By Megan Flaherty
Illustration by Hal Pham
June 7, 1999

The road to success for today’s health professional is full of twists, turns, and detours. Instead of following straight, predictable career paths, workers are responding to the changing demands of the healthcare marketplace by splitting with long-time employers, taking on different responsibilities, or entering new fields altogether.

Health professionals are prompted to make such career transitions for varying reasons—from layoffs to personal fulfillment—and each worker approaches the challenge differently. However, career experts and health professionals say some of the steps for successfully navigating career changes apply to almost everyone.

1. Prepare yourself. Because the healthcare industry is so volatile, health professionals must cultivate—and protect—their careers, experts say. "We’re in a period of permanent transition. Whether you’re planning a career change or not, you should always have a résumé ready," said Annette Vallano, MS, NP, RN, a career coach and author of Careers in Nursing: Manage Your Future in the Changing World of Health Care. Nurses and allied health professionals should be aware of emerging opportunities both inside and outside their workplaces and keep a running inventory of their transferable skills, she said.

2. Set goals. Because registered dietitian Karen Calabro, MS, MPH, kept abreast of marketplace changes, she recognized health promotion as an emerging career opportunity that appealed to her. During the eight years Calabro worked as a dietitian, she was dissatisfied with the lack of career mobility and frustrated with the narrow scope of the profession. "I was tired of just seeing everything from the nutrition standpoint. I wanted to look at the whole person," she said. Calabro thought health promotion could be a perfect way to expand professionally and researched what it would take to become qualified for the field.

After investigating the content and costs of different MPH programs and visiting professors to determine the demand for health promotion services, she decided to hit the books again. "It took me two and a half years of school work and a year of thesis research. I made sacrifices during that time—no new furniture, new cars, or vacations. But it was worth it," said Calabro, who is now the coordinator of health promotion and health education for the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center.

3. Turn setbacks around. It may be a challenge, but health professionals who are laid off are able to bounce back and regain fulfilling careers, too. In fact, a layoff may prompt workers to re-examine their career goals for the first time in years, experts say. A reorganization left Ellen Blackstock, RN, out of a job in March. Blackstock had worked for a hospital in Arcadia, Calif., for 23 years before her position as director of admissions—which she’d held for seven years—was eliminated. An outplacement firm is now helping Blackstock get her résumé in order and providing her with interviewing tips while she decides what to do next.

The time she’s spent reflecting has been valuable, she says. Blackstock has discovered the huge range of options available for RNs and has realized she wants to return to a job where she’s more directly involved with patients. "I’m looking at this as an opportunity," Blackstock said. She advises other health professionals who have been laid off to keep a positive attitude. "You can’t take it personally. Health care is a changing industry. It’s a business decision."

4. Look at the big picture. Health professionals should consider how their work connects with other parts of their lives—like family commitments—before making career decisions, experts say. Nurses tend to plan their lives around their jobs when they should be doing just the opposite, said Susan Odegaard Turner, PhD, MN, RN, president and CEO of Turner Healthcare Associates Inc. in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and author of The Nurse’s Guide to Managed Care.

A career transition should be an ongoing process rather than just a stage, Turner said. The process should include an objective look at what you like and dislike about your current job, your strengths and weaknesses, and an analysis of how your job fits into your life, she said. If health professionals don’t conduct this type of thorough self-examination, they run the risk of making bad career decisions. "They may get back into the exact type of job they had before, but they’ll be miserable. The reality is it may be a bad fit and the wrong environment for them," Turner said.

5. Test the waters. If you think you’re interested in a specific field, you may want to dip your toe in the water before diving in. Raynette Slater, RN, director of Zale Lipshy Home Health in Dallas, worked as an oncology nurse and a labor and delivery nurse before she made the transition to home care seven years ago. Two of her friends who had already switched to home care kept telling her how wonderful it was to have more one-on-one contact with patients and families. Slater was interested and thought she’d give it a try. She started on a part-time basis to see how she’d like it before quitting her other job and discovered it was perfect for her. "I went to home health full time, and I’ve been there ever since," she said. "Nurses really need to feel comfortable on their own to succeed in home health. I’d suggest to any nurse that wants to get involved to try it on a part-time basis at first."

6. Network, network, network! Networking is the 11th commandment to workplace experts and successful career navigators. "Every connection you make in nursing is important. You bump into people you know everywhere," said Kathleen Gentile, RN, a case manager for VertiHealth in Chatsworth, Calif. Gentile had worked at the same hospital for 22 years—the last 15 years in PACU—before she decided she wanted a new challenge. She took case management classes and last fall applied for a job managing Medicaid contracts for an individual practice association. It turned out the woman who interviewed her had been a co-worker 23 years before. "It was a good fit," said Gentile, who got the job.

Odette Gonzalez, MS, CCC-SLP, has placed more emphasis on networking since she and 13 co-workers were laid off from a rehab hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, recently. Because of sweeping Medicare cuts, many speech pathologists are going through similar ordeals, and it’s essential they stay in touch, said Gonzalez, vice president of educational and scientific affairs for the Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association. "We all need to get together to brainstorm and talk about what’s happening," Gonzalez said. "We need to be proactive and look at our options"

7. Keep your options open. Health professionals should have a career plan but remain flexible when unexpected opportunities arise, experts stress. "I think I’ve always said ‘yes’ to opportunities even if they are in an area I’ve never worked in before," said Barbara Duffy, MSN, RN, a legal nurse consultant for Catholic Healthcare West’s corporate risk services department in Lynwood, Calif. "It opens doors if you say, ‘I’ve never done that before, but I’m willing to try," said Duffy, who worked as a trauma program coordinator before she took the leap to legal nurse consulting. "My philosophy is to be always growing and stretching. If I’m not enjoying my job, it’s my responsibility to do something about it."

Health professionals should look at their careers as a tree rather than a ladder, Turner said. For example, nurses have traditionally considered the progression from staff nurse to charge nurse to head nurse to director of nursing as the only career path, she said. With so many settings and job descriptions from which to choose, that paradigm doesn’t apply anymore. "You can go to a different branch for more experience," Turner said.

8. Recognize your value. The last step in a successful career transition is to take care of yourself emotionally, experts say. Health professionals’ sense of self-worth is often wrapped up in their jobs, a perception that can be damaging during stressful periods of career upheaval. "It’s really important to know that whether you have a job or not has nothing to do with your value as a person," said Deborah A. Yancer, MS, RN, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Saint Thomas Hospital and Health Services in Nashville, Tenn., and co-editor of Navigate Your Career Transitions: Strategies for Nurse Leaders. "Sometimes people don’t learn that until they’ve lost their job," Yancer said.