Continued from Page 1

Graduating nurses are increasingly weighing the academic culture of institutions as they look at employers and career paths, Peters said. "They're smart. They're very discerning," which is an important trait for RNs of any experience who want to get the most out of a career. "They're looking at the promotion opportunities, the growth opportunities, the tuition reimbursement. They're looking at 'What chance do I have in terms of leadership management to move up?' They should see a clear picture of upward mobility," Peters said.

"I think they should ask questions about advanced practice roles: clinical nurse specialists, nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, nurse anesthetists. You want to look at ownership of a nursing system. Are nurses accountable, responsible for practice in that setting?"

Beating burnout

When nurses turn to Field, "They want to know what they can do to make their career better and their life better," she said. "Sometimes, you're in a job and you don't really want to leave. Most people really like what they do, they just have gotten so burned out they can't see the challenge.

"You're so overworked you start to feel underpaid for what you're doing. What happens is you get all wound up in your cases and you're trying to balance that with family or with going to school again or any other number of worries or concerns and you tend not to take care of yourself. There are things you can do to make your job better. I really believe everybody working in health care, especially nurses, should practice some kind of stress management and stress reduction. "

Humor rejuvenates, Field said. "In a very fast-paced environment where there are a lot of things happening, people stop thinking about how funny things can be. The way to break a lot of stress, no matter how bad it is, is to train yourself to see the humor in every situation."

But Field's own preference is a stress-busting, no-expense "visualization vacation" that works like this: "Close your eyes and try to put yourself in the position of where you were when something made you smile. Think about that as hard as you can. All the smells and the feelings you had. If you close your eyes and think about that for a couple of minutes, you can sometimes bring yourself back to a bit of calmness."

"Remember," Field said, "You can't help others until you take care of yourself."

Taking care of business

Victoria Rayner knows as much as anyone about taking care of yourself and the importance of self-esteem in managing a career to maximum satisfaction. After a disfiguring burn in 1972, Rayner became a pioneer and specialist in the field of cosmetic medicine, merging aesthetics and dermatology. Her skin care practice serving physicians at the University of California, San Francisco led to an appointment to the dermatology faculty, numerous books and the creation of two institutes: the Center for Appearance and Esteem in San Francisco and the Rayner Institute for Career Advancement in Washington, D.C. It is through the latter that Rayner counsels clients on the intricacies of managing careers.

"What I try to tell women is our careers are our businesses," Rayner said. "Very little is available to nurses to learn how to be businesswomen. Primarily in our culture, women are told they shouldn't earn too much money or be too powerful and I think nowhere do you see that more than with the nurse." Additionally, she said, with job opportunities as never before, "I think it scares a lot of nurses."

"I've written the very first course on earning a living for people that are going to be working with physicians." Clinical aestheticians, be they RNs or cosmetologists moving into a dermatology practice through the Career Advancement Institute, study interviewing at length, Rayner said. "You can't tell me that an RN who studied for four years but does not study how to interview is trying to do something on her behalf. She's intelligent enough to know how important education is to what she does, so why in the world, if there's $20,000 to $40,000 at stake in negotiations for her salary, would she put herself in a position [of not studying]?"

Rayner said the secret to a more rewarding career, both financially and personally, is a thought process, a recognition and respect of self and skills that she doesn't see a lot of in nurses. "They don't have a sense of who they are as people or what theybringing to the job. We need to think in terms of what we're bringing to the employer--always," she said.

"Each nurse, when he or she becomes a nurse, is taking something from the profession. They need to think in terms of what they can give back and in terms of how they represent the nursing community."

Contact Phil McPeck at getpjm@aol.com