Career Management
One thing that not everyone realizes is that nursing is one of the most diverse professions on the planet. There are almost endless ways you can use your nursing degree. Most people think first of the hospital setting, imagining nurses working on sterile floors with sick patients. While this is a common application, it is only a drop in the bucket.
In this article, we take a comprehensive look at how you can use your nursing degree both in traditional settings and in other areas that you may not have thought of before.
Read on to learn about some of the many ways you can enjoy a rewarding career as a nurse.
What is a Traditional Nursing Setting?
How many people imagine a nurse as an overworked woman in hospital whites? Probably, she looks very tired and perhaps a little bit stern. She would not be terribly out of place on the set of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Reality, of course, is very different. Nurses can be any race or gender. And while some of them are stern, most distinguish themselves through an almost superhuman level of patience. They also don’t have to work in a hospital setting at all—though many do.
This, in fact, is what most would consider the “traditional setting” to be. An emergency room. A hospital floor. Maybe a doctor’s office. In other words, nurses who work directly with patients day in and day out.
Professionals working in the hospital setting make good money—though they do not command salaries that reflect the importance or difficulty of their work. They are overstressed. They are often unsupported. It isn’t so surprising to learn that many of them leave their jobs for an entirely new profession.
What may surprise people outside of the healthcare industry is that there are many other ways to use your BSN. Below, we take a look at some “non-traditional,” nursing careers that may be rewarding for people who like the idea of helping others but don’t want to work in a hospital.
School Nurse
School nursesschools
The job can certainly be stressful, but school nurses do not deal with the same life-and-death situations that hospital nurses are regularly in contact with. What’s more, their hours are very comfortable, particularly for people who have children of their own.
As a school nurse, you will always be on the same schedule as your child. You will leave at approximately the same time every morning, and return when they do in the evenings. You will also have holidays and summers off, giving you even more opportunities to spend time with your child.
What’s more, you will have the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in the lives of the kids you see. School nurses are gatekeepers for the entire district. They help avoid transferable illness.
Not only does this make a difference for students, but it can also have a big impact on their families. A kid can get the cold and bounce back pretty quickly.
However, if they come into contact with their 80-year-old grandmother, the results might not be so happy. By reducing incidents of infection and illness, school nurses by an important role in improving the overall health of the community that they serve.
Nursing Educator
Surprise surprisenursing school
This may not sound like an exciting aspect of the job but it is important. As described in the introduction, many people enter the nursing profession without fully understanding what it will be like. This results in extremely high levels of turnover. Nursing educators can prevent that by ensuring that only people well suited for the job make it through.
Most people who work as nursing educators, at least have a graduate degree. This is necessary to find employment at the majority of colleges and universities. You may even need to acquire a PhD to get hired at some schools.
Misc
It’s here that we describe jobs that do not fall neatly into any specific category. For example, some work nurses work in helicopters, helping transport patients who need to be moved to another hospital. Some nurses coach people who have been newly diagnosed with diabetes. Some nurses work in laser hair removal salons.
Do you see where we are going with this? There are tons of different ways to enjoy a successful healthcare career.
Conclusion
We could go on. And on and on and on. But we won’t. You want an article, not a book. If you are interested in learning more about how you can use a nursing degree, consider reaching out to a nursing school you are interested in. They will be able to provide you with a wealth of information on various applications. They may even connect you with alumni who have used their BSN in interesting ways.
If you have a passion for helping people consider healthcare as a great way to give back to your community and earn a living.
About The Author
Andrew Deen has been a consultant for startups in almost every industry from retail to medical devices and everything in between. He implements lean methodology and currently writing a book about scaling up business.
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