5 Ideas To Determine Your Nursing Master's Degree Path As A Bedside Nurse

In this episode, I discuss strategies for gaining clarity and direction to ensure that your steps align with your passions and goals.

Self-awareness and intentional growth are the cornerstones of a fulfilling career. 

I also review the importance of pausing to review your strengths and opportunities, the benefits of shadowing professionals, and the value of saying no to projects that don't serve your long-term aspirations.

 You will learn how selective project involvement can enhance your skills and provide insight into your career preferences. Plus, a highlight of why attending large conferences is a worthy investment in your personal growth. 

Join me on this episode for the clarity and encouragement you need to pursue the nursing career you truly desire. Don't forget to share this episode with colleagues who might find it helpful.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back everyone. I am so excited to bring this topic to you today, as today I am going to focus on the decisions that you have to make in order to figure out what your next steps will be. As far as a degree is concerned, my focus today is on the nurse, who, more so, either already has their bachelor's degree or they're in the process of getting their bachelor's degree and they want to go back for a master's degree or higher. Really, I'm kind of leaning into the master's degree, knowing that there are some degrees that don't even have a master's degree for it anymore. Depending on the school that you're going to, they just have a doctorate, dnp, if you're wanting to go back for that particular role or specialty. I decided to do this topic because I have a lot of people asking me questions about making decisions regarding their degrees, or they've chosen a degree that they actually don't really want to do. They got into it and they're like, yeah, this is not for me, and so I'm hoping to help you to shortcut that process through this podcast episode, and then there will be others that I will dig into to help you with that decision-making process.

Speaker 1: 1:31

Are you feeling stuck in your current clinical environment. Do you want to make a change in your nursing career, but not sure what to do next? Exhausted, burnt out and maybe even ready for different leadership? I'm Bonnie Meadows, a board-certified clinical nurse, specialist, influential leader, career coach and well-being coach. Being in the nursing and healthcare profession since 2004, I have felt stuck and unsure about what was next for me. I wanted to be fulfilled in my purpose, to have a voice at the table and to be a resource for others. I kept telling myself I wanted more, but didn't have the direction I needed, until I found clarity and career growth strategies for experienced nurses like me. In this podcast, you will find simple tactical steps that allow you to gain the clarity you need, solutions for how to grow even without supportive leadership, and guidelines for setting boundaries at work, so that you can grow purposefully in your career as a nurse with a graduate degree who makes a huge impact in the profession. So get ready to trade your scrubs for yoga pants, pop in those earbuds and let's chat.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Hey, my fellow nurses, I know you've been on a hamster wheel trying to figure out your next move in your nursing career. You have gone on the interviews, you have looked on the job boards. You've gotten overwhelmed. Should you do this one? Should you go this route? Should you go that route? You may be fearful of moving because you've encountered a bad experience before and you want to make sure that the next move is the right move. Or you've been applying to jobs and have not received a call back. Some of you are trying to figure out even what grad school program to even apply for, or just trying to get clarity because you already have a graduate degree. But you're ready to make a change. If that is you, I want to invite you to a free one-on-one call. I am offering five free one-hour one-on-one nurse career clarity coaching calls. These calls will help you get unstuck and clarify your next move in your career. Come on, sign up, join me for a free call at bitly slash nursecareerclaritycom. In these calls we'll dig into the reasons why you might not be getting callbacks. We will dive into what direction we need to go next in your career. I'll take a look at your resume and just give you some ideas on where you need to go in your career. Sometimes you just need a sounding board. Sometimes you really need someone to give you that direction. It is a privilege and an honor for me to serve you as a career guiding nurse and to help you to figure out what your next step is. So come join me, sign up for a free call at bitly slash nursecareercom.

Speaker 1: 4:51

So at some point in my nursing career I decided that I wanted to go to medical school. It was something that I really wanted to do early in my life. And then I changed my mind and I decided to go with nursing. And then when I got into nursing and I said, why not try it again? So I went back for about a year or so and took some pre-med classes. I took physics, I took biochem, all of the things that you would need because I already had a bachelor's degree. So all I needed was pre-med classes. And then I needed to study for the MCAT. Well, I did all of that, made very good grades in my science classes, talking about like A in physics, b in biochemistry, that type of thing. So I made no less than a B plus or an A in all of those science classes and I went through.

Speaker 1: 5:45

I started studying for the MCAT. I took the MCAT. I applied to several schools, about four of them. I did all of this knowing that most schools don't really accept you the first go around when you're applying to med school. Accept you the first go around when you're applying to med school. If you look around, you'll see many doctors who have a master's degree in something else. And it's more so because either they took a gap year or they didn't get accepted the first go around and they needed to reapply again. So I was at a crossroad because I did not get into any of the medical schools. I was cool with that.

Speaker 1: 6:27

But then the question is do I have enough passion for this thing to put all of my efforts into that, or do I take another route? And so I decided to go all in on nursing, and at that point in time I then needed to shift my thought process to well then, what am I going to do next? Like what I know, I'm going back to get another degree. Like there's no way that I decided to get a medical degree and now I don't want to go back to school. No, I want to go back to school, but for what? Or to get what degree? I already knew what I didn't want to do. I knew I didn't want to be a nurse practitioner. I knew I didn't want to be a CRN, I knew I didn't want to do nursing education. It's ironic I'm in nursing education now, but just kind of in a different setting of it. But it's all good. I do teach sometimes. My foundational development is with nursing leadership and clinical nurse specialist and then I just use my clinical specialty as also my foundation for teaching.

Speaker 1: 7:36

I had so, if you think about it, I was working in a CTICU at that point in time when I was making those decisions, and most CTICUs are either are breeding grounds for people who either want to go to CRNA school or either they want to become an NP, and I didn't want to do either. So I decided that I was going to go back and get a master's in nursing with a focus in health systems management, which is another name for saying nursing leadership. I did know that I loved projects. I loved quality improvement, I loved working on implementation of a thing, I loved solving problems. I wanted to dig more into that side of things. I wanted to understand how the hospital works in the background and how they make decisions about what hospitals to build and how they make decisions from a regulatory standpoint. Like those are the things that I wanted to dig into. So that because I knew that those are the things that I wanted to dig into. So that because I knew that those are the things that I loved, I was eight years into my career as a bedside nurse. I knew coming in that I did not want to stay at the bedside the entire time. So that's how I made my decision to go to school to get a master's in nursing and health systems management, but focus on leadership.

Speaker 1: 9:04

And so in this podcast, in this episode, I really want to just give you some initial tips on how to make a decision as to what your next step will be as far as your degree is concerned. Number one you have to discover what you want to grow in and where you want to grow. The first question always is, especially if you're leaving from a hospital, setting from the bedside, your first question has to be do I want to stay clinical or do I want to go non-clinical? Now I'm just going to put a plug in here and I'm just going to say that the clinical nurse specialist role is kind of one of those roles where you could you don't know, unless you actually want to stay in an actual clinical nurse specialist role but even some people even come into the program and they realize I'm not as clinical as I really wanted to be. Clinical nurse specialist is usually for those people who, yes, they love the clinical piece and, depending on where they work, that you could dig more into the clinical piece versus the systems and working on projects and problem solving. But it's to me it's a good divide between the two. If you can't make up your mind between the two, of whether you want to be clinical versus whether you want to be non-clinical, make that decision.

Speaker 1: 10:26

But discovering what you want to grow in and where you want to grow is important because it helps you to develop a level of self-awareness and helps you to start making decisions on what you like, what you don't like. It helps you to not waste so much of your time trying to wade the waters If you just pause and just take a moment to review your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities. What do I like at this point? What do I not like? I told you what my deciding factors were and then I had that feeling when I was walking in the door like I just don't like. This is not what I want to do anymore. Now you could have that feeling of I want to do this and more. Like, I want to practice at a more advanced, in a more advanced way, and you should dig into that. But it takes that moment of just stopping and discovering, like, what do you want to do? Like, where do you want to grow? What do you envision yourself doing in the long run, not even in the next five to 10 years? Like, what do you want your legacy to look like? You don't have to answer that question today, but sometimes you need to just kind of stop and think about it so that you're just not doing things just to be doing them, but you're purposeful in your career.

Speaker 1: 11:47

Growth Number two you should shadow people in a role you think you might like. Shadowing others gives you ideas of the possibilities for growth in your career. Ideas of the possibilities for growth in your career. So if you see someone who is working in a role you might think you might be interested in, then ask them if you could shadow them one day. Now, a lot of times when we're working night shift, we may not see these opportunities, we may not get these opportunities. And so then comes in my next point Get involved, if you're not already involved, in your clinical area, because the more you help solve problems beyond your patients, the more you grow. This provides you with more exposure to help you to understand the available options. So sometimes you don't know the options because you're not exposed to the other options that are available to you. And so getting involved not only helps you with your exposure to other opportunities and other roles so that you can shadow them, but it also helps you to grow your resume. But it also helps you to grow your resume.

Speaker 1: 13:00

Getting involved in activities, projects, whatever the case may be around your unit, helps you in developing skills and it helps you to understand what do I like and what do I not like. So you should always be thinking about every activity early that you may or may not be raising your hand for, because these are opportunities for you to be able to add skills onto your resume. So ask your manager what projects they need help with on the unit. Now, one caveat I will give to this is this is your opportunity for you to be able to say yes and say no more easily. All throughout your career, you should be able to say no, yes to an activity and no to an activity, and you can say no in different ways, without saying no, but letting people know yeah, this is not for me, but this is an opportunity for you to pick and choose. Oh, I like that project, I want to work on it. And most managers understand when you tell them I don't really want to work on that, I don't have a passion for that, because they know if you have a passion for something, that you will bring it to completion. But if you don't have a passion for it and you're just obliging, we are more than likely not going to put your full effort into it. So make sure that you are choosing projects that you actually want to grow into, that you want to help build your skill in. Or sometimes you get a project and you think that it's going to help grow your skill and you're like, yeah, I don't really like that, so I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 1: 14:44

I remember my first clinical project was restraint documentation. I was like oh yeah, I'll do that, I'll just. You know, I provide some education. This is back in the day when all you had to do was just an in-service and then you just needed to check some documentation and then go from there. And you just needed to check some documentation and then go from there. But when it was time for me to do like a clinical advancement project, I think that was like my first one and then when I wanted to do another one, I chose something totally different because I was like I'm not doing restraint documentation anymore. I don't want to do that. But I built up that skill of being able to check documentation, review, do chart audits, just those little things that you do that help to build your skill, help to build up your resume so that further down the line you can pull in these smaller skills, these smaller projects. And if you're looking at a role and you're like, yeah, I really kind of like that, then you can start to. You know, make sure you highlight that on your resume so that the recruiters are able to catch that when you are applying for those jobs. So it's just, it's very important for you to get involved, just for that exposure and it helps you to make a decision on what you do want to do and what you don't want to do as far as your next degree is concerned.

Speaker 1: 16:03

My next point is number four. Find a large conference to attend, even if your company is not paying for your lodging. Yep, I said that I am a big supporter of people going to conferences Because at this point it's not about them, it's about you and you getting what you need to grow your career. We cannot rely on our managers to help grow 70 people. You have to put in the work yourself to grow and then let them help to water the seeds that you've planted. That's easier than for you to go to them and say I want to do such and such and such. You have to lift the heavy weights, even if you need to pay for it, and invest in yourself. Now. Hopefully, by this time you're working for an organization to where they will at least pay for your registration for your conference. But if they're not doing that, there are definitely conferences who provide scholarships and then from there you find someone whom you can room with. If you're okay with that, you really need to be okay with that, because that's just a way, a good way to save some money. So find that conference. You'll learn so much about yourself and its exposure to what other hospitals are doing, what other roles you could do all of that. So how do you do that If you've not gone to a conference before?

Speaker 1: 17:43

I can't say enough great things about conferences. The very first one that I went to was the National Teaching Institute and that was with the American Association of Critical Care Nurses Phenomenal conference. If that's something that you're interested in, I'm pretty sure registration is open for next year because they usually have it in May of every year. You can start with a large conference like that. If your state nurses association has a convention or a conference, you can definitely start there. That's a good way to get exposed to a large variety of roles and just hear different education topics on areas that you may want to go into. Try those. Either start with a nursing conference within your specialty or try your state nurses association for a conference that you can go to. Don't wait on your manager to send you. Their budget might be limited and they may only be able to send one or two people. If you're not the one or two people that they send you, pick up your bags and go ahead and go. If you feel like it's beneficial for you which I'm telling you, it's beneficial for you to go Again, find someone to get a room with and just pack it up and go. There's so much gold waiting for you and your career development at a conference.

Speaker 1: 19:05

And then, lastly, my fifth point is to find a mentor. Sometimes it is very hard because you want to make sure that you find someone that you can relate to, that the relationship just clicks. You want it to be effortless to connect with your mentor. You want it to be effortless to connect with your mentor? Ok, you want it to be effortless. I didn't get a mentor. I didn't find a mentor that I really clicked with until I was probably about 12 years into nursing. I'm encouraging you to try to find someone earlier than that, because then that helps to speed up your process.

Speaker 1: 19:39

And if you're not able to find a mentor or you still feel like you need some type of coaching I talked about the five free coaching calls. I'm now down to about two free coaching calls that are available for you to sign up for, to get some mentoring and to help to kind of tease through the process of what you are looking for in your next steps in getting another degree, and so you will walk away with that having more clarity about what direction you want to go, walk through some options for schools that you should attend, based on the direction that you want to go, and then we can also dig into some funding opportunities, if time allows for that. So find a mentor, find a coach, someone who will help you in developing your opportunities or your weaknesses, because that's what they should help you to do. They should help you to develop your opportunities or your weaknesses that you have identified, in discovering what you want to do next, and then they can also help to guide you through the process of deciding which degree is best for you. Sometimes we say things that sound easy. That's not really what we want to do. It sounds easy, but we're in a hard space in our life and so we're like, yeah, I, I think I'll just do that thing, but is that really what you should do? And that's the question that the mentor will ask. That's the question the coach will ask. So if you can't find a mentor, then feel free. I am available for coaching and can help you to walk through those steps of helping you to know what your next step will be. I am here for all types of career clarity coaching. Feel free to click the link in the show notes. It will show you where the hours are available for you to book a time and we can hash it all out.

Speaker 1: 21:36

So, to recap the five things that you should do now to help you to make a decision on what your next degree should be is to one discover what you want to grow in and where you want to grow. Shadow people in a role you think you might like. Get involved if you're not already involved in your clinical area. The more you help solve problems beyond your patients is, the more you grow. Find one large conference to attend, even if your company is not paying for your lodging, and find a mentor or a coach who might be able to help you with your decision making process, your decision making process. Pull out some things that you may not necessarily see and then develop a plan and help you to develop a plan for how you're going to apply and where you're going to apply. See you next time.

Speaker 1: 22:31

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with another nurse who may be unsure of where to go next in their career or maybe need some career clarity? Also, please leave a quick review for the show on Apple Podcast. It brings me so much joy and so much encouragement to know this podcast is helping you. Now go get the career you want and not the one you settle for, and I'll meet you back here next Thursday for another episode. See you soon.