Nurses branching out beyond clinical settings

The study "Nurses Working Outside of Nursing: Societal Trend or Workplace Crisis?" undertaken after a survey of registered nurses published in 2009 said more than 4 percent of 35,635 RNs from all 50 states and the District of Columbia did not work in the profession and more than 12 percent did not work at all. Nearly 45 percent of nurses who did not work were retired and more than 38 percent did not work because they had family obligations. More than 120,000 nurses now work outside the profession. They have become product developers, consultants, auditors, trainers, teachers, risk managers, authors, forensics specialists, publishers and a host of other things. Now nurses are entrepreneurs as well as healthcare professionals.