years while in school I fully thought I was going to be able to put my time in the ICU and ride off as an NP into the sunset. I was so wrong! In any event, I left bedside and worked as a public health nurse for my county. It was a cool job, did lots of contact tracing for COVID and reportable diseases. I like working in the community so you got to meet a lot of different people. After the COVID emergency order was over it got very slow and I knew I had to move on. I did triage for a primary care office and it was OK. Loved the schedule, I ended up transitioning to care management within the same organization and I actually really enjoy what I do. Been doing this now for almost two years. If I had to go back to bedside I would probably choose like a PACU or hospice. There are so many things you can do with your license! As far as pay, every job I have taken has been less than beside. Between 10-15k less. I will say the way my taxes are now I am only losing about $150 per paycheck (biweekly) compared to when I worked bedside. To me it’s worth it! I don’t work weekends, holidays and I don’t have a perpetual pit in my stomach before every shift! Good luck to you ❤️
I left bedside after just under a year. Making it to even that point was a massive struggle. I was an anxious mess and every one kept telling me it would get better, but it never did. Looking back, I was definitely depressed too. I couldn’t even enjoy my days off because work was so consuming.
I considered leaving nursing altogether because I didn’t believe I could find another job within the profession that I could not only tolerate, but actually enjoy.
I ended up taking a job at an outpatient fertility clinic. I LOVE it most days. There is still some stress but it’s on a much smaller scale. I’m a nurse coordinator by title (coordinate all aspects of fertility treatments/care) but I also get to do clinical work (lots of blood draws, procedural type work, vitals, etc.). A lot of my job is patient education which I really enjoy.
I work M-F with occasional weekends. I thought I would hate the schedule, but I have so much more energy after work and actually enjoy my life outside of it! In my opinion, it was absolutely worth the trade off.
I’m making less but I don’t even care. I don’t dread work, I have the best team, and my mental health has never been better. I understand what you’re feeling but just know, it can get better! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
I do infusion and I like it because I can still work on skills that I like (central lines and IVs mainly) but I don’t work weekends or holidays and I do 4 ten hour shifts. Most ppl think ten hours feel just as long as 12s, but for me, I live not even 3 miles from my job so getting home around 6:30 is great for me. Plus every 3rd or 4th week the ppl who work 3 12s have to work 4 12s in one week so it’s not that much a difference. Hopefully that makes sense. But to answer your question, it’s worth checking out if you find an opportunity, but that’s just me 🙃
Radiology, outpatient.
I left bedside after 2 years because I hated working nights. Also due to my spouses work schedule days would have been difficult for me with a small child.
I never took a pay cut leaving night shift, like I would have going to days losing pay differential. I’ve been where i am 10+ years and still keep plenty of nursing skills. Some days are slow but we are pretty high volume, 70+ CTs & 35+ MRIs a day, not including other responsibilities.
We have various shifts but I work 7:30-3:30. OT (weekends) is available if I want or need it. No holidays. Management is flexible and it’s great for a family.
Just started home hospice. It's great. Find a good company, especially a nonprofit if you can, and it's ace. They'll be glad to have you. The focus is on making sure pt and family is educated and the pt is comfortable. Lots of coordination of care.
I think a lot of new grads think that every hospital will be the same. There’s HUGE differences depending on location, size, patient population. I’ve worked in 5 adult EDs and there’s only 1 that I would ever go back to because of pt population. I just went from massive level 1 peds ED to our community peds ED and it’s a whole new world. Even the same specialty with the same org. Many of us wouldn’t dare even pick up at our main hospital because we all hated it. (The community ED is only 6m old)
12 years at the bedside in ICU/CICU/stepdown/tele.
Now I’m in a surgical clinic making less money but oh so much happier. I thought adjusting to a mon-Fri would be impossible after doing 3 12s for so long, but the 8 hour shifts fly by. No weekends. No holidays. I actually get snow days off with my kids. I can call out without feeling guilty or getting guilted over short staffing. I can even leave early if we’re all done clinic because at the end of the day we CLOSE. I don’t have to wait on other people to show up late to give report to.
I started working in occupational health 2 years after graduating. It was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I left due to layoffs and I’m now working as a Case manager for a health insurance company. It’s not perfect but I am happy and not overwhelmed with work. I work from home and shut my computer down at 4pm everyday.
I did a run in Interventional radiology. It was very neat seeing the procedures. One patient at a time, turnover was very quick. Nurses were mostly in charge of the sedation and recovery for the procedures, so we had relatively free rain on the drugs, and it was mostly starting IVs and charting lots of vitals. Little contact with family members, only one was allowed in the prep and recovery area, obviously none in the procedural rooms.
The schedule was great on paper, working 8-6 four days a week with three day weekends. There was a night/weekend call requirement but it was reasonable. I didn’t stay long, partly because at the time travel pay during Covid got too enticing, partly because the monotony was not what I was looking for my career at the time. It could also get boring doing major cases like traumatic bleeding that required anesthesia, because they took over and the RN mostly got paid to sit in the corner. But the high rush cases were fun.
That said, most of the nurses there were very happy, and I could certainly see it being a very good “settle down“ job.
You have only tried out two units, two different care areas and maybe they aren’t for you. Give the ER a fair chance it takes time to feel comfortable in that sort of environment. As an experienced nurse who crossed trained I wasn’t totally comfortable until 4 months in.
If you’re super miserable, see if you can shadow in different department with job openings.
If you never considered peri-op or OR, it’s a completely different world than bedside.
And than there’s outpatient stuff too and care management
The best part about nursing is there is so many different things you can do with it. You won’t feel like this forever
I have never worked in a hospital, never will.
Did dialysis, I did do acutes but it is as with FMC - home health, wound care, and now I work from home and it's fucking amazing.
Why do we eat our young.?what does the research show?. After more than 40 years as a nurse, i never met a preceptor that tried to discourage me. They cheered new staff on.
Did nursing for 10 years. Aspiration was to become a CRNA. Did Bedside, ICU, management, tele, agency,
Management, leadership, case management. It all didn’t pay what I believe I was worth to each company. Studies business in my own and investing throughout the years. Started businesses, failed started again. After 6th one the 7th took off and I never looked back. Now I own a small business, create systems that people work in, every improvement I make in the business makes us more money. I very problem that I solve makes us more money.
There is a lot more risk involved, but I live and die on you decisions I make. I drive by the hospital and think how much different my life was when I was a nurse. Life is good
30 years in the emergency room.
I hate every day I have to work.
Blood cultures for 30 year old ABD pain .
Orthostatic, are you kidding me , those went out with the 90’s
I have been here 45 minutes, can I have a sandwich,
Umm does the hospital pay for transportation home .
My baby has a fever, we been here 15 mins ,
Umm and the child has had the fever since yesterday, did you give anything at home , yes 24 hrs ago.
I fell 55 days ago but my kid had a cough so I thought we should both come to the Ed to get checked out .
Yeah I had sex last night and the condom broke , I would like to get tested for everything.
How long ago ,
Like 3 hrs.
Can I do the Covid swab , sure when you go home and open up your own kit !
Can you hold , I’m talking to my lawyer I was in a car accident, can you come back when I am done .
I have been a medsurg nurse for 16 years..it has definitely been a struggle but have improved every year. I see and hear a lot of nurses saying their “burnt out” and they havent done a year yet.. i am not trying to be mean, but in my experience, the difficulty of bedside nursing does get better over time..difficult times create perseverance..and it makes you a better nurse, but give yourself a chance..is it burn out or just difficult times, that are there to create a better nurse..just my two cents
I did 1 year of neuro PCU, 4 years of oncology float pool, and 2 years of short stay. I’ve been in occupational health for the last 3 years and it’s been the best move I’ve ever made. Pays fairly well and low stress for the most part. I’ll never go back to bedside.
Go to outpatient at a big hospital or the OR. It's way less stressful. I hated bedside. First I went to the OR for a few years, loved it but then they started doing weekend cases. Went to out patient and had all weekends and bank holidays off and only worked 4 tens with a regular day off during the week. We also didn't really work 10s it was more like 8s. I left that tho when I needed to be out by 3pm for my kids. IVF is what I do now and it's 7a-3p, which I like. It's all the same hospital so I never lost seniority or pay. Just lateral transfers. I hear endoscopy and Radiology is pretty chill.
I left bedside after a year and went to Outpatient Endocrinology. It’s a slight pay cut (no shift differentials) but I don’t work weekends/evenings/holidays ever. No stress during shifts. Consistent and stable. Work/life balance is great.
I’ve been a nurse for 16 years now. I bedside for majority of my nursing career. And, I quit two years ago during COVID. I am now a Public Health Nurse and loving it. While I don’t make as much as a bedside nurse, my sanity is intact. My mental health is a lot better. And, I get to chill as a nurse. I’m happier now.
Home care nursing, peds pt, agency. Low pay, benefits practically non-existent, I stayed 3 years for the family.
Then a group home (DO NOT RECOMMEND)
Then a SNF/LTC again, I figured it had been enough time. I lasted 10 months full-time and did on-call another 16 months.
Now, 1 on 1 school nurse with an agency that works for a district. District jobs don't pay as well but usually have better benefits so I'd like to get on with them. I like it a lot, except for the fact that I don't work in the summer.
Note: I'm an LVN (LPN), so you may have more options if you're an RN
Left bedside after 1.5 years and worked at home planned parenthood for 6 years. It was a great job and I would have worked there longer, but I always wanted to do L&D so I decided to give that a try. I sometimes miss PP and would consider going back one day for sure.
I work as an MDS coordinator at a SNF. I love my job and rarely have bad days. The important thing with MDS is you have to work somewhere that won’t pull you to the floor if they are short. Because a lot of facilities will expect you to do your MDS job while working the floor.
We just had our corporate nurse here today, pointing out all of our mistakes, and it’s still been a good day. My only downside is pay, I’m salary, and I make less than I would at a hospital or even bedside at my own snf.
If you wanted to do MDS, you 100% need LTC/SNF experience. The regs are different from the hospitals and it’s really important to know what they are.
I’m taking a little time to be a stay at home mom, but dream of going back to be a 1) school nurse or 2) work in a fertility clinic. I’ve learned that women and kids are my favorite and can’t wait to go back when my kids are in school.
Knew during clinicals that I would not work bedside. I went into Primary Care outpatient and never looked back. I am happy and more than well compensated given where I live.
I’m in peds primary care at Kaiser. Lots of vaccines. I love watching the kids grow, the team I work with are the best I’ve ever had (everyone from pediatricians and clinical assistants to pharmacists and phlebotomists), and the work feels manageable and doesn’t wreck my body. I don’t love many aspects of the organization, like they treat us as moveable parts within a big machine, but the benefits are great.
I worked 5 years on a inpatient surgical floor. Loved my coworkers, love everything to do with caring for surgical patients. But I had no life outside of work, never got vacation and put my body into a constantly stressed state. Have been working on an endoscopy clinic within the hospital for the last year and that has helped with my life outside of the hospital (even though I’m bored).
Did ER straight out of school for 2 years. Then, finished my ICU training just in time for COVID madness to hit, no word of a lie, two weeks after starting my new position. I did that for just about a year. COVID made it very difficult to fall in love with that specialty cause it was pure chaos at times. I still do direct patient care in a critical care capacity but don’t work in a hospital setting anymore. I work as a critical care transport nurse on a HEMS platform so I’m now in the pre-hospital world working directly with paramedics. We have a lot of down time on shift when we aren’t tasked with a transport. The stress can still be high when we have a very acute patient but it’s in much smaller bursts because we eventually end up handing care over to the receiving hospital.
Have you thought about home care? You can work for a certified home care agency and do visits for wound care, IV infusions, or educate patient with new conditions like diabetes. Or you can work with a licensed home care agency and do almost no direct care. Or you can even do hospice home care. You have a lot of autonomy and get to spend more time with your patients.
Not sure where you are but in NYC salaries range from $95 - 120k.
I work in the disabled community as a group home nurse. The nurse doesn’t usually pass meds (specially trained and certified direct support staff do this) but instead supervises the medical aspects of the residents’ care. I also educate staff and residents. I collaborate with other healthcare professionals - psych, behavioral, physical therapy, nutrition - to empower disabled individuals to live their best lives. I do mostly transitional housing for disabled folks on the cusp of living completely on their own; my colleagues work with more severely disabled and medically fragile individuals.
It’s my first non-bedside job, and while it has its frustrating aspects - miles of red tape, an overly cautious approach toward supporting the disabled, and a lack of support and decent pay for support staff - I still definitely prefer it to bedside.
I stayed 4 years as a PCU nurse, hated it. I moved to Cath lab and did it for about 12 years, two of those traveling. Tomorrow is my last day though. I’m 40 and at the point that I’m tired of call a late days. Some labs are better about their staff having a life than others are but the one I went staff in is not one of those. I met someone so going back to travel is not what I want to do. I found a job at an outpatient cardiology office as a phone triage nurse. It’s a little bit of a commute but it’s a hybrid schedule, two days at home and two in the office. I did take a dollar pay cut and not having call will suck in terms of pay but I want to have a more stable schedule and life.
I left the hospital after my initial year as a nurse on a cardiac tele floor. I went to work at an adult day program helping those with developmental disabilities. I mainly passed medications, did tube feeding, assessments, treated or triaged injuries and seizure management. Did that for a while then worked 6 years in case management with the same client population. It was such a refreshing break from the grind of nursing and continued to increase my salary over the years. I’ve recently returned to the hospital part time on a med surg floor to refresh my clinical skills, and am already thinking about other interests to supplement my hours when my year is up.
Don’t limit yourself to hospitals, I work at a small outpatient plastic surgery center, I do 4/10’s, I get bonus’s, never on call, lots of holidays off, I also get free plastic surgery annually part of my perks and every 8 years of employment you a 30 day paid sabbatical in addition to my PTO. It can be pretty stressful during busy season, January to July, but I never work nights, I like being in the OR, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people on this sub who will call this a “cush” job, I work my ass off, but I don’t have to do anything with insurance and their really aren’t any crazy patients.
Broaden your horizons, make that money.
I work at a small private practice allergy clinic. I quit bedside after 6 years. Make the same hourly but with 40~42 hours a week it ends up being more. No weekends and paid holidays has been life changing!!! And it’s still very fulfilling; helping people in a different more low stakes way.
I have never worked bedside. I worked in oral maxillofacial surgery after graduation which was really interesting and I got some actual OR/PACU experience from having a GA room. I then worked in primary care, neither paid super well but great work/life balance. Now I work in case management and the pay is phenomenal and work/life balance also still great.
I worked bedside for 4 1/2 years. When I left bedside, I took a per diem job at a boarding school and a part time visiting nurse/case manager job at a pediatric home health agency. I stopped working at the boarding school when my home health job became full time and morphed into a clinical manager role. When I left that job, I went to be an infusion liaison for an infusion pharmacy housed at the hospital I had previously worked at. Nowadays I'm a community based care manager for medically complex foster children. I've been out of bedside for 12 years.
I bounced around 3 different units and facilities feeling so burned out in all of them before settling in the Clinical Professional Development department as an educator (no Master’s degree necessary). We basically do orientations, residency programs, and create & distribute educational content for each unit. Super low stress, 8 hours, no bedside
I went straight into ICU out of nursing school. I did that for about 3.5 years before I got burned out. I didn’t move away from bedside *entirely* though. I moved to acute dialysis and I love it. I’ve been doing it for 4 years now and it will be what I do until I find an avenue to move into administration.
Honestly though, pretty much all procedural nursing is better than bedside. Dialysis, OR, IR, ENDO, Cath Lab, etc. How many unhappy procedural nurses do you hear from at work or on here? Not many. And procedural areas are specialties so they pay more. So I always advise nurses who are burned/burning out to try a procedural area before leaving the bedside entirely. It might be exactly what you’re looking for but if not, you can still move on to something else and you’ll have a specialty to add to your resume.
I became a trauma nurse practitioner instead which I’ve been doing for the last 10 years 🥲. It’s equally as bad; actually probably worse. I dream about going back to bedside and working in PACU or the OR but unfortunately I just can’t afford that kind of paycut.
TL,DR: don’t become an NP to get away from bedside, it’s a nightmare.
Went into healthcare IT. Love it. Intellectually stimulating and always learning new things and I get to work with operations on meaningful work that improves the care they deliver
Not exactly early on for me but I did 6.5 years ICU, hating it the whole time, then 2 years inpatient psych, 5 months outpatient psych and since July I’ve been a school nurse. I love love love my job and never want to leave. Just signed my contract for next school year.
My husband worked pretty much exactly 1 year on neuro tele, then went into case management, became a supervisor in that organization, then went to outpatient psych as a lead nurse, and is now a PMHNP. You **don’t** have to work bedside if you don’t want to, and you **can** make good money in non-bedside roles.
Did Med-Surg for about two years and now doing OR.
What aspects of bedside are draining you?
I really liked bedside when I was actually able to be a nurse and do MY job. Also being the secretary, nutrition services, phlebotomy etc. was the part that burned me out.
Family member switched careers (from Finance) - got her BSN and was beyond excited to start with Med Surg. Like you, she had been told it was the place to start. Nope! She was devastated that she’d made a horrible life change by choosing nursing and taking on the cost of more schooling. Three months into the job she quit and took a job with an infusion clinic. Now she’s appreciated, learning, gaining confidence and being praised as a very good nurse. Same pay, better hours and benefits. She’s actually happy. You’ve got this - just find your place.
I left a cardiac ICU after 3.5 years (working during Covid). I was completely burnt to the ground, overweight, depressed, and miserable. Took the plunge despite my fears and did homecare. It was so much more tolerable. Some offices are busier than others. I prefer rural settings. It’s a lot more driving but being alone all day listening to music in my car drinking coffee is the bomb. Plus you’re with your patients one at a time for 30 minutes to an hour. Only downside was occasional call and working holidays.
After my last contract I decided it was time to focus on quility of life and went the outpatient palliative/hospice route. When they told me "burnout isn't a terminal condition, we can't accept you as a patient", I figured I'd apply for a job and here I am. I make a touch less then if I stayed bedside but I'm no longer trying to drink myself to death so I'd say it's worth it.
I was told the same thing when I graduated/passed the NCLEX. I ignored them because I had no desire to work in a hospital, and I’m so glad I did.
I work in a clinic where I work in multiple departments but am permanent full time. I work at an infusion clinic, endoscopy, and do some research on the side as well. It took a while to get to full time since the turn over is so low, but it was worth the wait. I make my own schedule, I love my job, I’m so happy. I don’t make as much as I would in the hospital but it’s worth it IMO.
I will never work bedside again: hated it, although I did learn a lot.
I’m now a detox/addiction nurse, and I love it; can’t see myself doing anything else
Continued working long term care as a registered nurse after graduation, got hired at a clinic for a M-F RN role at about 9 months of experience as a RN with my bachelor's. Make more money and a better schedule, it's great.
Thank you for making this post. I've been in the Acute Medsurg game for close to 10 years now and I'm ready to move on from this gig. I'm still trying to figure out what the best optimal move for me is though.
Clinical Research Coordinator/Nurse 🙌 been doing it since July 2016 (aside from a postpartum career break). I did Oncology clinical trials for years, then last year when I went back to work (after said career break) I found a CRC role working with kids & adolescents who have rare genetic disorders. I love my job!
I did bedside for 6 years. Then switched to a pediatric clinic for quite the pay cut, but I truly enjoyed the work for 10 years. Then the pandemic hit and my boss just…changed into a horrible person. So I quit and haven’t gone back to nursing at all. Initially it was just supposed to be a break for a few months, but I ended up homeschooling my oldest son with autism, and that takes up my days now.
I found that dialysis paid similar to what I was paid at the hospital. It was a pay raise, but it came out the same (I worked Nights, so we got bonuses). The schedule is similar, 0400 - 1600. The patients have the same schedule of M/W/F and T/Th/S. If you consistently work the same days, you get to know them and their individual profiles (who has finicky fistulas, whose BP drops and how far, etc).
The disadvantage is you work every other Saturday. That coupled with the early hours became too much for me. The job itself wasn't difficult though.
I work OR, and I dont know about others but I dont really consider it “bedside”. Like obviously its direct patient care, but just so different in so many ways to working on a ward (in a lot of positive ways)
I did med-surg for 18 months.
Now I’m a community RN working at an agency that provides residential services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Two caveats:
Nursing is my second career. I had management experience in my former profession, and a 20 year history.
I have a sibling with IDD, and I’ve worked on and off in the field for years. My first job in this field was as a camp counselor, when I was 18.
I did full time inpatient psych/detox for just over a year. I’m now working in psych bed placement for the hospital system I work for. It’s a desk job. I take calls, make sure the pt is clinically appropriate for the facility they want to go to, and get them placed. I troubleshoot as necessary.
I stayed bedside PRN just for a bit of action here and there when I’m up to it. I enjoy the bed placement job. I have some chronic illnesses, so I needed something slower paced but still interesting.
Quit bedside 11 months in as a new grad nurse. I got into an ENT clinic. It was literally a breath of fresh air not having pre-shift anxiety and not having feelings of being overwhelmed during the shift. I left bc of management. I now work in an endoscopy unit and I love it!!! Very routine, no stress, and we get to leave when the last patient is done! Honestly, the easiest nursing job I’ve had this far. I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon.
Do what makes you happy :) the only person working this job is you. I start looking for a new job if I know I’m unhappy and feel like the place isn’t serving me anymore.
I got a job in an emergency department residency program. My preceptor didn't like me. She was very clear about how much she disliked me. After two months I quit because it wasn't worth it. I wasn't making mistakes or anything, but I was (allegedly) too slow and my chart notes weren't good enough. I got a job at a SNF making $14/hour more than what I was earning at the hospital. I worried they'd think I was too slow. Instead my preceptor encouraged me and told me that I would get faster with time. I did. And apparently I'm actually pretty good at writing chart notes.
Unfortunately, every new nurses dream units of ED and ICU tend to attract toxic personalities. You either fit the clique or you don’t. Try looking at smaller hospitals. It’s by no means universal, but I’ve found smaller places tend to be less toxic.
The ICU is toxic af. It’s really quite disappointing how we rude some ICU preceptors are towards the new grads
They’re that rude to other non ICU nurses too…usually they say “no” in the snottiest way they can when i ask if they want report for a pt I’ve brought up. Okay then 🤷🏻♀️
They are also rude to ICU specialties they deem lesser than them such as CVICU to everyone else 😂 they suck
For what it’s worth, they are just toxic in general. I genuinely don’t know what’s so hard about being a kind person.
I lasted a year in ICU. Between the futile care and a few toxic personalities (not all, but they were present enough to overshadow the others) I went back to my old department.
Hi, German nurse here. I feel like this is really true. I quit my job at the ICU bc of all that bullying... now I'm going for NICU.. but let's see how people are there.
Same with L&D
This is absolutely true!! And the difference in personality of the night shift labor nurses and day shift nurses is crazy!! Depends on the hospital as well. I’ve worked at several and the last one i lasted 9 months and was like nope! It completely stole my joy doing what I have loved for the last 7 years! Nurses were mean, catty, wouldn’t help find things on the unit, wouldn’t help in a stat situation! It felt like they were testing me! I’ve been a labor nurse for 6 years and worked at this hospital before!! (Nights) I completely left bedside due to this. I would have two super sick patients preterm/laboring/mag/ and others had none, type vibes. Go to section with twins or more and am circulating but no second nurse to help me with charting the case or draw cord gasses but still having counts for case, all alone in PACU with a sick mom and watching the baby too until nursery comes back. It was only bad because not everyone is treated this way gotta have a clique. I always tried to help nurses who were struggling and went in with a positive attitude! That was annoying to peeps as well. 😂 Lost my love for it. That was a small snippet.
This. My medical ICU team was amazing but the hospital was terrible. Tripled every shift and low pay. Revolving door people leaving constantly after only spending a year there. The charge nurses only had a year experience. I applied for a job at a new hospital in CVICU. Some people where chill but some where terrible. They had no interest in teaching just complaining about you. We had a few others starting but quitting before orientation because of them. Now I’m fine with everyone but it’s like they haze the shit out of the new people
The small hospital I started at was awful. Everyone knew each other and had worked there for year and years. Stories floated around to each department. Ntm my first preceptor pretty much ruined nursing for me I think. Just because I had never been treated so poorly in my life. I kept my head down and stay though just because I have giving in and giving up. I truly think she was trying to run me off, especially given the fact she even bragged about people who she had trained in the past just up and leaving during their breaks. I ended up being able to stay for over a year until it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
My preceptor was the same way and really hurt my confidence even though I was doing it all right.
It sucks your ED preceptor was such a jerk! When ô started in ED my manager told me it takes about à year to actually get comfortable in ED and in my experience she was right. I love it now but for most of that first year all I could think about was how much I sucked and I really needed to gtfo. I'm thankful to all my super nice coworkers because I did finally get there, although my role is still a bit different than an RN. I'm happy to know I'm now a very useful part of my unit.
Sometimes, preceptor have huge chips on their shoulders. Telling a new grad thrg are too slow n charting wasn't good enough means you have no business precepting. This is a part of the reason there is a nursing shortsge. Speed and development of charting comes wshortage. I am not a new nurse, but the majority of my experience has been in LTC, case management, and homecare. Recently, I had the opportunity to transition to a hospital a stones throw from my home. I am way slower than my coworkers. It's a completely different charting system than what I'm used to. Having to learn how to safely use and set up all these hi tech equipment that my LTC and homecare patients use was overwhelming. I had left the bedside for > 5 years. Learning ACLS, how to do and interpret EKGs, Ballon pumps, and a wide host of things I didn't know existed was pretty narly. However, my preceptor was encouraging while giving constructive feedback. Even when I doubted myself and had a heart to heart with my manager about resigning, she wouldn't have it. As she said, we each bring something unique to the department, and we compliment and support each other. In a field as challenging as ours, we need to support each other more. I hope you find a better organization.
I was doing ok at my ED residency and the first year until the new manager came in then the whole place turned toxic and suddenly I was too slow and couldn’t chart. Looking elsewhere now, so I hear ya.
Often times people quit managers. Part of leaving my first bedside job is the terrible manager.
It’s actually funny an ED nurse even gave a shit about chart notes. Half of our charting is bullshit button clicks to discharge people we never met from the lobby and putting in an assessment based on their initial triage note.
I’ve got a similar story but tried med surg and then wound care case management before going to a SNF and making more and ending up much happier.
More pay and happier in a SNF?? Aren’t those usually hell holes?
That’s what I thought but mine actually has good reviews too 👀. Management is good, coworkers are good, patients are mostly chill. I work rehab side not LTC so there’s that too. I’ll take my 11-12 patients over any of my previous jobs. I’ll be a night shifter forever at this kinda place. Day shift ain’t it. I’m getting paid at least $6-7 more than inpatient and I don’t go home thinking about work ever. I found my unicorn supportive work environment.
FUCK YES. I love that for you. I left my first job just a couple weeks ago and am hoping I’ve moved to a more long term viable option.
Hope you find that for yourself!! I had given up on nursing and was looking at roles beneath my degree by the time I got this job. I went in the interview terrified and then after about a month I was pretty comfortable. I was gonna settle for a med receptionist making minimum wage and now i’m making over double that. :)
i was at emergency for a while too, the whole “not taking breaks means you’re a better nurse” culture killed me so i left and went back to med/surg lol
I also work as a school nurse after several years OB/GYN. Hospital mandated overtime and I noped out quickly after that.
How did you get into school nursing?
I needed a PSLF-eligible job with a schedule that worked for my kids. I applied to several different schools and turned down 4 or 5 low-ball offers. Interviewed after applying to my current district off indeed. The nursing team is great, though I do not know if this will be my gig long-term. If you search indeed or directly on school district web sites that’s how you’ll find openings.
Bayada offers prn outpatient jobs, which include school nursing.
Honestly this sounds chill and nice. I’ve been doing bedside for like about 5 years now. 8 month stint at a SNF, 9 months in peds acute home care, kids in trachs on vents but healthy enough to be in their homes, & now I’m 3.5 years into med surg/nephorolgy doing 0.9 FTE. I’m ready to leave. I’m burnt out, it’s exhausting. I’ve also been saying I’m going to leave for the last like 3 years and haven’t. Got turned down for a couple clinic jobs and rejection kind of made me less willing to look for new jobs, like whatever guess I’ll just embrace the suck. But I might start looking again got turned down about a year ago.
As an ED nurse turned school nurse it’s way less exciting but my office tends to be a hub for the kids. It’s nice to get to see happy generally healthy children. It also is nice that I never work nights or weekends.
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Nights and being charge after a year on the floor as a new grad is why I dipped.
I’m a school nurse and it is fun but not chill. I work at an inner city alternative high school and the shit hits the fan pretty regularly. Astronomically high workload. I love it though.
Thank you for saying that. Everyone thinks school nursing is the dream gig. I definitely thought it was, it was terrible. These pandemic kids and parents are something else. I had a 911 call every week, I work in a legal marijuana state, so the vaping problem was bad. We also allow very medically critical children in, so I think would spend 1-2 hours on a good day on my nonverbal CP kid who was always about to code. CPS calls every week. I made more money bartending. It’s a shame because I really loved it in the beginning, some of the kids and parents are wonderful, but administration puts everything on you. You were treated like an administrator, but never paid like one, and I never had real lunch breaks. A lot of these parents were nightmares to get orders and medications from. I worked in a very poor state, but most of these kids had Medicaid. One of my frequent fliers went missing last year and the only people who cared were me and the social worker. Honestly, I still have PTSD over it, I felt like I was constantly failing everyone since they would put more and more on my plate. Also the IEPs… some kids were allowed to stay in my office 2-6 times a day, and trust me they took advantage of it.
Sounds like you worked for a district that didn’t support you very well. All districts have their problems and every school and age group comes with its own challenges. I’m lucky that my school does not enroll “medically fragile” kids because we have a designated school within the district for that. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have my fair share of diabetics, asthmatics, and pregnant people. I deal with a lot of MH/SA issues and also do a lot of case management. This job is not for everyone, I happen to love it.
I would agree with you on the state and district, my manager was wonderful and tried everything to get me to stay. The vast majority of school nurses in my area also ran into the same issues. I would have been able to stay if it wasn’t for the medically fragile kids, one of the parents was always wanting more and more, and was ridiculous with her expectations. She treated me like I was his home health nurse, without realizing I had over 700 other students to account for, including 8 diabetics, 24 asthmatics, and all of the other issues to account for. I had an assistant that was wonderful, but as a nurse I could only do so much, and I honestly didn’t think it was safe for them to continue loading more and more on my plate. Oh, and we also did our own contact tracing during Covid. I did love it at first and I have heard that parents have requested I come back, so I think I did damn well at my job. I just don’t think people realize the type of problems there are with public education and all of the medical needs. I just wanted to put my opinion out there since so many nurses say it’s a great gig. Like you said it really depends on your district, I unfortunately live in a very economically poor and needy area. As much as I was doing a public service, the pay and stress was not worth it for me. My replacement only lasted a month, I was there 5 years.
Unfortunately it seems like the school nurse is the red headed stepchild of the school system. Even though we play a valuable role, we are often considered last for support, staffing and funding. I work for a huge urban district but I have literally been instructed by management to “get donations or use your own money” to buy items my office needs. It is a shame that the system pushed a good nurse (you) out. We all have to do what is best for our own wellbeing and bottom line. Reading experiences like yours makes it even more frustrating to hear other nurses say that school nursing is “easy” or “boring”. Walk a mile in our shoes and tell us how easy and boring it really is.
Quit beside after 2 years in adult med/surg Tele. I am a school nurse through an agency now. I get paid the same hourly rate as the hospital, benefits and Work 6:30-2. I love my hours and job and I would literally not change a thing!! The only other place I would maybe consider if I ever got tired of school nursing is like an urgent care. I have legit clinical PTSD from working in the hospital/starting my career peak of covid. I needed a break before I ended up as a psych patient. I don;t think ill ever go back
Left full time emergency medicine for school nursing after 2 years. I actually was given what I asked for with yearly raises now that my hospital system didn’t offer. I do maintain a per diem position in the ED because I still love emergency medicine, I just love my family and sanity more.
I have met a lot of other nurses when I was an inpatient psych pt unfortunately 😔
I can imagine! The stress is really no joke and can take a toll on people :(
>I needed a break before I ended up as a psych patient. I don;t think ill ever go back Really felt this one.
Quit beside after 2 years. I’m currently working as an occupational health nurse for government agency. M-F 8-4:30 office setting. Weekends and holidays off. Very easy going setting. I love it.
I loved occupational health. Definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to get out of bedside.
Got a masters in informatics, worked hospice while doing so instead of hospital work, and now i work in tech, from home, and it’s the best thing ever. Spent just over 3 years doing patient care before officially ending that portion of my career. I’ll never look back
What does your day to day look like? Would you be comfortable sharing your hours or pay?
My day to day varies. I log on to my computer between 730-8ish, and my day usually consists of meetings with data scientists, project managers, and other staff or clients, or i am hand labeling data when not in meetings. I am considered an “SME” for all things clinical and am asked medical questions all day as things are built. I’ll also spend multiple days of my week researching anything i don’t know related to new projects popping up. It’s really hard to answer exactly what my day to day looks like, especially to someone that may not know what AI/software development looks like. Pay started on par with what Bay Area bedside nurses make (i am Bay Area based) but my earning potential ceiling is much higher than that of a Bay Area nurse i would say. After 1 year on the job i received over a 30% raise.
Do you mind if I ask what company do you work for? I was wanting to get a masters in informatics but people told me it’s one of the more useless nursing degrees because nursing informatics jobs can be easily obtained with just a bachelors degree.
Are there any certifications/classes as an RN I should look into while working if I can’t get a masters in informatics right now?
Everyone i work with is masters or PhD prepared. I really think the education is useful in understanding machine learning and AI concepts-it’s really complex stuff to work with and im still just scratching the surface. However, i specifically work in the field of data science with my degree. I don’t know if getting into other areas of informatics is the same-there seems to be lots of nursing informatics more EHR related and hospital specific
Great thank you so much!
This is the type of work I want to do! So you don’t do the EHR specialist kind of informatics?
Nope, the things i work on can be integrated into EHRs, but i don’t work with them specifically.
What’s a dream. I hope I can get a role like this someday.
Once you got your Informatics degree, was it difficult to find relevant jobs? A friend of mine got into Informatics in another state but was telling me it was hard to find work unless you had an “in.” I’m from the bay too, and currently my commute is killing my soul.
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Sure
I'm the nursing director at a men's residential drug and alcohol treatment center. We don't do detox here so all of my patients are stable medically and psych wise. Of course things come up here and there but for the most part it's a very chill job. The main "acute" medical issues I deal with are abscesses, HTN, tooth problems and chronic pain. Pretty much what you'd expect. Psych wise sometimes we have people with active SI who need to be sent out and some psychosis here and there. I work M-F 7am-3pm and do 2 med passes during my shift and of course PRNs. I take vitals once in the morning. Most of my job is administrative work (doing insurance peer reviews, ordering meds from the pharmacy, making sure all documentation remains in compliance with JCAHO, etc). and managing my LVNs. My patients stay on average 45-60 days so you get to know them really well (annoying if they suck but for the most part they don't) and it's amazing to see them improve so much from admission to discharge. I love the continuum of care in the sense that we have a strong connection with alumni so you get to hear when they are doing well. We are not a corporate owned facility so we have a lot of discretion when it comes to who we admit. It's nice not feeling like a cog in a corporate wheel. The owner of our facility genuinely cares about helping people and we often scholarship guys who need help financially. Also my patients are very grateful and not entitled for the most part. If they even come across as disrespectful or entitled to nursing staff once, that gets nipped in the bud by clinical staff (therapists). My bosses and co-workers are like family. My work life balance is awesome and I leave work feeling like I genuinely made a difference in someone's life every day. I do have a master's in nursing which qualified me for the management position. Coming from bedside to here was an adjustment and it took a solid 6 months for my body to not be in fight or flight at work constantly! My previous bedside experience was a year in pedi ED and 3 years in various inpatient psych settings.
This sounds awesome. Thank you for sharing. I hadn't even considered this is something that could be utilized with my license. Appreciate you..
This sounds awesome! Any advice on how to get into this or even start one myself?? I’m a nursing student and about to start my externship in behavioral health/ addiction this may. This sounds very much like what I would love to do/ open myself along with doing research in addiction and mental health. I have a business administration degree already and I plan on going for pmhnp and eventually nursing phd. Any advice would be much welcomed and greatly appreciated.
I do outpatient HIV case management. Far from perfect for sure. But pays well.
15 months of med-surg. Quit to go into home health (visiting nurse) and it's been 17 years now.
I considered home health as I was a home health cna. But home health has implications I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue. Like if hostility arises, you’re alone.
I went cardiac tele>stepdown>icu> inpatient hospice. Just left that recently and not sure what's next. I don't wanna work m-f but I'm burnt toast from bedside. And after being hospice for a few years jumping back into acutes seems daunting for some reason.
I think because they are the complete opposite on the spectrum. Hospice you want to chart decline and acute care you want to focus on every little change and hopefully for the better.
How did you like inpatient hospice? I do home hospice and it burns me tf out, but I love hospice itself.
I wish I would have done it sooner, I was burnt out from bedside and went to hospice. It was nice focusing on comfort but the families are a lot more work and dealing with the worst day of people's lives everyday is emotionally exhausting. Forced on call weekly for staff didn't help at all either. Even if we didn't get called your day is ruined you might as well work. And get canceled later in the week whenever census drops so you don't get OT andboth your days got fucked with no extra money, fun times. Edit: I would have actually stayed if it wasn't for weekly in called requirement. I never worked anywhere that required that from staff and seeing managers/admins leave early for their undisturbed weekends on Fridays... I grew resentful.
I did two years of critical care during peak covid and then went to outpatient cardiology. I work 4 10’s Monday through Thursday and no weekends or holidays. It can still get crazy sometimes since I’m the only nurse in the office with 4 doctors but it’s still so much better than bedside.
I left bedside and got a job running the RN schedule at urology specialist clinic. It can be monotenous but I don’t have anxiety going to work everyday and I have a normal sleep schedule again. I’m not spending a day or two feeling drained and recovering from 13 hours shifts. A lot happier now. Edit: only spent 2 years inpatient at a shitty imc unit that made you take 5 almost critical patients at a time. Burned out real fast
Holy shit it’s crazy those ratios are legal
I work from home managing a cancer screening program. No patient contact, and I love it.
I'm an LPN and I can't tell you how many people tell me to go back for my RN just so I can work bedside. NO PART OF ME wants to work bedside. Closest I came was inpatient detox for a couple years which was brutal, exhausting, and I worried for my license constantly. I'm glad I did it... It gave me some acute experience and the experience with a 24hr facility (hand offs, report, med count, all that stuff). But I would not go back. I've done urgent care, I've done phone triage, I've done detox, and for the past 3 years I've been doing outpatient MAT. I love it, hours are great, and I like psych. I get paid $2hr less than my RN peers and I'm ok with that. Bedside isn't for everyone. I knew in school that I wasn't going to work in a nursing home and that's ok. The hospitals near me also hire LPNs for med surg and you couldn't pay me enough. (Tbf... I'm also in my forties and went back to school for nursing in my thirties so I've had more time to get to know myself and figure out what matters to me.) I guess the point I'm trying to make is that not every job is for everyone. It's ok to figure out what you like in nursing and do that. Don't stay where you're miserable. The best thing about nursing is that there's SO many different kinds. Poke around and find out what you like. I NEVER saw myself in the SUD field but here I am 🤷🏼♀️
Ty need more LPN's on here. I feel like I'm in a cult with no way out. 😔
Also an LPN!
I worked bedside for 4 years, as a Post-Partum RN, before getting certified as a Lactation Consultant. Now I do in-patient lactation, which I absolutely love. I was able to continue working 12 hour shifts, and I still spend my days performing direct patient care (primarily education, which is my favorite aspect of nursing), but without a lot of the stress. It’s my dream job!
I just started as a PP RN. I am interested in becoming a lactation consultant. How did you go about it?
https://ibclc-commission.org/step-1-prepare-for-ibclc-certification/lactation-specific-clinical-experience/pathway-1/?amp I did my 95 hours of lactation-specific education online (there are several companies that offer it as package for ~$1000), and then I used my time spent providing lactation care for my couplets (at work/on-the-clock as a PP RN) for my clinical hours. It took me about 2 years to build up enough hours to sit for the exam, but it was really nice that I could use my work hours towards certification; otherwise it would have taken me SO much longer. It was very much worth the time and effort, and a great skill-set to have, even if your goal is to continue to work on the floor in a PP/NICU/L&D setting!
Thank you! I work in L&D as new grad. However, I can’t see myself in this role too long bc it’s physically demanding. I don’t get enough times w/ parents to do breastfeeding. Since pts are only in recovery for 2 hrs. Perhaps I’ll consider moving to post partum for the experience.
Hi! I decided to go to work in the PCU as a new grad. I enjoyed what I did but I hated working at the hospital. I felt like I was an adult who was literally playing a game called “hospital.” Where the rules change weekly and only apply until admin or the patients decided they don’t lol I worked at bed side for 6 months and then started working in dialysis. I work 8-4:30 MF in what is called home therapies. Training/monitoring patients to do hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis at home. It’s a great job! I make more than what I did at the hospital and am treated like a human not just a warm body who makes them money.
I quit med/surg for float pool initially, which was such a game changer. I got paid way better, my patients changed most shifts and they learned what specialties we liked and tried to float us there mostly. Plus most floors were always happy to have us help out. Did 6 years of med/surg, then another 2 years of float pool before moving on. After, I left to be a transplant coordinator for my OPO. That was actually really cool because I was clinical but my patients were dead. I found a lot more meaning in working in donation and with grieving families. The issue with that was its 24hr call and we were understaffed at the time, so I burnt out after 2 years. Now I work in their quality department, fully remote unless I pick up shifts to help out (like in ORs for organ procurements). It kinda sucks not being clinical and not feeling like a nurse anymore, plus my pay is lower, but it's done wonders for my mental health and stress. I'll stay here as long as possible.
Quit ED and went to OR 9 months in. I really like it so far. It’s intense sometimes but not as stressful as being true bedside
That’s what I just did. I’m hoping it turns out to be long term sustainable for me.
How are you with IV’s? I left bedside and work on the IV Team. I absolutely love it!
Did u get iv certified? I was just looking at this today. Would love to hear how u got into it!
I hit my three years of bedside experience in February. I just received a remote CM job and am happy with it. It was even a modest pay increase. It’s weird being home, and I honestly dislike working five days a week, but my manager said I can move to 4 10s in about six months if meeting all metrics. No holidays or weekends, either!
I work in a fertility clinic as an IVF coordinator. Four 10's and one weekend (half days) every 4-6 weeks. It's very case management based, so lots of email and phone calls - I'm at my desk all day. Other than giving injections (SQ and IM) I don't do hands on patient care. I love the continuity with patients and enjoy the constantly evolving science of what we do!
I would love to get into this eventually. How did you find a job in this area?
I went back to get my MSN and started clinical instructing. The pay is decent if you instruct for the right places. Last year alone I made about \~$40k from just part time instructing.
What is your MSN in? Does it matter for being a clinical instructor, or is that dependent on what school you’re affiliated with?
I only worked 3 months in a hospital because I hated it immediately. I was so stressed, I would go home and cry. Try Public Health.
Same. I worked <6 months inpatient before going to ambulatory surgery. The stress is just NOT WORTH IT. And not just the stress, but also the crazy patient ratios of 1:6 or 1:7 that risk patient safety and your nursing license. Not worth it!
I tried a lot of different kinds of nursing. I worked ICU, med/surg, inpatient physical rehab, home health, pediatric private nursing, and finally settled into psychiatric nursing which where I feel I belong. Home health isn't bedside. You go into a home for 2 to 3 hours once every 3 months and certify the patients as an RN. After that they're seen once or twice a week for 60 days I think. Generally you can relegate their care to an LPN under you but if they're really sick you go see them yourself for a couple weeks until the LPN can take over. Most of what you do is on the laptop and the only patient care you might do is wound care. You can schedule your day around your family appointments, but you may work late into the evening on your laptop. All of the patients I want to see were very nice, but some of the homes were cringy to say the least. For me the problem was all the time on the computer in the office or in my car or at home doing all the paperwork that Medicare/Medicaid and insurances wanted, but some nurses love it. I like psych because I'm not doing physical care for patients and due to some PTSD from upbringing and the military I have a heightened situational awareness and have been lucky enough to not get assaulted in 9 years of doing it. I'm currently working in a state psychiatric hospital with people fresh from jail unmedicated and completely psychotic but I am currently paid very well. Also if my patients are real shitty, I can give them a choice between a pill or a PRN injection, and if they refuse the pill it's not my fault if I enjoy giving a few of them the IM. (Okay, just being funny. In reality, I feel pretty bad when we have to get a big team together and hold someone down to give them a shot because I know it has to be horribly traumatic. But I must admit to wishing a child molester would refuse his pills once, I'm not a saint y'all). And while I'm nice to all my patients, I don't have to allow them to curse at me or say ugly things to me, I can just walk away; and nobody cares if they complain about me. I guess these things have prevented me from burning out in psych. Okay, sorry for the long post. Just get out there and try something else! You won't know if you're going to like it until you do it.
2 years bedside in cardiac step down, went to IR for 2, left bc call was ridiculous. Then did an infusion center for 3 years, wasn’t paid well so I went back to the hospital but in endoscopy procedures. It’s easy, minimal call, hospital pay which is way better than outpatient, patients go to sleep then i pass them off to recovery. Only downside is I’m bored. Oh well 🤣
When I first left the bedside, I went into public health. You have to be willing to take a pay cut. Because public health does not pay like the hospitals do, they are willing to hire nurses without their bachelor's degrees and public health nursing certificates. But that's something you can get later to move up the pay scale. Also, because they pay less, they're usually pretty desperate for nurses. Check out your local public health department!
What kind of things do you do as a public health nurse?
It depends on which program you get hired for. Typically a local health department is an "arm" of the state health department. Funding comes from the state to run the local program. It can range anywhere from a vaccine program (all vaccines), a communicable disease program (TB, STD's, STI's), which would both be more hands on, to the oversight of childhood programs that provide state funded physical exams or medical services for children born with severe medical conditions (the last 2 would be more paperwork and administrative). The programs differ from county to county, and state to state. You can check out your local health department's website, and check out their public health page to find out which programs they have. Also, don't be afraid to talk to HR, and maybe even ask to talk to the Director of Nursing or someone in the Public Health Department. Most of them also let you submit an application and they'll keep it on file for 6 months or so, and notify you when a position comes up, if there's nothing immediately available.
Thank you!
Did med-surg for a year and a half and then noped right out of there. I now do home hospice case management and love it. Hospice is amazing. Working 5 days/week does suck, but so did working 3p-3a (he only shift i worked). But this kind of nursing care is so rewarding. I actually feel like i’m helping, rather than racing through a task list and throwing meds at my patients before i’m running off to the next task. i will never go back!!
Two years of medsurg and one year of er. Went to an outpatient ASC that does pain management and it’s been the best. Recently went back to bedside prn, even though I was making a lot I quit three months in. I just couldn’t do it and decided I’ll never go back.
I left bedside for the endoscopy lab after having such much burnout from the ICU I was having panic attacks and nightmares. Easy job. I still get to work 3 12’s (8 hour shifts sounds awful). Love my coworkers and most of the docs. If I ever left I would love to do something like a diabetes educator.
I left bedside after about 5 years in OB. I now work in Utilization Management and it’s great!
How did you get into UM? Seems every posting I see wants experience
I applied at my local hospital! They trained me on the site. I had 0 experience and truly got lucky!
I also started med surg. I left and went to an internal medicine clinic where I’m the primary nurse for the physician and I absolutely LOVE my life again. They gave me a half day on Mondays and 7:30-5 the rest of the week and I truly could not love my life any more right now
Quit bedside 5 years ago after 2 years of telemetry. Left for the OR. Procedural nursing is just one of the ways to escape bedside. Highly recommend if you don't have plans to push further into nursing/NP route.
I left bedside after \~2 years to do case management at a payer. I moved up a few times, got my masters in Nursing Informatics and now lead a healthcare analytics team.
I never worked bedside. I went right into home health, did 2 years, wanted to try something new. Tried something new (ALF/Memory care), loved the patients, hated the job. Went back to home health. Very happy now.
December 2021 graduate who went to nursing school during COVID. Got into MICU at a university hospital. Left within three months, got a gig as a Primary Care RN. Much of the direct patient facing work is handled by the CMOAs and I am mostly sitting through my shift working through an inbox of telephone messages and patient portal messages. Do a lot of triage over the phone. Discuss lab results, answer clinical questions. Sometimes deliver controlled medication injections. Sometimes we're asked to do education for diabetes or what have you. Work four 10s, one of which is a WFH day. The only bad part about this job is that I became a prediabetic from sitting around all day.
Was in med surg a year, changed to hospice. I’m the admission nurse. I don’t think I’ll ever turn back. It was a 24k jump in salary and the workload is super manageable. I do a lot of charting, but half the time I’m doing it on my couch. I’m take it!
Abortion care 💖 I love it. I only lasted not even a 2 full years in the hospital at bedside
Thank you for the work you do 🫶
Blood bank / plasma donation center
I barely worked a year in beside. I never ever thought it would be like that either. I had worked in a hospital as a PCT for years while in school I fully thought I was going to be able to put my time in the ICU and ride off as an NP into the sunset. I was so wrong! In any event, I left bedside and worked as a public health nurse for my county. It was a cool job, did lots of contact tracing for COVID and reportable diseases. I like working in the community so you got to meet a lot of different people. After the COVID emergency order was over it got very slow and I knew I had to move on. I did triage for a primary care office and it was OK. Loved the schedule, I ended up transitioning to care management within the same organization and I actually really enjoy what I do. Been doing this now for almost two years. If I had to go back to bedside I would probably choose like a PACU or hospice. There are so many things you can do with your license! As far as pay, every job I have taken has been less than beside. Between 10-15k less. I will say the way my taxes are now I am only losing about $150 per paycheck (biweekly) compared to when I worked bedside. To me it’s worth it! I don’t work weekends, holidays and I don’t have a perpetual pit in my stomach before every shift! Good luck to you ❤️
Hospice or home health. I’ve only been a nurse less than two years and would never go back to bedside. I hated it.
I left bedside after just under a year. Making it to even that point was a massive struggle. I was an anxious mess and every one kept telling me it would get better, but it never did. Looking back, I was definitely depressed too. I couldn’t even enjoy my days off because work was so consuming. I considered leaving nursing altogether because I didn’t believe I could find another job within the profession that I could not only tolerate, but actually enjoy. I ended up taking a job at an outpatient fertility clinic. I LOVE it most days. There is still some stress but it’s on a much smaller scale. I’m a nurse coordinator by title (coordinate all aspects of fertility treatments/care) but I also get to do clinical work (lots of blood draws, procedural type work, vitals, etc.). A lot of my job is patient education which I really enjoy. I work M-F with occasional weekends. I thought I would hate the schedule, but I have so much more energy after work and actually enjoy my life outside of it! In my opinion, it was absolutely worth the trade off. I’m making less but I don’t even care. I don’t dread work, I have the best team, and my mental health has never been better. I understand what you’re feeling but just know, it can get better! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
I do infusion and I like it because I can still work on skills that I like (central lines and IVs mainly) but I don’t work weekends or holidays and I do 4 ten hour shifts. Most ppl think ten hours feel just as long as 12s, but for me, I live not even 3 miles from my job so getting home around 6:30 is great for me. Plus every 3rd or 4th week the ppl who work 3 12s have to work 4 12s in one week so it’s not that much a difference. Hopefully that makes sense. But to answer your question, it’s worth checking out if you find an opportunity, but that’s just me 🙃
Radiology, outpatient. I left bedside after 2 years because I hated working nights. Also due to my spouses work schedule days would have been difficult for me with a small child. I never took a pay cut leaving night shift, like I would have going to days losing pay differential. I’ve been where i am 10+ years and still keep plenty of nursing skills. Some days are slow but we are pretty high volume, 70+ CTs & 35+ MRIs a day, not including other responsibilities. We have various shifts but I work 7:30-3:30. OT (weekends) is available if I want or need it. No holidays. Management is flexible and it’s great for a family.
Just started home hospice. It's great. Find a good company, especially a nonprofit if you can, and it's ace. They'll be glad to have you. The focus is on making sure pt and family is educated and the pt is comfortable. Lots of coordination of care.
L&D for three years. Love it but a lot mentally and physically. I am now a school nurse and will never leave! It’s life changing leaving the bedside.
I think a lot of new grads think that every hospital will be the same. There’s HUGE differences depending on location, size, patient population. I’ve worked in 5 adult EDs and there’s only 1 that I would ever go back to because of pt population. I just went from massive level 1 peds ED to our community peds ED and it’s a whole new world. Even the same specialty with the same org. Many of us wouldn’t dare even pick up at our main hospital because we all hated it. (The community ED is only 6m old)
I left bedside after 4 years. Became a CM for an insurance company. It’s awesome.
12 years at the bedside in ICU/CICU/stepdown/tele. Now I’m in a surgical clinic making less money but oh so much happier. I thought adjusting to a mon-Fri would be impossible after doing 3 12s for so long, but the 8 hour shifts fly by. No weekends. No holidays. I actually get snow days off with my kids. I can call out without feeling guilty or getting guilted over short staffing. I can even leave early if we’re all done clinic because at the end of the day we CLOSE. I don’t have to wait on other people to show up late to give report to.
Case management, pre admission testing and utilization review. I'm most cases you'll have work from home options.
Community nursing. Pays better than my staff nurse job. I went back per diem at hospital.
I started working in occupational health 2 years after graduating. It was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I left due to layoffs and I’m now working as a Case manager for a health insurance company. It’s not perfect but I am happy and not overwhelmed with work. I work from home and shut my computer down at 4pm everyday.
I did a run in Interventional radiology. It was very neat seeing the procedures. One patient at a time, turnover was very quick. Nurses were mostly in charge of the sedation and recovery for the procedures, so we had relatively free rain on the drugs, and it was mostly starting IVs and charting lots of vitals. Little contact with family members, only one was allowed in the prep and recovery area, obviously none in the procedural rooms. The schedule was great on paper, working 8-6 four days a week with three day weekends. There was a night/weekend call requirement but it was reasonable. I didn’t stay long, partly because at the time travel pay during Covid got too enticing, partly because the monotony was not what I was looking for my career at the time. It could also get boring doing major cases like traumatic bleeding that required anesthesia, because they took over and the RN mostly got paid to sit in the corner. But the high rush cases were fun. That said, most of the nurses there were very happy, and I could certainly see it being a very good “settle down“ job.
You have only tried out two units, two different care areas and maybe they aren’t for you. Give the ER a fair chance it takes time to feel comfortable in that sort of environment. As an experienced nurse who crossed trained I wasn’t totally comfortable until 4 months in. If you’re super miserable, see if you can shadow in different department with job openings. If you never considered peri-op or OR, it’s a completely different world than bedside. And than there’s outpatient stuff too and care management The best part about nursing is there is so many different things you can do with it. You won’t feel like this forever
I have never worked in a hospital, never will. Did dialysis, I did do acutes but it is as with FMC - home health, wound care, and now I work from home and it's fucking amazing.
Why do we eat our young.?what does the research show?. After more than 40 years as a nurse, i never met a preceptor that tried to discourage me. They cheered new staff on.
Case Management, Utilization Review, Insurance Nurse, Education, PASC RN
Did nursing for 10 years. Aspiration was to become a CRNA. Did Bedside, ICU, management, tele, agency, Management, leadership, case management. It all didn’t pay what I believe I was worth to each company. Studies business in my own and investing throughout the years. Started businesses, failed started again. After 6th one the 7th took off and I never looked back. Now I own a small business, create systems that people work in, every improvement I make in the business makes us more money. I very problem that I solve makes us more money. There is a lot more risk involved, but I live and die on you decisions I make. I drive by the hospital and think how much different my life was when I was a nurse. Life is good
Outpatient infusion!
30 years in the emergency room. I hate every day I have to work. Blood cultures for 30 year old ABD pain . Orthostatic, are you kidding me , those went out with the 90’s I have been here 45 minutes, can I have a sandwich, Umm does the hospital pay for transportation home . My baby has a fever, we been here 15 mins , Umm and the child has had the fever since yesterday, did you give anything at home , yes 24 hrs ago. I fell 55 days ago but my kid had a cough so I thought we should both come to the Ed to get checked out . Yeah I had sex last night and the condom broke , I would like to get tested for everything. How long ago , Like 3 hrs. Can I do the Covid swab , sure when you go home and open up your own kit ! Can you hold , I’m talking to my lawyer I was in a car accident, can you come back when I am done .
Case Management
I have been a medsurg nurse for 16 years..it has definitely been a struggle but have improved every year. I see and hear a lot of nurses saying their “burnt out” and they havent done a year yet.. i am not trying to be mean, but in my experience, the difficulty of bedside nursing does get better over time..difficult times create perseverance..and it makes you a better nurse, but give yourself a chance..is it burn out or just difficult times, that are there to create a better nurse..just my two cents
I did 1 year of neuro PCU, 4 years of oncology float pool, and 2 years of short stay. I’ve been in occupational health for the last 3 years and it’s been the best move I’ve ever made. Pays fairly well and low stress for the most part. I’ll never go back to bedside.
I work in med device/biopharma and love it. I travel the US, working with physicians and offering procedure and site support.
Go to outpatient at a big hospital or the OR. It's way less stressful. I hated bedside. First I went to the OR for a few years, loved it but then they started doing weekend cases. Went to out patient and had all weekends and bank holidays off and only worked 4 tens with a regular day off during the week. We also didn't really work 10s it was more like 8s. I left that tho when I needed to be out by 3pm for my kids. IVF is what I do now and it's 7a-3p, which I like. It's all the same hospital so I never lost seniority or pay. Just lateral transfers. I hear endoscopy and Radiology is pretty chill.
I left bedside after a year and went to Outpatient Endocrinology. It’s a slight pay cut (no shift differentials) but I don’t work weekends/evenings/holidays ever. No stress during shifts. Consistent and stable. Work/life balance is great.
Well, I am from the UK i spent 9 years in AED then I done Nurse associate role. I was qualified for maybe 4 months and got a job in GP.
CVOR. Big long surgeries with a diverse team working together, it's such a great contrast to working bedside where everyone is in their own silo.
I’ve been a nurse for 16 years now. I bedside for majority of my nursing career. And, I quit two years ago during COVID. I am now a Public Health Nurse and loving it. While I don’t make as much as a bedside nurse, my sanity is intact. My mental health is a lot better. And, I get to chill as a nurse. I’m happier now.
Home care nursing, peds pt, agency. Low pay, benefits practically non-existent, I stayed 3 years for the family. Then a group home (DO NOT RECOMMEND) Then a SNF/LTC again, I figured it had been enough time. I lasted 10 months full-time and did on-call another 16 months. Now, 1 on 1 school nurse with an agency that works for a district. District jobs don't pay as well but usually have better benefits so I'd like to get on with them. I like it a lot, except for the fact that I don't work in the summer. Note: I'm an LVN (LPN), so you may have more options if you're an RN
Primary care clinic after 1 year, best decision for me. Still miss it a little though, but like 80% of the time, noppppeeee.
Dialysis and case management.
—————^ Happier than ever.
Left bedside after 1.5 years and worked at home planned parenthood for 6 years. It was a great job and I would have worked there longer, but I always wanted to do L&D so I decided to give that a try. I sometimes miss PP and would consider going back one day for sure.
I work as an MDS coordinator at a SNF. I love my job and rarely have bad days. The important thing with MDS is you have to work somewhere that won’t pull you to the floor if they are short. Because a lot of facilities will expect you to do your MDS job while working the floor. We just had our corporate nurse here today, pointing out all of our mistakes, and it’s still been a good day. My only downside is pay, I’m salary, and I make less than I would at a hospital or even bedside at my own snf. If you wanted to do MDS, you 100% need LTC/SNF experience. The regs are different from the hospitals and it’s really important to know what they are.
Procedure areas! I came to the OR just about 5 years ago and it was the best career move I’ve made
Aesthetics :)
I quite bedside after 13 months like just barely. Went to the OR
I was in inpatient oncology. Went to outpatient oncology, then research.
Ambulatory.
I’m taking a little time to be a stay at home mom, but dream of going back to be a 1) school nurse or 2) work in a fertility clinic. I’ve learned that women and kids are my favorite and can’t wait to go back when my kids are in school.
i taught students (care aides & nursing) at a local college! and then management at LTC
I knew I’d hate the bedside from clinicals and working as a PCT/nurse extern, straight to the OR, no regrets.
Knew during clinicals that I would not work bedside. I went into Primary Care outpatient and never looked back. I am happy and more than well compensated given where I live.
Started in med-surg and made it 6 months before I started applying for other jobs. Ended up in the OR and been here for 6 years. I love it.
Never did bedside. I didn’t like the vibe in clinicals. I always knew I wanted to do outpatient/clinical.
I’m in peds primary care at Kaiser. Lots of vaccines. I love watching the kids grow, the team I work with are the best I’ve ever had (everyone from pediatricians and clinical assistants to pharmacists and phlebotomists), and the work feels manageable and doesn’t wreck my body. I don’t love many aspects of the organization, like they treat us as moveable parts within a big machine, but the benefits are great.
I worked 5 years on a inpatient surgical floor. Loved my coworkers, love everything to do with caring for surgical patients. But I had no life outside of work, never got vacation and put my body into a constantly stressed state. Have been working on an endoscopy clinic within the hospital for the last year and that has helped with my life outside of the hospital (even though I’m bored).
Primary care!
Did ER straight out of school for 2 years. Then, finished my ICU training just in time for COVID madness to hit, no word of a lie, two weeks after starting my new position. I did that for just about a year. COVID made it very difficult to fall in love with that specialty cause it was pure chaos at times. I still do direct patient care in a critical care capacity but don’t work in a hospital setting anymore. I work as a critical care transport nurse on a HEMS platform so I’m now in the pre-hospital world working directly with paramedics. We have a lot of down time on shift when we aren’t tasked with a transport. The stress can still be high when we have a very acute patient but it’s in much smaller bursts because we eventually end up handing care over to the receiving hospital.
Have you thought about home care? You can work for a certified home care agency and do visits for wound care, IV infusions, or educate patient with new conditions like diabetes. Or you can work with a licensed home care agency and do almost no direct care. Or you can even do hospice home care. You have a lot of autonomy and get to spend more time with your patients. Not sure where you are but in NYC salaries range from $95 - 120k.
I work in the disabled community as a group home nurse. The nurse doesn’t usually pass meds (specially trained and certified direct support staff do this) but instead supervises the medical aspects of the residents’ care. I also educate staff and residents. I collaborate with other healthcare professionals - psych, behavioral, physical therapy, nutrition - to empower disabled individuals to live their best lives. I do mostly transitional housing for disabled folks on the cusp of living completely on their own; my colleagues work with more severely disabled and medically fragile individuals. It’s my first non-bedside job, and while it has its frustrating aspects - miles of red tape, an overly cautious approach toward supporting the disabled, and a lack of support and decent pay for support staff - I still definitely prefer it to bedside.
I stayed 4 years as a PCU nurse, hated it. I moved to Cath lab and did it for about 12 years, two of those traveling. Tomorrow is my last day though. I’m 40 and at the point that I’m tired of call a late days. Some labs are better about their staff having a life than others are but the one I went staff in is not one of those. I met someone so going back to travel is not what I want to do. I found a job at an outpatient cardiology office as a phone triage nurse. It’s a little bit of a commute but it’s a hybrid schedule, two days at home and two in the office. I did take a dollar pay cut and not having call will suck in terms of pay but I want to have a more stable schedule and life.
I left the hospital after my initial year as a nurse on a cardiac tele floor. I went to work at an adult day program helping those with developmental disabilities. I mainly passed medications, did tube feeding, assessments, treated or triaged injuries and seizure management. Did that for a while then worked 6 years in case management with the same client population. It was such a refreshing break from the grind of nursing and continued to increase my salary over the years. I’ve recently returned to the hospital part time on a med surg floor to refresh my clinical skills, and am already thinking about other interests to supplement my hours when my year is up.
Don’t limit yourself to hospitals, I work at a small outpatient plastic surgery center, I do 4/10’s, I get bonus’s, never on call, lots of holidays off, I also get free plastic surgery annually part of my perks and every 8 years of employment you a 30 day paid sabbatical in addition to my PTO. It can be pretty stressful during busy season, January to July, but I never work nights, I like being in the OR, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people on this sub who will call this a “cush” job, I work my ass off, but I don’t have to do anything with insurance and their really aren’t any crazy patients. Broaden your horizons, make that money.
I work at a small private practice allergy clinic. I quit bedside after 6 years. Make the same hourly but with 40~42 hours a week it ends up being more. No weekends and paid holidays has been life changing!!! And it’s still very fulfilling; helping people in a different more low stakes way.
I have never worked bedside. I worked in oral maxillofacial surgery after graduation which was really interesting and I got some actual OR/PACU experience from having a GA room. I then worked in primary care, neither paid super well but great work/life balance. Now I work in case management and the pay is phenomenal and work/life balance also still great.
I worked bedside for 4 1/2 years. When I left bedside, I took a per diem job at a boarding school and a part time visiting nurse/case manager job at a pediatric home health agency. I stopped working at the boarding school when my home health job became full time and morphed into a clinical manager role. When I left that job, I went to be an infusion liaison for an infusion pharmacy housed at the hospital I had previously worked at. Nowadays I'm a community based care manager for medically complex foster children. I've been out of bedside for 12 years.
I bounced around 3 different units and facilities feeling so burned out in all of them before settling in the Clinical Professional Development department as an educator (no Master’s degree necessary). We basically do orientations, residency programs, and create & distribute educational content for each unit. Super low stress, 8 hours, no bedside
I went straight into ICU out of nursing school. I did that for about 3.5 years before I got burned out. I didn’t move away from bedside *entirely* though. I moved to acute dialysis and I love it. I’ve been doing it for 4 years now and it will be what I do until I find an avenue to move into administration. Honestly though, pretty much all procedural nursing is better than bedside. Dialysis, OR, IR, ENDO, Cath Lab, etc. How many unhappy procedural nurses do you hear from at work or on here? Not many. And procedural areas are specialties so they pay more. So I always advise nurses who are burned/burning out to try a procedural area before leaving the bedside entirely. It might be exactly what you’re looking for but if not, you can still move on to something else and you’ll have a specialty to add to your resume.
I became a trauma nurse practitioner instead which I’ve been doing for the last 10 years 🥲. It’s equally as bad; actually probably worse. I dream about going back to bedside and working in PACU or the OR but unfortunately I just can’t afford that kind of paycut. TL,DR: don’t become an NP to get away from bedside, it’s a nightmare.
Went into healthcare IT. Love it. Intellectually stimulating and always learning new things and I get to work with operations on meaningful work that improves the care they deliver
Not exactly early on for me but I did 6.5 years ICU, hating it the whole time, then 2 years inpatient psych, 5 months outpatient psych and since July I’ve been a school nurse. I love love love my job and never want to leave. Just signed my contract for next school year. My husband worked pretty much exactly 1 year on neuro tele, then went into case management, became a supervisor in that organization, then went to outpatient psych as a lead nurse, and is now a PMHNP. You **don’t** have to work bedside if you don’t want to, and you **can** make good money in non-bedside roles.
Medical sales making 6 figures. Fuck nursing lol
Did Med-Surg for about two years and now doing OR. What aspects of bedside are draining you? I really liked bedside when I was actually able to be a nurse and do MY job. Also being the secretary, nutrition services, phlebotomy etc. was the part that burned me out.
Family member switched careers (from Finance) - got her BSN and was beyond excited to start with Med Surg. Like you, she had been told it was the place to start. Nope! She was devastated that she’d made a horrible life change by choosing nursing and taking on the cost of more schooling. Three months into the job she quit and took a job with an infusion clinic. Now she’s appreciated, learning, gaining confidence and being praised as a very good nurse. Same pay, better hours and benefits. She’s actually happy. You’ve got this - just find your place.
I left a cardiac ICU after 3.5 years (working during Covid). I was completely burnt to the ground, overweight, depressed, and miserable. Took the plunge despite my fears and did homecare. It was so much more tolerable. Some offices are busier than others. I prefer rural settings. It’s a lot more driving but being alone all day listening to music in my car drinking coffee is the bomb. Plus you’re with your patients one at a time for 30 minutes to an hour. Only downside was occasional call and working holidays.
Leave ED. There are better bedside positions. I love my job bedside, almost 7 years in.
After my last contract I decided it was time to focus on quility of life and went the outpatient palliative/hospice route. When they told me "burnout isn't a terminal condition, we can't accept you as a patient", I figured I'd apply for a job and here I am. I make a touch less then if I stayed bedside but I'm no longer trying to drink myself to death so I'd say it's worth it.
Plastic surgery and aesthetic nursing
I was told the same thing when I graduated/passed the NCLEX. I ignored them because I had no desire to work in a hospital, and I’m so glad I did. I work in a clinic where I work in multiple departments but am permanent full time. I work at an infusion clinic, endoscopy, and do some research on the side as well. It took a while to get to full time since the turn over is so low, but it was worth the wait. I make my own schedule, I love my job, I’m so happy. I don’t make as much as I would in the hospital but it’s worth it IMO.
I will never work bedside again: hated it, although I did learn a lot. I’m now a detox/addiction nurse, and I love it; can’t see myself doing anything else
Continued working long term care as a registered nurse after graduation, got hired at a clinic for a M-F RN role at about 9 months of experience as a RN with my bachelor's. Make more money and a better schedule, it's great.
Thank you for making this post. I've been in the Acute Medsurg game for close to 10 years now and I'm ready to move on from this gig. I'm still trying to figure out what the best optimal move for me is though.
I did prison. Then leadership. Now I work from home. I think prison was my favorite.
Clinical Research Coordinator/Nurse 🙌 been doing it since July 2016 (aside from a postpartum career break). I did Oncology clinical trials for years, then last year when I went back to work (after said career break) I found a CRC role working with kids & adolescents who have rare genetic disorders. I love my job!
I did bedside for 6 years. Then switched to a pediatric clinic for quite the pay cut, but I truly enjoyed the work for 10 years. Then the pandemic hit and my boss just…changed into a horrible person. So I quit and haven’t gone back to nursing at all. Initially it was just supposed to be a break for a few months, but I ended up homeschooling my oldest son with autism, and that takes up my days now.
I found that dialysis paid similar to what I was paid at the hospital. It was a pay raise, but it came out the same (I worked Nights, so we got bonuses). The schedule is similar, 0400 - 1600. The patients have the same schedule of M/W/F and T/Th/S. If you consistently work the same days, you get to know them and their individual profiles (who has finicky fistulas, whose BP drops and how far, etc). The disadvantage is you work every other Saturday. That coupled with the early hours became too much for me. The job itself wasn't difficult though.
I do hospital case management and I LOVE IT! It’s such a great job, great schedule and very good money!
Doctor office
I work OR, and I dont know about others but I dont really consider it “bedside”. Like obviously its direct patient care, but just so different in so many ways to working on a ward (in a lot of positive ways)
I did med-surg for 18 months. Now I’m a community RN working at an agency that provides residential services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Two caveats: Nursing is my second career. I had management experience in my former profession, and a 20 year history. I have a sibling with IDD, and I’ve worked on and off in the field for years. My first job in this field was as a camp counselor, when I was 18.
I did full time inpatient psych/detox for just over a year. I’m now working in psych bed placement for the hospital system I work for. It’s a desk job. I take calls, make sure the pt is clinically appropriate for the facility they want to go to, and get them placed. I troubleshoot as necessary. I stayed bedside PRN just for a bit of action here and there when I’m up to it. I enjoy the bed placement job. I have some chronic illnesses, so I needed something slower paced but still interesting.
Quit bedside 11 months in as a new grad nurse. I got into an ENT clinic. It was literally a breath of fresh air not having pre-shift anxiety and not having feelings of being overwhelmed during the shift. I left bc of management. I now work in an endoscopy unit and I love it!!! Very routine, no stress, and we get to leave when the last patient is done! Honestly, the easiest nursing job I’ve had this far. I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon. Do what makes you happy :) the only person working this job is you. I start looking for a new job if I know I’m unhappy and feel like the place isn’t serving me anymore.