I’m a nurse. I recently wrote about how I’ve discovered this job can be enjoyable, provided ratios are respected, I don’t work with gossips, micromanagers and drama queens. I also like working with doctors that explain to me how things work and as a novelty, I’ve started reading on my free time about diagnoses, procedures and medicines.
Option A: go to my new unit and do the same.
Option B: patient transporter. I’d earn the same, I wouldn’t have any boss over me telling me what to do except if I lazy around and I wouldn’t have to run as I sometimes do as a nurse. No drama of any kind (I’d be alone most of the time), ample opportunities to sit and read, drink coffee or do nothing while waiting for my next assignment, other opportunities to learn while watching procedures being done to patients.
Yes. It really is this relaxed. I shadowed already.
My old self always though a job is a job and I should aim for maximum income doing the less amount of job I can. I’m also an introvert and enjoy being alone. This second job seems to offer exactly that.
Except that I’d miss learning from the doctors that have shown an interest in teaching me and the adult nurses (the ones not acting like children, the gossips).
I really don’t understand myself. I feel I’d be dumbing myself down, but otoh earn the same I do now.
Have you looked into becoming a nurse practitioner? You sound like you might feel more fulfilled with more medical knowledge and a job in more of an expert role.
The evil you know is often better than the evil you don’t know.
Patient transporter seems great. What’s a bad day like? All jobs have bad days.
Will you be crushed by an obese immobile incontinent elderly man as he empties his bowels onto your helpless wriggling body? Is that worth the downtime?
Option B sounds obvious. Is it too good to be true?
As I understand, you like both options (for different reasons).
One more aspect is your further career: Always check if a new job fits well into your resume, and brings you forward to better/higher paid options in the future, or not. This is especially important when you’re young.
Option B seems a dead end in this regard. You cannot become a ‘boss driver’ or even a ‘senior driver’ from it. You’ll stay on the same career level forever.
It seems you have accidentally found some meaning in your work, something your old self apparently couldn’t imagine. Meaning is incredibly important - life is too short to sit around doing as little as possible in order to make money. Humans need meaning, and you’re still human even while at work.
So you’re not being stupid at all.
Where it becomes tricky is if you are offered positions with less meaning but more money/career opportunities. It’s important not to be run over; meaning and wages needs to be balanced. But it seems the wages are the same here, and neither option is a health risk, so I would pick what’s meaningful for you.
Patient transport is one of those things where you get bored. If that’s a problem for you, it would be better to keep your toe in with other branches of nursing.
Disclaimer: I was a nurse’s assistant, so I didn’t do that job, just know people that did.
Also, I’m assuming you mean critical care transport.
You’ll definitely run into moments where your skills are put to the test, but it’ll be in between a lot of waiting around. That may seem like a good thing, and it definitely can be. But it’s also why a lot of nurses end up leaving transport for other branches.
The good thing about that is exactly what you said, you can use that waiting time to keep up on literature in the field. So, if you do eventually get bored of transport, you’ll still be up to date and have that experience under your belt. Any variety of intensive nursing is a huge plus when looking for a new job, pay raises, etc. Transport isn’t as intensive as emergency, flight, icu, or even some surgery; but it definitely hones people’s skills with communication, improvisation, and the core skills that you’d need in an ED or ICU. Those skills are always welcome in other settings too.
I’m not in the healthcare field, but if you enjoy learning from people and like the idea of using what you learn, you should continue in a new unit. Also, if you look for another job later on, especially one that’s more challenging or advanced or pays better, I’d assume you’re more likely to get it based on your experience in an actual unit as opposed to patient transport.
You’re no less qualified, since you’re a nurse either way, but a recruiter might want someone with more recent relevant experience and/or sharper skills in specific areas. Not to mention that on-the-job training and day-to-day learning teaches you a lot and you would miss out on a lot of that in patient transport.
I would say it depends on age. If retirement is a ways away and your still pretty physically up to it, then I would say go with learning more and what sounds like it has the most long term income potential. The more you earn and save early the easier it is to slow down later when you need to. If your older and retirement is looking not to far away or the strain is getting to you. Then go with the slow down but only if you are in financially good shape. Also if your just burned out on the regular stuff I would do it but with an eye to get back into it and maybe in another way. Like surgical or something.
Age is also something that matters here. Are you middle-aged yet? I ended up pulling the brakes on my career to get a better work-life balance, but it ended up stunting my career trajectory a bit.
Once I had more free time and realized I wanted to earn more, I had to hustle to get back to a top-of-market position.
In short: there’s always time on the future to pivot to Option B. If there’s more value to extract where you are, milk it for all it’s worth and then exit before it goes south (as all jobs do).
Is there already path that let’s you pursue a more advanced degree?
While I know nothing about nursing careers, that would also be my first option: Take an online degree from a reputable source that allows you to do on your pace during slow hours so you can do, once completed, something that is engaging and pays well.
Note: Before starting anything, check with possible future employers if they fancy that certification/course/degree. I’ve been burned with wasting my time AND money learning something that made me unattractive to employers.
Depends on where you are in the world, but there are advanced nursing degrees out there.
Here in the US, there’s a bachelor’s and master’s
I like working in triage for this reason. Lots of autonomy, sure it gets busy but there’s also days with lots of downtime, plus you get to shoot the shit with doctors and pick their brain.
There will be chill days and then there will be slammed days. As long as you go into it knowing that it could go either way, go transport.
I would recommend looking for sources that scratch that learning itch independently of your doctors and other staff. Podcasts are a great option and can really deepen and broaden your knowledge without requiring lucky exposure to patients with a given issue.
One podcast family is the microbe.tv group, shows like This Week in Virology, Immune, and This Week in Paracitism.
I would also recommend This Podcast Will Kill You, this one is really fun and has very good deep dives into awesome medical topics.
Once you have your own educational material you can make your decision with no specific tie to your workplace for getting your education.
Sounds like on job is the end of the career line. If it pays more than enough (1.5x and up) to build the life you want, go for it.
Otherwise, keep grinding to get the salary higher. Adjust specific group to get work schedule and manager you like.
There’s a lot to consider. I for the most part want quality of life. I turned down 100k+ to work from home, have nore days off, and work where I appreciate them and they appreciate me.
From there make sure you don’t stagnate. If you don’t evolve your career you won’t offer as relevant of skills.
Places want long history. And if you love doing something, nothing says that better than a consistent job history of that.
Don’t let drama command your career path. I’m sure your job is in demand enough that you could get a job somewhere else too. Don’t rule out making changes by standing up for yourself.
I know this doesn’t exactly answer your question. But, I hope it helps you narrow down your decisions.
