What’s The Best Nursing Job You’ve Had And Why?

School Nurse It was a Happy Job. I like my job a lot now. Really kind people I work with. Dara M. RNHCD

When the Lehey Clinic was in Boston I was a private scrub nurse for an orthopedic surgeon. I traveled to 3 – 5 local hospitals to scrub his cases and then worked as his office nurse. I loved it!! I had wonderful interactions with our patients and worked in the OR without any drama or toxic behavior. I was well respected and really liked the surgeon I worked with.

Fostering medically complex infants and children! What a blessing to watch an infant w/ bilateral, parietal skull fractures w/ subdurals (and neglect) move from negative 2 developmental skills to positive 2, in 2 yrs. Or his/her ‘brother’ who was medically complex, but never hospitalized while in my care. We were happy, playful, and centered. It was the best ‘job’ I’ve ever had!

Integrated, Inpatient Case Manager. Great co-workers and a very dedicated and effective management team. Excellent pay too.

Home Peritoneal Dialysis Nurse. I got to train each patient in everything they should or shouldn’t do while doing PD at home. Trained them and they demonstrated back safe technique. They went home doing their dialysis treatments nightly while continuing to work, go to school and raise their families. Felt very appreciated and loved caring for and teaching my patients.

NP Hospitalist. It’s like putting a puzzle together or solving a mystery. Plus you can sit with your patient and listen. With enough questions and enough answers the treatment part is easy.

Worked inpatient Burn Center 5 years, and OP Burn/Wound Clinic for 14 yrs. Got attached to my patients in both areas, and saw some really interesting wounds from all types of accidents. I loved both areas and would have continued if we had not moved out of state. Most reward in watching my patients walk out the door.

NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care) – watching premature babies weighing mere ounces and pounds mature into thriving infants is fabulous and gratifying. Most parents and families are so grateful.

I was an Obgyn RN for 34 years doing office work and hospital newborn nursery, post partum and labor and delivery. Best years ever!

OR nursing! 20+ Years couldn’t imagine doing anything else!

As a Telephone Advice Nurse, it gave me satisfaction in trying to help patients with their desire for help with either home treatment if indicated and when/what type of provider they needed or call 911. Although my managers were younger in age than me, they allowed you to do your job without micromanaging. I had both protocol’s and autonomy with decision making. I always was able to get my lunch and breaks. Patient call need’s varied through the life span so their was no boredom.

Hospice nursing was a privilege. I felt I was really making a difference for my patient and the family. Now I continue as a Faith Community Nurse where I am able to assist many in my Faith community by sharing resources and being an advocate.

I’ve worked in the OR for 30 years. I knew that’s where I wanted to be even before I went to nursing school. Getting ready to retire & I know I will miss it.

Loved being a certified college health nurse. Always challenging and, yet, so satisfying. Learned so much from the students, especially the international students.

Nurse case manager for forensic patients living in the community, from State Hospital. It was so gratifying to see them grow and integrate into society.

I felt all my RN jobs were the best for a certain time in my life……started on a Med/Surg floor years ago and it was a great place to start my RN career. Moved into the Emergency room and so enjoyed having a variety of cases come through the door…never was boring. Raising a family so changed directions and did some volunteer Red Cross and a bit of PRN School Nursing. Worked for a firm that did on-site Health Fairs/blood draws and presentations to large companies….again flexibility and embraced meeting different people and discussing healthy lifestyle habits. From there I went into Case Management and covered areas in 3 states which was a learning experience and really out on my own. I ended my full time career with an 8 year stent in Hospice (did some presentations at the local college and took students on Hospice calls/training) and the last 5 years in administration. Still volunteering on Ethics Committee, COVID vaccine distribution at the local hospital and Hospital Foundation Board. There is not one part of my Nursing career that I did not embrace and enjoy. Different jobs appealed to me at different times in my life and I looked at it as a lifelong learning process…I am still learning. So many choices in Nursing Careers. Embrace, learn and enjoy!

#1. Public Health Nurse focusing on moms & kids. 8-5 Mon-Fri gave me a normal life when I needed it.
#2. Clinical consultant for healthcare design—See http://www.nursingihd.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Covid Vaccination Nurse! The best team ever, and the patients ALL wanted to get that vaccine!! There were tears of joy, and relief. Our crew came from all aspects of nursing. Nursing students, current staff, educators, medical students, retired nurses and physicians. I loved that job!

I worked at a Catholic Hospital in the IICU and I LOVED IT! I loved working at a faith based hospital, the encouragement of the Nuns and the way that it was run. The Nurses held a position of honor at the hospital and that is what I miss the most. The work was challenging, the teamwork was great, the patient load was not unrealistic. We were given regular raises, Nurses Week was special and we were all of one mind. I like having massive dressings to change, from open heart wounds to fasciotomy dressings. Being able and capable of pulling central and pic lines. The job was one of learning and growing.
I work at the VA now and I love my veterans but we are so very restricted in what we are permitted to do clinically.

I have truly loved Gyn Oncology . Being able to give care pre-surgical, assisting in surgery and post op /follow up treatment care . This has been such a fulfilling job . I look forward to work and each day brings so many opportunities to help patients along with their family . There are so many opportunities to make a difference . Being a nurse is and has been such a rewarding profession . Actually a calling .

For most of the seven years I was an OR Nurse, I got to run the Minor Procedure Room at a large University Hospital. I took the job from someone who wanted to move into Cardiac Surgery. We did cases for most of the Surgical services that needed to do (usually) small cases that only required local anesthesia and moderate sedation. I was trained OJT by the previous RN. It wasn’t very organized when I started, but I developed protocols both for sedation and training and wrote the Policies and Procedures. I trained three other RNs, tracked cases and made quarterly reports to Surgical Chiefs and my Nursing Supervisors. Because I sat at the head of the OR table, where Anesthesia typically sat, the surgeons instinctively treated me as a colleague, and I had a great deal of independence. I only left because of toxic politics developing in the OR (which had NOT targeted me, BTW). I got recruited by GI Lab, where I continued my sedation practice for three more years.

Faith Community Nurse/Parish Nurse — What a joy to work with church members and their families, in providing education, psychological, and spiritual support. I was blessed by the love they in turn returned to me.

My best Nursing job was in Public Health Community based healthcare where I knew every single patient and their families, greeted with hugs in the grocery stores, sometimes screaming and crying because I gave those horrible painful chelation injections for lead poisoning, teaching and mentoring self care and preventive care. It was a awesome 9 years.