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Table of Contents
Who You’ll Hear
Kati Kleber, MSN RN– Nurse educator, former cardiac med-surg/stepdown and neurocritical care nurse, author, and speaker.
Chelsea Klekamp, BSN RN – Experienced bedside nurse, Nurse Residency Program Coordinator.
Amber Nibling, MSN, RN, NE-BC, NPD-BC, AMB-BC – Experienced bedside nurse, former Clinical Director of Education, current Senior Director of Clinical Learning at Orlando Health
What You’ll Learn
- Make your nurse heart sing
- More than ICU and NP’s
- Research
- Certifications
- Home Health
- Community Health
- Education
- Leadership
The Unspoken Nursing Hierarchy and Why It’s Garbage
What we leave nursing school thinking…
- You should be striving to work with the highest acuity patients.
- You are finally a successful and accomplished nurse once you become a Nurse Practitioner.
The truth is…
- It’s OK if you don’t want to work in the ICU.
- It’s OK if you don’t want to become a Nurse Practitioner.
- It’s OK to not know what you want to do right away!
Do what makes your nurse heart sing.
- It’s something unique to you– no one else can tell you what the answer is.
- When considering a career move
- Ask yourself: is this something I really want? Or is this something I think I’m supposed to want to do?
- Do some self-reflection to discover what you truly have a passion for and where your strengths lie.
- Figure out what you want your ideal day-to-day to look like (schedule, amount of patient contact time, etc.)
- Practical considerations of different career paths (cost of education, job market, etc.)
- If you don’t want to work in a hospital at the bedside, that’s OK! Nursing is such a diverse field, you can make an impact in a variety of different ways.
- There is no area of nursing that is greater than or less than the others.
There is more than just the ICU and nurse practitioners!
- Research
- As a new nurse, you can join the shared governance council at your facility or conduct performance improvement projects on your unit
- Terminal degree would be a Ph.D. to work as a Nurse Scientist at a facility or doing research at the university level
- Certifications
- Examples: Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), Trauma Nurse Specialist (TNS), Med-Surg (CMSRN), Critical Care (CCRN)
- A way to dive deeper into your area without investing the amount of money required to go back to school
- Home Health or Hospice
- Very individualized, one-on-one care
- Going into patient’s homes, working with them and their family, often frequently and for an extended period of time
- Community Health Nursing
- Caring for a whole community
- Big projects with nursing/healthcare as the foundation
- School nursing
- Nurse Librarian
- Helps students or staff find research articles for papers, projects, or policy development
- APA extraordinaire
- Patient safety and quality of care
- Ensuring regulations and requirements are being followed/met so that the organization gets reimbursed correctly
- Preparing the organization for Joint Commission or DNV evaluations
- Monitoring the use of restraints or suicide precautions and ensuring proper documentation
- Evaluating incidences of HAPIs, CAUTIs, CLABSIs, etc. and ensuring preventative measures are being implemented and documented appropriately
- Keeping up to date on state regulations and facility policies
- Track incident reports finding trends that may require a systems-level solution
- Education
- Master of Science in Nursing Education, or can teach with MSN, DNP, or Ph.D. in Nursing
- A clinical instructor or academic professor
- Unit educator
- Nurse residency program coordinator or coach
- Leadership
- Unit supervisors and managers
- House supervisor/administrator
- Director of Nursing (DON) or Chief Nursing Officer (CNO)
Final thoughts
- Even if you know you want to do something other than bedside nursing, there is still value in doing 1-2 years of bedside nursing to learn and gain experience. It also gives you a foot in the door to explore nursing opportunities within your organization.
- When you take a new job, give that job time. Two weeks, or even two months, is not enough time to determine whether a job is a good fit.
Remember that once you’ve graduated nursing school, you’ve made it to the beginning of the journey that is your nursing career. Don’t feel pressured to find your #1 perfect dream job right away! All the experience you gather on the way to your dream job is valuable.
- The Hierarchy of Nursing Fresh RN Blog
- Anatomy of a Super Nurse
- What’s Next
Ready to think like the nurse everyone trusts?
You’re a good nurse—but you want to be a great one. The kind who notices subtle changes, makes smart decisions under pressure, and earns the respect of coworkers and providers alike (even that kinda intimidating one 👀). That next-level skill? It’s critical thinking—and it’s something you can learn. In Critical Thinking for Nurses, I break down exactly what critical thinking actually is (spoiler: it’s more than just “using your judgment”) and how to use it every day on the floor. You’ll get practical tools, real-life examples, and simple steps to start thinking like a seasoned nurse—now, not five years from now.
Start Now
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