Followup: Career paths for an ER nurse?
Sep. 18th, 2015 07:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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factfindingSo, following up on kate 's awesome effortpost in response to my last post here (asking about the organization of an ER department), I've got another question...it actually is in regard to the same character (my character's mom).
Just what is the career path for an ER dept nurse? Like, what's next?
Working assumptions:
1. The nurse has a BSN, but maybe is less-enamored of the shift-work lifestyle than she was. Is willing to get a graduate degree.
2. Nurse wants to continue with patient care, but also slowly move into management tasks (since I can only imagine ER nursing in an urban hospital is a high-adrenaline field that rewards youth and such things like reflexes or dexterity or stamina over more cerebral things the older folks can do) if the possibility opens itself up.
3. Nurse's husband? A SWAT team cop for the local PD. Meaning yeah, both parents (they have 2 kids - one is a supergenius at a space boarding school run by the government, the other is at home (and also a supergenius)) doing shift work can be crazy. Doable, but crazy.
I figure before I decide on a path, I should ask to see what the realistically potential paths are, presuming the character doesn't want to reboot their career entirely.
Sources searched:
Google ("emergency nurse" "career paths")
Wikipedia (the article on the MSN degree is not very helpful at describing what those with the degree do...)
discovernursing.com (actually semi-helpful, but still would like to know more)
kate 's awesome effortpost in response to my last post here (asking about the organization of an ER department), I've got another question...it actually is in regard to the same character (my character's mom).Just what is the career path for an ER dept nurse? Like, what's next?
Working assumptions:
1. The nurse has a BSN, but maybe is less-enamored of the shift-work lifestyle than she was. Is willing to get a graduate degree.
2. Nurse wants to continue with patient care, but also slowly move into management tasks (since I can only imagine ER nursing in an urban hospital is a high-adrenaline field that rewards youth and such things like reflexes or dexterity or stamina over more cerebral things the older folks can do) if the possibility opens itself up.
3. Nurse's husband? A SWAT team cop for the local PD. Meaning yeah, both parents (they have 2 kids - one is a supergenius at a space boarding school run by the government, the other is at home (and also a supergenius)) doing shift work can be crazy. Doable, but crazy.
I figure before I decide on a path, I should ask to see what the realistically potential paths are, presuming the character doesn't want to reboot their career entirely.
Sources searched:
Google ("emergency nurse" "career paths")
Wikipedia (the article on the MSN degree is not very helpful at describing what those with the degree do...)
discovernursing.com (actually semi-helpful, but still would like to know more)
no subject
Date: 2015-09-18 02:43 pm (UTC)She could go to work in a doctor's office, which is pretty much the opposite of ER nursing.
She could get a nurse practitioner certification (varies by state) and see patients in an office setting (most states require this to be supervised by an MD, so she'd have to find a partnership).
People with MSN degrees usually teach nursing school, I think.