Are you studying nursing at the moment? It’s an exciting time, with so much to learn, absorb, and take in. You’re likely excited about your new career as a nurse, looking forward to working in a hospital or other primary health care workplace. However, nursing degrees such as online accelerated BSN programs can qualify you for so much more than you might realize, with a variety of non-clinical nursing jobs available to qualified nurses. This article will share some key non-clinical roles you might not have considered. This is not to imply anything negative about traditional nursing, which is a rewarding and fulfilling career pathway, but more to suggest alternatives where you can still utilize your nursing degree. Read on to learn more.
Healthcare Management Roles
One viable non-clinical career pathway for nurses in the healthcare system in the United States is to work towards a management role. For this, you’ll need a few years of experience in a direct healthcare setting working as a nurse in a clinical role or two. After you’ve gained this valuable experience, you could apply for a team leader, senior, or lead role. Then, you can work your way up the ranks over the years. Most healthcare management roles have oversight of clinical teams but aren’t necessarily clinical roles themselves, but clinical knowledge is valuable and sought after.
There are various management roles available in healthcare settings such as hospitals, non-profit charities, community care providers, and other places. Some management roles include ward unit managers, administrative managers, directors, and even executive-level management like Chief Executive or Chief Operating Officer which you could go for if you had the relevant skills and experience. Some nurses go back to study for an MBA, which they can then apply to non-clinical healthcare management roles with great impact.
Nurse Educator or College Teacher
Another excellent non-clinical role for a qualified nurse to embark on is as a nurse educator, college teacher, or even professor. In this role, you are responsible for training the nurses of tomorrow. You’ll need current nursing knowledge of best practices and research and need to stay up to date with treatment trends and the evidence base for nursing. However, you won’t have to treat patients in this role. Instead, you’ll teach others how to be effective nurses. You could even pursue a career in academic nursing, gaining post-graduate qualifications in nursing that give you the skills and experience to teach nursing diplomas and degrees at college.
Maternal and Infant Health Nurse
Another nurse role that doesn’t require working in a hospital is as a maternal and infant health nurse. In this role, you might work in a community centre or even in an outreach capacity, where you travel to see new moms and babies in their homes. In this job, you can provide care and advice to nursing mothers with newborns who have recently had a baby and ensure that the family is safe and supported and that the baby is doing well and is settled at home. You can provide referrals where appropriate, such as to social workers or other health professionals, if there are issues such as perinatal depression, anxiety, neglect, or other issues that can present to new families.
Work in Community Services
A nurse is well-positioned to work in a community service setting. Various community providers look to employ nurses with clinical expertise for non-clinical roles. For instance, some community service providers work with people experiencing substance use issues, mental health issues, and other issues that impact their lives. You might work as a case manager, or youth worker, or other non-clinical role where you can still use your nursing expertise and experience to provide essential services to vulnerable people.
Work in the Community Legal Sector
The community legal, or legal assistance sector, often works with people at their most vulnerable who have a range of issues in addition to the legal matters they need help with. A nurse could be well placed to work as a client intake manager or client wellbeing specialist and can integrate into a multidisciplinary team that is embedded in a legal service to provide wrap-around support to clients. In such a role, you can look at client triage, intake, inclusion and support systems, policies, and processes and use your nursing expertise to provide advice on holistic care and wellbeing support.
School Nurse
Another non-clinical role for a qualified nurse could be working in a school. In this role, you can provide first aid to injured students, such as if they fall over or fall off playing equipment during lunchtime. You could also dress wounds, provide primary care, and dispense medications to children who are prescribed medication to have during the day, such as stimulants and other medications for children diagnosed with ADHD.
Forensic Nurse
A forensic nurse is often used to collect evidence from victims of crime or perpetrators of crime for use in evidence in prosecution cases. In this specialized role, you’ll need both knowledge of nursing but also of the criminal justice and legal systems. You might work for the local police branch, the coroner, or district attorney’s office or other public prosecutors.
Forensic Mental Health Nurse
In this clinical-adjacent role, which is separate from a hospital setting, you’ll work with people who have committed crimes when they are mentally unwell and might not be suitable for prison. A forensic mental health facility is a place where such people can receive treatment for the psychiatric issue that has caused their offending but in a higher security setting than a typical psychiatric ward. You might provide psychoeducation sessions to patients, dispense medication, monitor vital signs, and take blood tests to monitor medication levels and liver health.
Nurse Lobbyist
A nurse lobbyist is a political role that speaks with congressional representatives and senators to encourage health care policies, funding requests, legislation creation, or reformation of current healthcare laws. This role might work for a political party, a healthcare peak body, or another organization.
Procurement Nurse
A procurement nurse works for a hospital or other healthcare setting but not in a clinical role. In this role, the nurse is responsible for procuring medical equipment and supplies, negotiating great prices and discounts, and ensuring that the organization is fully stocked with items such as medications, dressings, surgical equipment, and other healthcare supplies required to care for patients.
A Non-Clinical Summary
This informative article has shared a range of non-clinical roles that a qualified or studying nurse should consider embarking on as a viable alternative to traditional nursing roles in hospitals and primary healthcare settings.
