I Am No Longer An RN

I am no longer an RN. I feel a lot of feelings about it.

I earned my RN in 2019 — and as of the start of this month, this is no longer the case (sort of).

The backstory

Some context for my family members who are reading this and panicking:

I still have earned my RN, I have just transitioned out of having an active practice license. If I change my mind, I can pay the money and get it reinstated at any time.

(But I am not going to change my mind)

I am full of conflicting emotions

Earning my RN was a very proud moment for me.

After six years of university (two of which were spent drifting aimlessly through a Bio Sci degree), finishing my BScN and passing my NCLEX the following month to become an RN was a big, big deal for me.

But, as exciting as it was to have earned that title,

The draining, competitive, unsupportive, and borderline toxic work environment I was quickly thrown into was not something I could have prepared for.

Nursing is such an essential, important career path.

And yet, society as a whole (and, unfortunately, those within healthcare too) treat nurses so, so poorly.

So, it is not a surprise that so many young, bright-eyed and eager new nurses start to look for ways out as soon as they start.

I am in the group of new nurses who chose to leave.

And honestly, this fact brings me a lot of pride and grief at the same time.

When I talk to my friends who still work in clinical care, the first thing they say to me as soon as I mention that I now write full-time is:

“Wow, good for you. You got out!”

You. Got. Out.

It’s an alarming realization to hear so many educated young people (who are the future of our healthcare system) already dread the work.

We need to do better to support them. Otherwise, the healthcare system will continue to lose amazing, compassionate, and empathetic people to other opportunities.

Now I continue down my own, different path

As for me, I knew the day that I was no longer going to be an RN was coming.

I don’t have the clinical care hours to correctly file for the license since I became a medical writer full-time.

And yet, despite literally knowing it was coming, the actuality of losing my license has hit me harder than I anticipated.

A loss is a loss, even if you plan for it — and I am still working through the feelings of this change as the dust starts to settle.

So, yes — as of October 1st, 2023, I no longer am a registered nurse. But that doesn’t mean I was never a caring, hardworking, nurse.

It just means that I chose to go in a different direction.

(I recently had a really supportive talk with Alex Howson about this exact topic, and she kindly reminded me that even if you take away the title, you can never truly take the nurse out of the girl, and that really resonated with me).

So while my website and LinkedIn accounts no longer say RN,

I still hold that education and experience so close to my beating heart that I truly believe that it is impossible to truly separate myself from it.

And, for now, that is enough for me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Thanks for listening to my rant, and thank you for supporting my writing and making my dream of using my medical writing to create my own business a reality.

I appreciate each and every one of you so much.

Back to the regularly scheduled content next week!