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Besides retirement, stress and burnout are the top reasons nurses cite to explain why 600,000 plan to leave the nursing profession by 2027, according to a 2023 report by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). With many nurses seeking a career change, Vivian Health looks deeper into why they’re dissatisfied with their current roles and are seeking a change of pace, practice or setting. For those mulling a nursing career change, we share our top advice, including ways to stay by the bedside, shift into a related nursing job or move outside the field.
Factors That Drive a Nursing Career Change
Nurses are often on the move from one position to the next. One 2024 study found that 17% of nurses leave their jobs at large magnet hospitals yearly. Some move on to other nursing positions, while others leave the profession entirely. What drives this turnover at nursing jobs?
Compassion fatigue and burnout remain serious problems that motivate many to change their nursing career. Vivian Health’s 2024 survey of healthcare professionals had several key findings that offer more details:
- A majority of healthcare professionals (HCPs) in our survey reported experiencing burnout from work.
- A majority of younger HCP workers, ages 18 to 42, say they’re depressed.
- Some 47% of HCPs see violence in their workplace.
- On top of their workload, half of survey respondents report having caregiver responsibilities at home, such as for a child or elderly parent.
As a result of these and other factors, 42% of our survey respondents said they were planning to leave healthcare entirely, 40% were taking more time off, 39% were moving to a less stressful specialty, and 32% were shifting to fully remote healthcare work.
7 Nursing Career Strategies to Help RNs Stay at the Bedside
Industry analysts predict an ongoing shortage of bedside nurses. According to the NCSBN report, many nurses plan to leave the bedside, following in the footsteps of the 100,000 or so who left during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the healthcare industry to thrive and survive, it must find ways to address nurses’ issues and motivate them to remain by the bedside. That would help prevent a vicious cycle in which nurses leave caregiving roles, creating more burdens on the nurses left behind, which further encourages more departures, and on and on.
Meanwhile, we consider seven key ideas for nurses themselves on how to navigate a potential career change and remain in bedside nursing.
1. Conduct a Self-Assessment First
Start by assessing how you feel in your current role and what you need to change. There are several formal approaches to assessing your career and personal values, and we offer a variety of tips on those. Part of that assessment can be connecting with a nurse mentor for advice on advocating for yourself and planning career changes.
Revisiting your initial motivations for becoming a nurse can provide valuable insight. What drew you to the profession in the first place? What aspects of nursing did you find most fulfilling? Creating a pros and cons list can be a helpful exercise to clarify whether it’s your current role or the nursing profession itself that might be causing dissatisfaction. Sometimes, it’s not the career you need to change but the environment or specific job responsibilities.
Identifying the aspects of nursing you still enjoy can also be revealing. Are there moments when you feel genuinely engaged and passionate about your work? Consider what changes could make your job more aligned with what you value most in your career.
2. Talk to Management About What Is and Isn’t Working
After conducting your self-assessment, management at your healthcare facility may be motivated to make changes to keep you in your current role. If you’re making plans to leave anyway, speak with them candidly about what does and doesn’t work for you. Would a change of pay, schedule or staff ratios keep you on board? What about systemic protocols for dealing with violence or harassment? See if your facility can provide tangible steps it will take and a timeline for implementing them that would keep you on the job.
3. Consider Flexible Jobs Like Per Diem Nursing or Travel Nursing
Consider per diem nursing as a way to control your own schedule and achieve a better work-life balance. Nurses with child or parent caregiving responsibilities often like the control of picking up shifts on an ad hoc basis. You should consider potential downsides, too. Per-diem nurses can experience more irregular income and the possibility that no shifts will be available for a period of time. However, with the overall shortage of nurses, many health systems must regularly call on per diem nurses to fill gaps in the schedule.
Another approach for those not tied to their current location is a short-term change of scenery via travel nursing. Working as a travel nurse offers a way to see how other health systems operate and what employer culture you might prefer. These typically 13-week travel contracts also allow you to sample other facilities to help guide you to a long-term position that meets your needs.
4. Shift into a Less Stressful Specialty
Consider if your nursing specialty is a source of stress and burnout. Nursing roles vary widely in terms of responsibilities and work environments. However, several nursing specialties are known for being particularly intense due to the high cognitive demands, the critical nature of the work and their emotional toll.
High-stress roles can include intensive care unit (ICU), emergency department (ED) or operating room (OR) nursing. Roles that can be emotionally taxing include psychiatric, hospice and even home health nursing.
Consider stepping into another unit or specialty that offers less stress. Changing specialties or healthcare settings—see tip 5—both offer ways to create a less stressful work environment.
5. Change Healthcare Settings
Not all healthcare settings are created equal. Working in a small health office, clinic or urgent care center, you can often keep regular business hours or deal with a more manageable daily patient load. Providing care at a school, community center or senior center can also be rewarding and lower intensity than a hospital since you usually don’t encounter the most seriously ill in such settings.
6. Move into Telehealth
Our survey found that many nurses are interested in various telehealth nursing roles. In such positions, you provide care and consultations via telecommunication technologies, often remotely. Telehealth nursing is just one of several possible work-from-home nursing jobs to consider if you want to step away from a hospital or clinical setting.
7. Level Up to Advanced Practice Registered Nurse
One way to change up your day-to-day responsibilities entirely but remain focused on patient care is to take the leap to the next level of nursing practice and become an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN). These roles require you to earn a master’s degree and pass a new licensing exam.
In many ways, working as an APRN has more in common with the roles of a doctor or physician’s assistant. In these roles, you’re typically only responsible for one patient at a time and have the option to serve the patient in an office setting. For example, as a nurse practitioner, you may spend your day more focused on diagnosis and developing a treatment plan than a patient’s activities of daily living, administering medications, or doing wound care.
Transitioning Away from Direct Patient Care
Maybe you’ve reached a point where you’re simply done with daily patient care or you feel the desire to take a break from it for a while to recharge and reorient. At the same time, you probably want to leverage your existing skills and experience in healthcare and actively maintain your licensing as a registered nurse.
If this sounds like you, there are a variety of nursing roles beyond bedside care worth considering. Some may require additional training, such as pursuing a master’s or doctorate in nursing. These roles include:
- Nurse Manager/Administrator: These roles oversee front-line nursing staff, manage budgets and ensure efficient operation of healthcare units or departments. A Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree will help you compete for such roles. Consider an RN-to-BSN bridge program to get your degree quicker. We offer some practical tips if you are considering a shift into nurse leadership.
- Nurse Educator: These roles involve teaching in nursing schools or conducting training programs for healthcare staff. Like becoming an APRN, getting a nurse educator role may require additional education to the master’s or doctorate level. We offer some practical guidance on how to pay for nursing school.
- Case Management: Nurses in these positions coordinate patient care, ensuring they receive necessary services and facilitating communication between patients and healthcare providers.
- Public Health Nursing: Such roles generally focus less on caring for individual sick patients and instead on improving the overall health of a community. Work focuses on promoting wellness, preventing illness and providing education on public health issues.
- Clinical Research Nurse: These jobs involve participating in or managing clinical trials and helping to test new treatments or medications. Some roles may require you to earn a Doctor of Nursing Science, which could require a substantial investment in time and money.
Put Your Nursing Skills to Use in a Related Field
Some nurses may be eager to leap further afield from traditional nursing roles. Consider non-nursing roles where a nursing background can help expedite your career path or demonstrate your expertise and authority. Jobs include:
- Utilization Review Nurse: Reviewing patient records to ensure that the care provided is necessary and cost-effective, often working with insurance companies.
- Nurse Writer/Content Creator: Writing articles, blogs or educational content on healthcare topics, or even working in medical journalism.
- Health Policy Analyst: Working on developing, analyzing and advocating for health policies at the local, state or federal level.
- Medical Sales/Pharmaceutical Sales Representative: Leveraging medical knowledge to sell medical devices, equipment or pharmaceuticals. These roles can be financially lucrative for those with good sales skills.
- Health Coach/Consultant: Providing guidance to individuals on health and wellness, often in private practice or corporate settings.
- Social Work: Focusing on patient mental health and navigating health and welfare systems. Though it requires additional training and new licensure, nurses can use many of their existing skills on the path to becoming licensed social workers.
If you do decide to change your nursing career, Vivian can help. Browse job listings posted on our site, which regularly include an array of roles in various nursing specialties, nurse practitioner jobs, administrative roles and social work positions.
