Career paths beyond nursing and the contribution of nursing experience and skills in attaining these positions

This paper reports on an exploratory study undertaken in New South Wales, Australia which sought to identify the positions nurses go on to when they leave nursing and the skills and experience they gained from nursing which they believe enabled them to obtain employment outside the profession. In addition, the reasons why they left nursing were also ascertained. A network sampling technique was used to recruit 17 participants. A tape-recorded semi-structured interview of approximately 1h was conducted with each participant. Interviews were conducted until no new information emerged (14) and the remaining three interviews were used for validation. While many participants were employed in health-related fields, others were in diverse areas such as business, landscape coordination and market research, to name a few. All participants reported positively on the range of skills they had acquired as a nurse. Reasons provided for leaving the nursing workforce included reaching a ceiling in nursing or wishing to develop themselves in another direction. Respondents had also undertaken a wide range of additional qualifications.