Ex nurse

[jerseypearl]

I stopped nursing four years ago when I had my second child, have had a third child since. Although not going back to work at the mo I want to start thinking about what I could do as I don't want to go back to nursing. My husband works long hours so I don't want to work shifts etc. Are there any nurses out there that now do something different?

Is it just the shifts you didn't like about nursing, or the particular job you had?
I'm sure there must be some nurse-type jobs that don't have shifts, if you were interested.

Yes, what about working in the community? Or is teaching nursing a possibility, either as a lecturer on an undergrad nursing course or as a health and social care/public services/social sciences teacher in an FE college or secondary school? I bet a teacher training college would jump at the chance to have you on one of their qualifying courses for the latter - I used to help with a health and social class as a teaching assistant and it was rubbish because it was taught by a psychology graduate with zero experience of any of the caring professions. I always used to think how much better it would have been to have had an ex-nurse or somebody else suitably qualified teach it, to bring the subject to life and actually get the kids enthused about it (all they ever did was exercises out of the textbook, I got bored).

I used to be a District Nurse and worked on the Twilight when my DCs were little.
After that I worked for a while in Clinical Pharmacology doing Stage 1 Clinical Trials, which was mainly bloods, bps etc.
Followed that by a bit of work in Outpatients.
Ended up working in the disabled students section of a local university, which is great.

Depends on what else you enjoy doing really, as I am quite methodical and don't mind admin work.

I would like to change my career too but always worry that the grass looks greener on the other side but actually its not! I am fed up with shifts - getting up at 5:30am, not seeing DS for up to 3 days a week. Working nights and feeling like a jet lagged zombie the following day regardless of the amount of sleep I get! But most of all I get fed up at work with the constant nagging, oneupmanship, extra workload and poor pay and I have worked in a few places and its all the same. It's sad because I do like my job it's just I haven't got enough time to perform to the level that is expected of me (although we all do) its as if we are out of breath at the end of day and a big 'phew' is said by all after every shift!

Sorry waffling, I just also wanted some ideas to use my supposed 'transferable skills' although I suspect these will be obsolete in another career.

How about administration or community nursing/ district nursing? It depends what type of nurse you are. Will you have to do a return to practice course if you wanted to return to nursing? This would defo put me off as you have to pay for yourself and work for free! Not to mention the registration fees and indemnity insurance.

What about ambulance control? They have recently started employing band 5 nurses in our area.

have you thought about research nursing? quite a lot of research jobs about atm. tends to be a lot more officey and 9-5