Have you worked in another career field and want a change for various reasons? Does "nursing shortage" make you feel like you need to be a part of "gold rush," because you have read and heard about all of wonderful sign on bonuses? Thorough research still needs to be done, before decision is made to embark upon a nursing career.

There are many resources which provide information on getting into nursing school, studying for and passing boards, getting into new graduate employment programs, summer exploratory programs, etc. But for traditional nursing work (bedside nursing) in a hospital or long term care facility (traditionally known as a nursing home), it really would do some good if you had a reality TV type experience. Reading books and articles exclusively, won't prepare you for what profession is like.

During my first nursing clinical rotation, I knew instantly that I didn't like hospital nursing. However, I loved research, collecting data, writing papers, and so forth. Since I had a science background and had worked in various laboratory settings (e.g., a dairy plant testing milk to biotechnology company testing, human sera, a county environmental health lab testing water sample on a mass spectrophotometer, a food plant testing spaghetti sauce), going into nursing research seemed like a natural progression. The rude awakening: No one ever told me about 5-6 years of med-surg hospital experience needed, before an employer would even look at me. It was not anyone else's responsibility to tell me this. Clearly, lesson is to do all of your homework.

After graduating from nursing school, I combed Internet, help wanted ads, journals, and even enlisted a network of friends to be on lookout for any nurse research employment opportunities. Positions in nursing research were scarce. My diverse science background, along with my Bachelor of Science degree from University of Rochester, weren't a powerful enough combination to hurry me into interviewing seat. Hence, I never landed an interviewing spot for any nursing research positions.

There are simple, invaluable, economically efficient ways to thoroughly research nursing as a profession. Of course, nothing can substitute for actual on job experience. But you are not there yet, and you want to investigate to see if you want to get there. Here a few suggestions to include on your career research things to do list: (1) utilize Internet to fullest, (2) use services of your ISP (Internet Service Provider) such as AOL, MSN, etc., (2) make contact with potential employers in your area, (3) try volunteering, (4) and find student mentors at your local college and university. Start with an open mind before you use any of these resources.

Many prospective students have their specialty title etched in stone. "I want to go into pediatric nursing, because I love children." "I want to work in trauma." Moreover, they don't want to discuss or research anything else. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a vision of which practice area you'd like to specialize in, but it is a good idea to keep door open for other possibilities. The turn over can be high and many nurses change specialty areas for various reasons, from burnout, boredom, needing a change of pace, advancement reasons, to unforeseen circumstances. The good thing about changing specialty areas is your skills are transferable.

Utilizing Internet yields a wealth of information. There are many contacts to be made on Internet. Let's hypothesize, for reference purposes, CRNA (Certified Nurse Anesthetist) will be used as an example specialty area, and hypothetically, you are interested in becoming a CRNA. Keep in mind you have already researched nursing schools, salary ranges, employment outlook, and in addition to becoming a registered nurse you're aware of advanced degree requirement. This part of your research has already been done.

There are many organizations where you can make email contact, or get other contact information from nurse professionals who are retired CRNAs, or those who currently work in field. Go to www.google.com to do a search. Try Google's advanced search feature and type in keywords "email" and "CRNA" without quotes, on first line.

Your first 100 search results will include some email addresses for people who are actually CRNAs. You will find some with university addresses, who may be professors or alumni, company addresses of CRNAs who are employees, and personal email addresses. Select a CRNA's email address from these four different areas: (1) university employed, (2) hospital employed, (3) military employed, (4) and other areas, such as a physician practice group. To narrow your search you may type in "email" & "CRNA" or "military" or "physician practice group" or "retired."

It’s like that cartoon of girl saying, “Oh, I knew I forgot something. My career!” Well, in this case, we become aware that someone, somewhere along line forgot to tell us how to be smart about our emotions. At least in words we could understand!

But then again are you or are you not “smart” about your emotions? You see we don’t even know how to assess how we are with our emotions. It simply hasn’t been talked about it ways that makes sense and would allow us to use information we receive.

If someone says, “You’re too reactive,” what does that mean? In relation to what or to whom? And aren’t they usually talking more about themselves? Usually they mean “You’re more reactive than I am” or “You’re more reactive than I’d like you to be.” They may be kind of person who could have a firecracker go off next to them and not “react,” but what does that mean in relation to their ability to function and relate? Not much!

And then next day you’ll have a pounding headache, or have been up all night with baby, and fail to respond immediately to a comment someone makes and they’ll say, “Why don’t you respond? You just sit there.”

One standard would certainly be how well things are going for you at work and at home, because our EQ is more important to our happiness, success and health than our IQ.

POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOP

The people I’ve worked with in Emotional Intelligence take to it immediately. There are immediate applications to their life they try, and results are positive, so there’s an excellent and immediate feedback loop that keeps you motivated and improving.

One of best things about it is that you learn tools, and then applications are all around you. No matter what situation you’re in, or what circumstance, increasing your Emotional Intelligence skills will help. You’ll become more aware of what’s going on around you – things you couldn’t quit “grasp” before. You’ll also become far more knowledgeable about what’s going on with other people, and isn’t that always most difficult thing to figure out?

COMPETENCY EXAMPLE

Here’s is an example. One of Emotional Intelligence competencies is emotional expression. It’s important to understand that 90% or more of any person’s emotional expression takes place nonverbally. That means – ta da – you need to increase your skills in being able to notice and INTERPRET nonverbal behavior. This means expression on person’s face, how they sit, how they walk, their tone of voice, their silences, and other important “cues” as to how they’re feeling.

Why is this important? They may be telling you how they think, but how they feel is what’s going to influence what action they take, whether they buy product, whether they hire you, or whether they marry you.

AT-WORK APPLICATION