Can you believe I was in the middle of my spring break Carnival Cruise, in the burger line, swimsuit cover-up on, standing with my niece, when I got the call. Actually, the text. “Can you call me? I want to talk to you about the job.”
I snuck onto the staircase, kids running up and down around me, connection horrible, and found out that I was being offered a job! I have a new job!
So welcome back if you haven’t seen me for a while. If you’ve been following me, or if this is your first time here, I’ve been on a three-month hiatus because I just didn’t have the time.
Headline: I got a new job, and it’s been exciting.
I am working in the health IT world now, as an informaticist, which is very different from a lot of the work I’ve been doing. But somehow it all makes perfect sense in my life story. So let me back up and tell you how I got here, and the pieces that came together.
“What is for you, is for you.”
One of the things I always come back to when I’m approaching something new is this mindset. Closed doors happen for a reason. I know it’s cliché, people love to post about it, but I really do believe it.
I have to remind myself of this sometimes. When I am striving for something and my patience is running low, I remind myself it’s going to happen. But the right thing will happen, not just whatever I want to happen right now.
If you’ve been following my journey, or you’re new here, The Nurse Sabbatical is really about this idea of how do we create the lives we want through lifestyle design, work, and rest.
Especially in the nursing field, where sometimes it feels like our entire life revolves around when we work and how we work, which can lead to burnout. That’s one of the main reasons I started this channel in the first place.
Taking a step back: how I got here
So here’s my path. I have been a nurse doing critical care. I got my NP almost 20 years ago, started in outpatient GI, then went to the ED, then went into leadership. I did a lot of amazing work.
And then I suffered from burnout and took a sabbatical for almost nine months. Within that time, I really wanted to find out what Amy wanted to do next, which has honestly been an ongoing journey even in the last five years.
I dabbled in the tech world as a founder of an app. I did consulting for well-being, because I was really passionate about the idea of how do we make sure our clinicians are okay with their well-being, and support them so they can do great work.
Within that phase, trying to launch an app and doing consulting, I had to go back to clinical work, because bills had to get paid and I needed more income. And even though I was working part-time in the ER, it was really hard. I became very despondent, because I knew I wanted to do this big thing.
I wanted to make an impact larger than I could currently see. And yet here I was, back in the space of seeing patients.
Let me take a step back and say this: I love seeing pediatric patients. I truly enjoy some aspects of clinical work.
But the harder parts for me are things like: I don’t want to do 12-hour shifts. I don’t want to do 10-hour shifts. I want to do 8-hour shifts, come in, see some kids, and go home. And the space I was in, and honestly, in many spaces, that’s just not possible.
Figuring out what I was actually looking for
So I sat through months of trying to figure out: what’s the next step?
If you’re thinking, “Well Amy, you quit your first job as a nurse leader, why don’t you just quit?” No, that wasn’t an option this time, as I needed to create more financial stability.
But what was I really looking for? It came down to a few things:
- Lifestyle design: What do I want my day-to-day to look like? I don’t want to work 12 hours, I don’t want to work 10 hours. I want a 9-to-5. I want my evenings off, my weekends off, my holidays off. That’s what I want.
- Healthcare, but not a hospital system: I wouldn’t say I’m jaded, but I understand how hospital systems work. The type of work I want to do and the impact I want to have doesn’t feel possible in a hospital setting right now.
- Impact on the systems level: I want to make an impact on the systems that clinicians use in a meaningful way, without just talking about wellness, yoga, and mental health.
- Something with AI and technology: With this whole AI revolution happening right now, I found myself in the middle of it since last year, discovering new ways to use it and become more efficient. I kept thinking, if we bring this into healthcare, what impact could we make?
- Remote or hybrid: No explanation needed!
Those were my criteria. So last summer, literally a year ago in August, I decided. I wasn’t forgetting all this entrepreneurship stuff, but I was going to keep showing up for The Nurse Sabbatical, and I was going to look for a job.
And that’s how it began. Understanding I wanted something different. Naming exactly what it was.
So, what’s on your list? If you sat down and named what you actually need, not what looks good on paper, but what your day-to-day has to feel like, what would be on it? Drop it in the comments. In the next post, I’m walking through what happened once I knew what I wanted: 20+ applications, 18 rejections, and what actually changed things.