The Frightening Decision Every Nurse Must Face

The day will come in the life of almost every clinical or bedside nurse that can be devastating. If you work as a hands-on nurse, it will most likely happen to you too. It's the day when you realize that you may no longer be able to work as a hands-on nurse. This painful culmination of your nursing career can happen suddenly or over a period of time, and because of many reasons. It can be the result of a severe injury, extreme burn-out, cut-backs, old age, or physical inability to handle the demanding job. When this happens, how will you continue to earn income? Finding another job can be a slow process. If you have a family to support, this can become a serious problem. The smart thing to do is to start preparing for this eminent situation. The question is: what can be done to prepare?

The first step is to face the realization that your nursing career will eventually reach this point, and to make the decision that something has to be done to prepare for it. Once you make this choice, the rest is not as hard as you would think. The key for preparing for this turning point is to have a back-up career option. When choosing the back-up option, there are a few criteria you should look for. This option should pay equivalent to or more than your current job, it can be one that you are already qualified for or one that requires some additional training, and it should offer the flexibility for you to ease into it at your own pace. The option is even more ideal if it allows you to use it on the side while still working your main job, allowing you to earn some extra income if you need. Unfortunately, many nurses don't realize that an option that can meet these ideal criteria even exists.

When facing this life-changing decision, the typical response from a nurse is to begin looking for a different job that will meet their new capabilities and requirements. Even though the job search and application process can be quite slow, it sometimes works as a good option. When the job openings are in the same facility, the hiring process can be somewhat quicker. Many nurses tend to pursue administrator jobs when they are no longer able or willing to handle the rigors of hands-on nursing. However, administration jobs often have heavy competition for a very limited amount of positions. There are many other jobs where your nursing expertise will be applicable, such as case management, pharmaceutical sales, insurance, recruiting, or teaching. But what if your best option is not a typical job at all? If you approaching this point in your career, maybe it's time for you to think outside of the box a little bit.

Luckily for nurses in this position, there is a career option that meets every one of the criteria explained above. It allows you to utilize your current medical expertise, it offers great flexibility on the hours you work, it presents new challenges, it gives you the choice of finding a job or working independently, it can pay much better than a typical clinical nursing job, and it gives you more choices of areas where you can work. On top of all these benefits, it offers you an opportunity to continue the main reason you probably got into nursing in the first place; it allows you to continue helping people. The nursing career option we are describing is Legal Nurse Consulting. It's important to consider that you're going to need an option like Legal Nurse Consulting one day, so you should become familiar. If you have already heard of this option, you most likely don't understand its true benefits and what's involved. As a Legal Nurse Consultant, you can learn how to apply your medical expertise to the legal industry or the legal side of medical care. Any case involving medical records needs your expertise to interpret and analyze the medical information. If you would rather avoid working with law firms and insurance companies, hospitals and facilities often hire Legal Nurse Consultants to help in areas such as risk management, case management, and insurance issues.

If Legal Nurse Consulting sounds like an interesting career option, then you should take a look at the Advanced Legal Nurse Consultant (ALNC) certification by LNC STAT. The LNC STAT course was developed and is taught by Veronica Castellana. She is a currently practicing Legal Nurse who practices what she preaches, so you know the training is effective. LNC STAT graduates have the highest rate of success when compared to any other Legal Nurse certification or training course. All you have to do is complete the training and put it to work.

You have a choice to make. Whether you decide now or after something forces you, this kind of career altering decision is very hard to confront. You can be like the many other nurses who just hope that nothing happens, or start preparing for the future.