There’s huge national demand for nurses of all stripes to work in hospitals. But nurses say there’s one big thing that holds them back: burn-out. Spending 8 to 12 hours handling one life-or-death situation after the next is stressful and exhausting. Burned-out nurses often seek less stressful jobs.
But given the time, education and training that goes into becoming a nurse, it makes sense to limit your search to jobs that pay well for your expertise. These six side gigs fit the bill. And while some are decidedly part-time, others can become full-time careers.
Low-stress side-gigs for nurses
When nurses advise each other about finding less stressful work, one of the first questions they’re likely to ask is the type of stress is the job seeker attempting to avoid? In some cases, nurses are fleeing 12 hour days where they’re constantly on their feet. In others, it is toxic managers and paperwork demands that push them into the red zone. Others complain about patient counts that jeopardize the quality of care. And still others complain that the physical and emotional demands can be overwhelming, from lifting disabled patients to spending long days constantly on the move.
No matter which of these stresses affect you, one of these jobs is sure to help.
Travel nursing
If your stress is more about a toxic workplace than the job itself, consider travel nursing. Travel nurses swoop in to fill open rolls at hospitals around the country. And while you are still a nurse, you typically move from one facility to the next within a few months. Better yet, pay is generous and much of it comes in the form of “per diem” payments that are non-taxable.
You can find travel nursing gigs through Nursa, ConnectRN and TrustedHealth.
School nurse
Being a school nurse is not easy, but it’s vastly different from working in a hospital or clinic. Indeed, while hospital nurses are dealing with life and death decisions daily, a good portion of school nursing is administrative.
For instance, you’ve got to make sure that all enrolled students have had their mandatory vaccinations, emergency contact information on file, and that anyone with a chronic illness has doctor’s instructions and medications ready for an emergency. Though most of your “clients” are healthy young adults, you are alone in deciding the best medical course of action. That, too, is stressful, but not an everyday occurrence in this setting.
Where can you find school nursing positions? HigherEdJobs, Indeed and Glassdoor.
Tele-health
An increasing number of medical plans hire nurses to fill tele-health rolls, evaluating patient wellbeing, fitness and helping triage medical needs. Telehealth appointments are typically conducted via phone or video call.
Teledoc enlists experienced nurses to work from home providing these online medical services. Pay is so-so — not bad but nothing to write home about. But you work from home. And aside from sometimes heavy workloads, medical professionals are enthusiastic about the work-life balance and the company’s management.
Doula
You don’t have to be a nurse to become a doula, but it helps. Doulas assist new parents with things like lactation, understanding normal behaviors and ailments, as well as problematic ones. They can assist parents before or after birth and provide services ranging from babysitting to practical medical advice.
Death doulas do much the same for people nearing the end of their lives. They help patients and their families understand the stages of dying, the steps they can take to make the dying individual’s final weeks more comfortable and the practical steps families can take to emotionally and financially prepare for the death of a loved one.
While doulas generally set their own pay, they typically charge between $30 and $100 an hour, depending on experience and the service they’re asked to provide. A site called DoulaMatch can help you find clients.
Expert Witness
Doctors and nurses also are among the most sought-after experts by lawyers looking for expert witnesses in court trials involving wrongful death, negligence and unnecessary medical harm.
Expert witnesses are typically enlisted to review medical files to determine whether medical personnel involved in the case acted appropriately. Those reviews are typically done remotely. Depending on your findings, the attorneys may also want you to testify at trial. If so, they’ll cover your transportation and pay a generous hourly rate.
How much do these gigs pay? Technically, you’re able to set your own rates, but there are some guidelines. Typically, a Registered Nurse would command $200 an hour to review files and more than $400 an hour to appear in court.
You can find expert witness gigs through Expert Institute, Round Table Group and GLG.
Medical Writing
If you have a way with words and are able to read and understand medical research, you could make good money helping health care concerns communicate with patients, shareholders and the general public. Medical writing jobs posted on LinkedIn show salary ranges from $30 to more than $110 per hour.
You can work as a freelance medical writer by finding gigs on LinkedIn, Indeed, Contently, Skyword or Service Scape. But many of the jobs are full-time. If you’re interested in full-time medical writing, it’s smart to join the American Medical Writers Association, a trade group that also sponsors certificate programs.
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