Becoming a nurse isn’t a decision you made on a whim. Not for the faint of heart, nursing school was tough. It took hard work, dedication and discipline to get the grades and pass the boards. You stuck with it because you wanted to make a difference. You probably envisioned yourself in a traditional nursing role providing direct patient care in a hospital or another clinical setting. In other posts, I go into all the benefits of leaving bedside nursing to pursue other non-patient care nursing jobs.
Check out some of the downsides of leaving bedside nursing:
- Minimal or no direct contact with patients – This takes some adjustment. Under the right circumstances (i.e. nurse/patient ratio, etc.), I enjoyed caring for patients and was naturally drawn to the nurturing and teaching aspect of being a bedside nurse. If you get a lot of personal satisfaction in being a bedside nurse, you’ll definitely miss that aspect of the job.
- Ability to work as much or as little as you want – It’s easy to pick up some extra shifts when you need to make some extra money. On-call, holiday, weekend and shift differentials all add up to a nice chunk of change. If you’re per diem, you pick how much you actually want to work. The flexibility to add or reduce shifts based on your lifestyle is a huge benefit when you’re a bedside nurse. There aren’t too many salaried opportunities to have that flexibility in other non-patient care positions.
- Deep routed personal relationships – This heavily depends on the staff, setting, company culture, leadership team, etc. When the ideal combination of these factors are in place, there’s nothing like the tight bond forged between a patient care team. It’s a beautiful thing when physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, nurse assistants, etc. work together to form the perfect recipe for better clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. Working in a stressful environment like a patient care setting, you develop strong relationships based on professionalism and respect. When there’s a code, everyone pulls together to not only to care for the patient, but to pat each other’s backs and provide emotional support once it’s all over. That bond is unlike any team relationship you’ll have in any office setting.
