She Who Runs Towards The Unconventional
If you have been following my blog, you have already learned that I am a displaced nurse in a digital marketing class at NYU. While some may call it displacement, I call it challenging and innovative. My nursing career track record is nothing but unconventional.
For those unfamiliar with an average nursing career I will enlighten you:
Overview: A Traditional Nursing Career
Year 1: Enter nursing school.
Year 4: Graduate nursing school.
Year 5: Start first nursing job in an inpatient hospital unit.
Year 5–10: Maybe look for second nursing job.
Year 10–30: Stay in this same second nursing job while working a per diem job.
Year 31: Retire.
Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with this pathway. It is stable, financially beneficial, and it guarantees you accumulate seniority over time. Many thrive in this environment. I, however, do not. I also never will.
Overview: My Nursing Career
Year 1: Enter nursing school.
Year 4: Graduate nursing school.
Year 5: First emergency room (ER) job. (I got push back from many mentors/professors discouraging me to start my career in the ER because new graduates should not start in the ER.)
Year 6: Second ER job. (Others discouraged me because I will lose seniority.)
Year 7: Pediatric out patient job. (Others discouraged me because this is considered an “older nurse” job.)
Year 8: Pre-operative/Post-anesthesia Care Unit job. (Others discouraged me because I am switching jobs too often.)
Year 9: Operating Room job. (Others discouraged me because I did not have OR experience and it is a difficult learning curve for experienced nurses.)
Currently, at Year 10, I’m still at the same operating room job but now I am also in a graduate degree program called Nursing Informatics which is one of the smallest niches within the field of advanced practice nursing. With only an estimated, 3,000 Nursing Informaticists compared to the existing 1 million nurses across the United States, many people including experienced nurses do not know what Nursing Informatics is, what they do, and how viable this field may be in the future. Many would argue that the field of Nursing Informatics is still in its infancy — only officially created in 1992.
Fascinate Advantage Report: Avant-Garde
So it was not a surprise to me when I completed the “How to Fascinate” quiz by Sally Hogshead and received Avant-Garde as my result. My primary trigger is prestige and my secondary trigger is innovation. After reading my report, I feel that this quiz captured me almost exactly!
My prestige trigger explains that I naturally seek the next level of accomplishment and I constantly envision ways to improve and upgrade. This is very apparent in my history of nursing career choices. I was always looking at what is next and how I can keep moving forward. Clearly, I hate staying in one place.
My innovation trigger describes that I embrace opportunities for change and exploration and I am driven by a sense of adventure and creativity. If you could find another nurse who has been in 5 different specialties, obtaining a graduate degree in a small niche field of only 3,000 professionals, and runs a fashion and sustainability blog on the side — I would be shocked!
“Hey Google, translate Avant-Garde”
According to Fascinate You, the world sees Avant-Garde as a forward-thinker, generates a lot of ideas, and is always looking into the future.
As I approach and develop the next stage of my career, I can use this information to my advantage. In addition to my degree and my experience as a nurse, I hope to use my knowledge from building my blog and the new knowledge I’m obtaining from this Digital Marketing course into pioneering something new for the field of nursing.
I always love starting new things and although nursing is always changing — many nurses today are stuck in a box of only seeing themselves as just a nurse. When I envision myself as a nurse, I see so much more. I’m not sure what I will be pioneering yet. But I’m sure with my strength in brainstorming new ideas and my ability to constantly look forward, I’m sure I will think of something.
If you want to find out your own archetype, you can click here.
You can also learn more about creator Sally Hogshead here and tweet her @SallyHogshead.
