The nursing field is truly remarkable, encompassing a wide range of opportunities that allow passionate nurses to provide curated support for all types of patients. It is this versatility that makes nursing so desirable to so many aspiring healthcare professionals.
Registered nursing, in particular, is a far broader field than most people realize, including not only well-known specialties such as pediatric nursing and ICU nursing but also many lesser-known options that allow nurses to work in every setting imaginable. Many aspiring nurses have no idea that these powerful, unique opportunities in nursing are available and, as a result, may struggle to find career pathways they find truly compelling.
If you desire a unique nursing career path that ignites your passion and ensures you feel excited for each and every day on the job, you are in luck. We have identified several non-traditional nursing career paths that allow you to build on your natural interests and serve patients in new and deeply impactful ways.
Popular Non-Traditional and Unique Nursing Careers
Before we take a deep dive into non-traditional nursing, it is important to understand what, exactly, qualifies as traditional. This could be complicated, because ‘conventional’ nursing is surprisingly diverse. Generally, traditional nursing is viewed as primarily clinical, with ‘typical’ nurses caring for a wide range of patients, often based in healthcare settings such as physician offices, specialty clinics, or hospitals.
Some may focus on targeted patient populations such as pediatrics or gerontology, but typically under the supervision of physicians or nurse practitioners. As they begin to specialize, seek new credentials, and gain more autonomy, they may move into niche roles that go beyond typical clinical environments. Below, we have highlighted several unique nursing jobs that convey just how broad this remarkable field has become:
Explore Unique Nursing Opportunities to Forge Your Path
As you begin to examine unique nursing jobs and career paths, be mindful of what exactly these positions involve and what sets them apart from conventional nursing. Sometimes, these distinctions will make certain specialties more appealing, but in other cases, they could be cause for concern. This is particularly evident if you are committed to a certain vision of nursing, or if you want to maintain a strong work-life balance.
It is important to determine your why for nursing and to examine how this aligns with your potential career trajectory. Equipped with an in-depth understanding of your professional skills and interests, you could rely on a blend of research and intuition to let you know which unique nursing career path will provide the best fit.
Legal Nurse Consultant: Bridging Healthcare and Law
Legal nurse consultants bring clinical expertise to complex civil and criminal cases, often acting as expert witnesses during medical malpractice trials or in other situations that call for targeted insights. Many find work with law firms or insurance companies. In these environments, consultants may review medical documentation to reveal deviations from the field’s scope and standards of practice.
Extensive medical research may be required, especially as consultants seek evidence to support complex case arguments. Typically, this role strives to bridge the gap between law and healthcare while helping to inform attorneys, paralegals, and other legal professionals on relevant healthcare concepts and concerns. It is a top option for nurses ready to move beyond clinical environments while still relying on clinical expertise.
Nurse Health Coach: Empowering Patients Toward Wellness
Many nurses love educating their patients and wish they could spend more time working in a one-on-one capacity to help these individuals meet ambitious health and wellness goals. Unfortunately, the constraints of conventional healthcare appointments and services could make this difficult to achieve.
One possible solution? Working as a nurse health coach to apply the core tenets of nursing practice but in a coaching context. This represents a goal-oriented approach, in which nurses and clients work together to set reasonable objectives that reflect their current health status and their vision of the future.
Nurse health coaches may help clients develop plans and learn strategies so they can make swift progress toward achieving their targeted wellness goals. This often encompasses a holistic approach, with nurses providing support and encouragement to help their patients feel empowered. Some health coaches work for wellness centers or corporate programs, while others may run their own coaching businesses.
Forensic Nurse: At the Intersection of Nursing and Criminal Justice
Many patients, unfortunately, require healthcare services because they have been abused or assaulted. In these situations, there is a strong need to treat patients for symptoms related to that abuse and deliver sensitive care while also helping bring perpetrators to justice. This calls for in-depth training in evidence collection, with forensic nurses helping obtain DNA and even providing detailed photographic documentation of victims’ injuries.
Crisis interventions are often required, so nurses must be prepared to deal with emotionally wrenching, high-stakes situations. Their work could make a world of difference for struggling patients. By providing trauma-informed care, these important nurses could help patients take the first step on the path to long-term healing.
Travel Nurse: Embrace Adventure While Providing Care
Travel nursing provides exciting and unique nursing opportunities to witness nursing and the healthcare field from a variety of perspectives. This role is increasingly valued for bridging the gap when facilities and providers face significant staffing problems. There has been a rapid rise in travel nursing in response to the pandemic, but a complex labor market could allow this trend to continue for years to come.
Often specializing in high-demand areas such as intensive care or surgical nursing, adaptable travel nurses accept temporary assignments typically lasting between one and four months. This could grant nurses exposure to many types of settings and environments.
Travel nursing is also compelling from a financial perspective. Due to the strong demand for short-term assistance, these nurses could often command impressive wages. Some continue accepting travel assignments for years, while others eventually transition into other areas of nursing.
Public Health Nurse: Making an Impact on Community Health
While many nurses make their mark by working closely with individual patients, some desire to expand their reach to shape healthcare practices across entire communities. This is where public health nursing may prove valuable. Public health nurses oversee or contribute to widescale assessments of community health, drawing on extensive data to reveal ongoing disparities and to gain real-time insight into outbreaks. They also implement programs to educate and empower entire communities.
Advocacy is often a central component of this specialization, as public health nurses understand the importance of policy development for driving better health outcomes. They collaborate closely with many stakeholders, including experts in public administration and social work. This is one of the best unique nursing opportunities for nurses who want to drive impressive health outcomes without working in a strictly clinical capacity.
Nurse Informaticist: Revolutionizing Healthcare Through Technology
Revealing the powerful potential of data-driven solutions, nurse informaticists leverage their clinical and technological expertise while helping to select, develop, and implement EHR (electronic health record) systems and other high-tech solutions. These nurses have a nuanced understanding of which technological practices are realistic in various healthcare systems and settings. Their guidance makes it possible to overcome the practical obstacles of implementation.
Often involved in quality improvement initiatives, nurse informaticists believe that data-driven strategies could boost patient care while also making healthcare facilities and nursing professionals more efficient. They may strive for improved interoperability, with the intention of boosting coordination of care within and across healthcare organizations.
Occupational Health Nurse: Ensuring Workplace Well-Being
Some of today’s most alarming injuries and conditions arise on the job, where employees may face physical strain or could even be exposed to dangerous environments or substances. Organizations show an increasing determination to address these concerns both from a desire to keep employees safe and because workplace health issues could be costly from a compliance and retention perspective.
This is where occupational health nurses come into play. These nurses could fulfill many objectives in workplace settings but are often tasked with developing programs that strive to boost employee health and well-being. These are closely aligned to the chief health issues and obstacles found within specific industries. Furthermore, occupational health nurses could drive strong emergency preparedness while helping organizations remain compliant with strict health and safety regulations.
Holistic Nurse: Integrating Alternative Medicine in Patient Care
Focused on treating the whole person instead of focusing exclusively on individual symptoms or conditions, holistic nursing represents an increasingly prominent paradigm that integrates physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual care. When conducting comprehensive assessments, holistic health nurses consider a range of factors beyond patients’ health histories, also touching on lifestyle concerns and sources of social support (or lack thereof).
Many holistic nurses utilize or advocate for evidence-backed complementary and alternative therapies (CATs), such as massage therapy and mindfulness. Their goal is to relieve immediate symptoms while also promoting long-term wellness improvements. These nurses are also determined to show respect and appreciation for their patients’ varying cultural backgrounds and practices.
Flight Nurse: Delivering Critical Care at High Altitudes
Urgent medical situations may call for aeromedical transport, especially if ground transport is expected to prompt potentially deadly delays. As they are moved via medical evacuation aircraft, patients still require targeted, high-level care. With an emphasis on rapid assessment and stabilization, the role of flight nursing calls for a calm head during emergency situations.
Further niches exist within this already targeted specialty. For example, military flight nurses may work overseas while caring for those who have been injured in battle. Meanwhile, civilian flight nurses primarily work for hospitals and trauma centers. Either way, this unique nursing career calls for strong intensive care skills, along with competency in providing hemodynamic support, often in response to septic or cardiogenic shock. Furthermore, flight nurses may act as liaisons between various medical teams.
Nurse Midwife: Supporting Women Through Childbirth
Offering a blend of services ranging from family planning and prenatal care to support during labor and postnatal assistance, nurse midwives provide valuable support to women throughout their reproductive years, but often with a focus on pregnancy and childbirth. This role primarily involves advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs), who receive targeted training and must secure graduate-level degrees before they can move into this high-level specialty.
Nurse midwives often work at birth centers but can also be found in hospitals and private practices. Those not yet APRNs may seek labor and delivery RN roles, which may involve monitoring contractions, administering medications, and providing emotional support, typically under the supervision of obstetricians (OB/GYN). These are ideal roles for nurses passionate about promoting women’s health while providing compassionate, patient-centered care.
Psychiatric Nurse: Addressing Mental Health Needs
Psychiatric nurses provide empathetic care for patients dealing with a wide range of mental health symptoms and conditions. They perform assessments to determine the mental health status of their patients and may also administer medications or assist with therapeutic interventions. There is often a strong element of education involved in this role, with psychiatric nurses providing in-depth information not only for their patients but also for loved ones and caregivers.
As a highly collaborative specialization, psychiatric nursing may call for coordination with social workers, case managers, psychologists, and several other healthcare or mental health professionals. These passionate nurses are also frequently involved in advocacy, as they are determined to stand for their patient’s dignity and autonomy while expanding access to care and fighting for greater equity and inclusion.
Wound Care Nurse: Specializing in Healing
Wound care could present specific complications that not all RNs are equipped to handle. As such, some nursing roles focus exclusively on caring for patients with complex wounds. These nurses examine patients carefully to determine wound size and depth while also watching for the early signs of infection. They are adept at dressing severe wounds and at changing dressings when required.
Beyond basic dressings, wound care may encompass advanced techniques such as negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) or vacuum-assisted closure (VAC), in which specialized vacuum devices and sealed dressings are used to produce a highly controlled environment conducive to healing. Many wound care positions are available to RNs, although advanced therapies may call for oversight from wound care APRNS or NPs.
Diabetes Nurse Educator: Guiding Patients in Managing Diabetes
Research suggests that an alarming 11.6 percent of the U.S. population — and nearly one-third of the senior population — has diabetes. As this condition continues to become more common, there will be an increased need for targeted care, including in-depth education so that patients understand how to manage their conditions.
Nurses who specialize in diabetes education work closely with patients and their families or caregivers to develop treatment plans that encompass blood glucose monitoring, medications, and nutrition planning. These nurses could also connect patients with valuable support services.
Infection Control Nurse: Preventing Disease Spread in Healthcare Settings
Healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs) are unfortunately common in every corner of the healthcare industry, with concerning data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) indicating that 1 in 31 patients could be expected to have hospital-related infections at any given time. Stronger preventative measures are needed to limit the spread.
Infection control nurses are on the front lines of this widespread effort. These hardworking nurses protect patients and fellow healthcare workers by performing ongoing surveillance and revealing emerging trends in infectious diseases. They bring a data-driven approach to infection control, drawing on a wealth of information to reveal which threats are most dangerous and how these might be addressed.
In the event of an outbreak, these nurses help to determine the source and the cause before implementing targeted measures to limit the further spread of inspection. This unique nursing job also encompasses extensive education and training, with infection control nurses determined to promote hand hygiene and the proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE).
Prepare for Unique Nursing Careers With Post University
Do you want to learn more about nursing and nursing programs? The right degree can help you broaden your expertise and enhance your skill set. At Post University, our nursing programs offer comprehensive training with a strong emphasis on evidence-based practice. We provide various pathways for ambitious nurses, such as RN to BSN and RN to MSN programs. As you continue to advance in your career, you may be drawn to our Master of Science in Nursing or our Doctor of Nursing Practice. Reach out today to learn more.
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Please note jobs and/or career outcomes highlighted in this blog do not reflect jobs or career outcomes expected from any Post program. To learn more about Post’s programs and their outcomes, please fill out a form to speak with an admissions advisor.