There are a number of nurses who enter non-clinical career fields, either after working as a nurse in a busy hospital or immediately after graduation.
Non-clinical jobs normally don't involve direct patient care. Nurses may often seek to enter the non-clinical side for a variety of reasons. Chief among these would be mental stress and simply the extensive physical demands of the clinical setting—including long periods of standing, moving patients and equipment, and the long hours. Some older nurses develop physical limitations like arthritis or allergies, which forces them to make the switch.
For these and other reasons, clinical nurses move to non-clinical careers. They decide to enter teaching, management, operations, consulting, health finance, healthcare IT, and process improvement. The point is, nurses have a number of options to segue into using their experience and training. These include:
Teacher/Trainer. Nursing school, science teacher, and medical certifications.
Medical Writer. Medical writers for pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, medical text publishers, and government healthcare institutions.
Patient Advocate. A nurse's clinical knowledge and experience in the healthcare system can be highly useful in patient advocacy.
Healthcare & Legal Consultant. Nurses are often contracted to consult with insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, law firms, or hospitals on a variety of areas.
For an additional perspective, check out this video:
Alex A. Kecskes has written hundreds of published articles on health/fitness, "green" issues, TV/film entertainment, restaurant reviews and many other topics. As a former Andy/Belding/One Show ad agency copywriter, he also writes web content, ads, brochures, sales letters, mailers and scripts for national B2B and B2C clients. Please see more of his blogs and view additional job postings on Nexxt.
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