Nurse to project manager

[Paulonmc]

Hi guys,

I’m currently a nurse but I was considering moving over into project management.

I’d love a role that’s more non clinical, family friendly and with the ability for some home working and PM has stood out as something that I (think) I would enjoy. I’m not sure of the realities of this though!

I’m wondering if anyone here is was a health care professional who moved with PM? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I’m in a funny stage of my career where I’m feeling completely lost to be honest.

I work as an ANP in a GPs. Lots of experience but I’m completely run ragged with 10 min appts and feeling burnt out and I constantly worry about making a mistake, I’m fine with some stress but I feel dealing with peoples health and potential catastrophic consequences of this would be awful if it did ever happen and it plagues me some days

Thank you so much for any help

I think you’d just be swapping one kind of stress for another. What about doing botox/fillers etc? Seems to be a lot of demand for nurses and can make a lot of money! I’d still sign up for the odd Bank shift or whatever you need to do to keep your nurse registration as would be a shame to let that lapse.

Surely as you climb the career ladder you become less clinical anyway?
A matron type role? Education? Bed management?

Running projects and managing multiple stakeholders will come with its own stresses. You'll be spinning plates and managing deadlines, ensuring everyone is on track.

It's not an easy option. Most PMs are employed in construction, engineering or IT sectors which are still male dominated. Having the hide of a rhino and not expecting to clock off at 5pm would help.

Best route in would be Project Admin or Co-ordinator but you might still need some sort of PM qualification even at that level.

What do you think you would enjoy about PjM? My PjMs spend their lives herding cats with no power over anyone who has to do things to keep it all on track, but get all the grief about progress. Lots of juggling, lots of trying to preempt things, and though we've all been remote for nearly 2 years now this makes it even harder for project managers as you can't keep the same eye on them as having a team in the office

My DH is senior PM in construction.

His hours, not family friendly.
His stress, isn't low.

You'd be swapping the frying pan, for well, a frying pan.

Lots of clinicians work as project and programme managers, Op, in other bits of the NHS.

Have a look at NHSEI and HEE jobs as a starter. I think personally that the stress of a project manager is no where near as bad as that of being on the front line delivering care.

Good luck.

Not a clinician but have been B7 and 8a PM in the NHS. I think it’s a great job and I have always worked my hours and no more (ie 9 to 5). Not as stressful as clinical work in my opinion. Also having hired some they are hard to find and your clinical experience would be helpful.

Get yourself on some management courses - quality improvement (and run a project if you can in your current role), PRINCE2, any other project managementy course you can find.

Nominate yourself to be the lead on any change initiative eg new IT system or process? Be the main contact. Start drafting up some Standard Operating Procedures with flow diagrams.

Try and get a coach or mentor. If you’re in London, this can be found through the London Leadership Academy.

Honestly I think it’s a great move.

@pjani

Not a clinician but have been B7 and 8a PM in the NHS. I think it’s a great job and I have always worked my hours and no more (ie 9 to 5). Not as stressful as clinical work in my opinion. Also having hired some they are hard to find and your clinical experience would be helpful.

Get yourself on some management courses - quality improvement (and run a project if you can in your current role), PRINCE2, any other project managementy course you can find.

Nominate yourself to be the lead on any change initiative eg new IT system or process? Be the main contact. Start drafting up some Standard Operating Procedures with flow diagrams.

Try and get a coach or mentor. If you’re in London, this can be found through the London Leadership Academy.

Honestly I think it’s a great move.

Don't consider working in private sector if you consistently work 9 to 5 then!

Would you consider a move into patient safety, quality assurance or governance? I know people who are ex clinical now doing blended wfh and office hours in those areas.

Think about research project management too - clinical background could be a bonus there

With your background you could also move into the clinical trials environment, it’s definitely worth looking into if that side of clinical activities would be of interest.

I'm in IT. We always need PM's. But that's because they get run ragged trying to get stuff done. It's not, by any means, stress free.
You can certainly do the job from home, but it is in reality more difficult as you cannot stop at a persons desk unannounced and get the task that is holding everything up done because you won't leave.

I'm an IT project manager. And it is not a stress-free or family friendly role, far from it. Granted, it would be a different kind of stress from clinical work but you may have some unrealistic expectations about the role.

I am a project manager - it is not stress free. You need to be able to turn your focus from one problem to the next in the blink of a eye (10 minutes can seem a luxury at times). The main attributes you need are - ability to see potential problems and brake them down into manageable sections and attach achievable timelines to them. You need to be creative, pragmatic and exacting. You need to be able to convince people to do things they rather not want to do while ensuring you maintain good relations because you will be working with them on several projects if things go well.

If you feel comfortable planning and executing a 5 course Christmas dinner, a wedding, Chinese banquet for 20 while making sure the uninvited guests feel welcome all on the same day then Project Management is for you. It is great fun but not for the feint hearted.

@JustFrustrated

My DH is senior PM in construction.

His hours, not family friendly.
His stress, isn't low.

You'd be swapping the frying pan, for well, a frying pan.

I’m a construction PM I agree with this

Don’t be a PM in the private sector if you want family friendly hours. You will probably need Prince 2 qualifications. Alternatively what about staying in the NHS and trying PM within the sector.

I have a feeling you would get slaughtered in the private sector especially with no formal qualifications.

I was a project manager now manage a team of them. Not healthcare, financial services. Challenges are that your shift doesn’t end. If you are implementing something after hours on a Friday you could be working all weekend and I mean day and night and then still ha e to go in on Monday to make sure the thing is working ok. Pluses are it can be a great salary and you can be your own boss so arrange meetings to suit yourself. It won’t be less hours though and you wouldn’t usually get paid overtime, perhaps time in lieu

What about medical equipment sales....my sons friend is an ex NICU nurse....she sells equipment to Neonatal units , trains staff on how to use etc....she loves it....and gets £130k

A PM is definitely not a stress free role! It’s a bit of a blood sport keeping multiple stakeholders happy. And 9-5??!!!

Sorry if I have unintentionally offended people on this thread I didn’t mean to.

I didn’t mean PM was a stress free family friendly job and I understand it to be quite a generally stressful role but I think a stress that I would be able to manage much more than the stress I have now. Im a nurse practitioner dealing with multiple emergencies on a daily basis and I’ve become burnt out by it all. I can cope with stress but the current workload is not manageable in my current role. Lots of retirements, constant sickness and staff leaving has meant by role is basically dangerous and at the end of the day I’ll be the one who gets blamed.

Thank you all for the comments they’ve been really helpful so far

I'm a nurse lecturer and I would say about 60% of my job at the moment is PM. Just become a senior nurse then you will end up a PM.

Project management in NHS or other public sector might be easier on you OP, however as a minimum you probably need Prince2, possibly Agile, MSP, other change qualifications too, and some experience most importantly. Without which I expect you'd have to start lower and try to work your way in.

OK, in that case I would encourage you to have a think about the following:

• why project management? there are loads of other roles you could do that are not clinical so I am wondering what attracted you to this particular role
• don't know about other areas, but in IT when I recruited, it would be extremely unlikely that I'd recruit someone with no project management experience into a PM role. You may have to start as project coordinator/junior project manager to gain the experience and move up

-related to the above, it is unlikely you will be able to get into a PM role straight away without getting experience first -have you ever been a manager? That may help in terms of demonstrating transferable skills and being able to deliver on time and on budget, manage teams etc. As a PM, you are very much a manager except without much authority because you don't usually line manage people that are assigned to the team -for any roles in public sector, PRINCE2 will likely be a must -regarding the stress - I've never been in a clinical role so can't speak to that. It's possible that the stress of project management will affect you differently than the stress of clinical work. For the most part, project managers don't really get to make life or death decisions at least not in my line of work. But issues around resourcing and staff shortages are very present. So that goes back to my first question, why do you want to be a PM when there are so many other roles you could go for?

wishing you good luck with whatever you decide