Nursing opportunities outside hospital walls

[cougarnurse]

Good article: Nursing opportunities exist outside hospital walls

There are certain nursing jobs that come with one crucial caveat: the successful applicant must thrive in a role less ordinary.

From repatriating injured Canadian soldiers from hostile territory, working on the street with mobile needle-exchange programs or in forensic roles within prisons, to jobs in mental health or as quarantine officers, careers as a registered nurse (RN) boasts countless options outside the hospital environment.

For Debbie Sullivan, a veteran nurse of 35 years, choosing the non-traditional route led her to work at a nursing station accessed only by air before becoming a community health nurse on a remote First Nations reserve.

“You don't have to be a backpacker to see cool stuff — just work as a nurse,” says the former Calgarian, currently based on the 535-strong Gitsegukla reserve near Hazelton in northern B.C.

Feeling a little isolated, Sullivan agrees, can play a role at times. “But there is way more scope for your imagination working in these places,” she says. “You need to be more self-reliant and depend more on your own assessment skills.”

It is more of a lifestyle working on a reserve, in her opinion, and less of a job. “You are known,” she adds, “so you get a chance to really participate on the reserve.

“One of our key roles is community development, working with staff, clients, and elders to develop programs that really suit the needs of the community and that is very rewarding. There is a culture of connectedness on reserve ... It's a different cosmos.”

In Ottawa, Lt. Col. Gayle Quick also understands how nursing can expand horizons. She has spent time in Germany and the United States, as well as places across the nation, such as Cold Lake, Alta., and Summerside, P.E.I., through her varied postings in the Canadian Forces Health Services (CFHS). It is a 28-year career in which she has had the “unique opportunity to interact with other nations.”

It's not a job, however, she cautions, that all nurses would necessarily enjoy.

“I think you have to be a certain person who likes adventure and excitement,” says Quick, a senior nursing officer with the CFHS who originally trained at Vancouver General Hospital. “It's certainly not the same old, same old, so you have to be able to cope with things that are a little bit outside the norm.”

As a flight nurse who worked on planes carrying medical emergencies to those in need of specialist patient care, Quick spent time flying into the former Yugoslavia during the unrest of the early ’90s.

“It stays with you all of your life,” she recalls of the experience repatriating injured Canadians, a role she believes is similar to those involved in the current Afghanistan mission. “Outside of whatever nursing or medical care is delivered, there's something satisfying about taking those individuals who are hurt in foreign territory and bringing them back into Canadian hands, back to a familiar language or faces or home. For many of them it's a very bad time in their life and you are going to make things better.”

There are, however, more traditional roles within the National Defence, she adds, in the realm of leadership and management or training and education.

Being part of this public service is also being part of the greater good nationally, according to Annie Trepanier, spokesperson for the Public Service Commission of Canada, which represents those in public service.

“Nurses,” she says, “can be part of a non-partisan professional team delivering programs and services aimed at improving the quality of life for all Canadians.”

Throughout Canada, whether through federal or provincial organizations, this variety of options is seen as key to the recruitment — and retention — of RNs in Canada. By 2022, there could be a shortage of almost 60,000 nurses nationally, according to the Canadian Nurses Association.

“The great thing about nursing is that your choices never end,” says Kaaren Neufeld, the CNA president and chief quality officer for the Winnipeg Regional Health Office. “There really is the opportunity to reinvent yourself. It's the kind of career that will grow with you as you mature as an individual.”

It is a point that also taps into the next generation's desire for multiple careers, says Wendy Fucile, president of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario. “There's a role for nursing in nearly every walk of life without you ever having to leave nursing as a profession and without society ever having to lose the tremendous knowledge base that every nurse has,” she explains.

Sullivan stresses that this ability to take her career in different directions has allowed much room for personal growth. “It's a surprise that you get so amply rewarded for the giving that you do,” she says. “It's not about this giant income ... but in the long scheme of things, personal growth may have more value than all the money that you can get.”

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