Followup: Career paths for an ER nurse?

[penta]

So, 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)

Comments

[lilacsigil]

My mother was an emergency nurse, then she went into theatre nursing (so assisting with surgery) then went into pediatric nursing, because it wasn't as hard physically and the shifts were more predictable. After that, she got a BSc (this was not part of nursing training in the 60s!) and an MSc in Nursing Science and taught nursing for 15 years. After that, she went to work for the Nursing & Midwifery branch of the Medical Board, which has oversight of all registered nurses and midwives (and students of these disciplines) in Australia.