Balancing a nursing career with a side hustle for nurses can be challenging, but with the right opportunity, it’s not only possible, it’s lucrative. This article delivers solid, nurse-friendly side hustles that work around your shifts, utilize your medical knowledge, and put extra cash in your pocket. Expect to delve into real-world side jobs – from telehealth to medical writing – that align with nursing schedules and capitalize on your valuable skills.
Key Takeaways
- Nurses have a plethora of side hustle opportunities that leverage their skills and offer significant financial and personal rewards, including telehealth, education, and health coaching.
- Telehealth nursing is a rapidly growing industry that offers nurses the chance to provide remote patient care with flexibility and competitive income, and it requires knowledge of digital healthcare technologies.
- Freelance writing and blogging represent opportunities for nurses to share their medical expertise while flexibility setting their own schedule and rates, fostering both patient education and income diversification.
Exploring Side Hustles for Nurses: A World of Opportunities
Are you a registered nurse seeking to diversify your income stream? Side hustles for nurses offer a world of opportunities that can be remarkably beneficial. With the right alignment of available time and personal capacity, exploring side hustles can significantly improve your financial wellness and give you a sense of fulfillment.
Imagine earning an extra $50 to $100 per hour from a side hustle that leverages your nursing skills. From medical surveys to telehealth nursing and freelance nurse consulting, the options are diverse and flexible. Your nursing background, combined with your interpersonal communication abilities and certifications, are valuable assets that can be harnessed in a wide array of side hustles.
As a nurse, your potential to impact lives extends beyond the walls of the hospital. You have the opportunity to share your expertise, enriching the lives of others while enriching your own. This could be the beginning of a rewarding journey that elevates your nursing career to new heights.
Leveraging Nursing Skills Beyond the Hospital
You may ask, as a nurse, what roles can I take on outside the hospital? The answer lies in your unique set of nursing skills. From serving as a childcare provider to becoming a camp nurse or joining the team of immunization nurses, your skills are highly transferrable and in demand.
You can bring your valuable clinical skills into the homes of patients as a home health nurse, or even support expectant parents through the childbirth process as a birth doula. For those with a passion for research, clinical research nursing is an excellent avenue to explore.
The Flexibility Factor: Finding the Right Fit
Given the demanding nature of nursing, finding a side hustle complementing your schedule and interests is important. Here are some options to consider:
- Per diem nursing: work temporarily, choosing shifts based on location or hours
- Paid medical survey panelist: align surveys with your availability
- Tutoring: create flexible schedules and set your own working hours
- Health coaching: create flexible schedules and set your own working hours
These options allow you to have a side hustle while still maintaining your nursing career.
Ultimately, the flexibility of your side hustle is key to maintaining a healthy balance between your primary job and your additional income source.
From Patient Care to Education
If you’re passionate about teaching, you might consider exploring educational roles like adjunct nursing instructors or CPR instructors, as they present another viable income source for nurses. You can even develop and sell online courses to share your medical knowledge, catering to different learning preferences by offering live online sessions or pre-recorded content.
The transition from patient care to education not only diversifies your income but also enriches the learning experiences of future nurses.
Telehealth Nursing: Remote Care, Real Impact
In the digital age, telehealth nursing emerges as an attractive side hustle for nurses. Remote nursing services are provided through phone or video calls, allowing patients to receive care from a distance. As a telehealth nurse, you can conduct health assessments, communicate with patients, and provide care recommendations, all from the comfort of your own home.
Since 2017, the telehealth nursing industry has grown by an impressive 53%, offering employment opportunities across insurance, home healthcare, and telehealth firms. With an average salary of $83,000 per year as of February 2024, telehealth nursing offers a competitive income stream. Whether you’re seeking a full-time career or a flexible side hustle, telehealth nursing offers a rewarding and flexible opportunity to expand your nursing career.
Starting your journey in telehealth nursing requires a computer, reliable internet, and medical software. Adapting to the fast-paced changes in the digital healthcare landscape is equally significant. But don’t let the technical requirements deter you. Telehealth nursing not only allows you to make a real impact on patient care but also presents an exciting opportunity to ride the wave of digital healthcare transformation.
Requirements and Rewards
Becoming a telehealth nurse necessitates earning a degree from an accredited program, passing the NCLEX-RN exam, and acquiring bedside experience as a registered nurse. Although not mandatory, pursuing the Ambulatory Care Nurse (AMB-BC) certification is advisable. This certification requires two years of work experience, 2,000 clinical practice hours in ambulatory care, and 30 hours of continuing education.
The rewards are substantial, offering the flexibility to work from home and the opportunity to impact patient care through innovative remote care technologies.
Navigating the Digital Healthcare Landscape
The world of telehealth is rapidly expanding, with a projected global market value of $175.5 billion by 2026. Changes in healthcare regulations and improved patient receptivity have facilitated this growth, making telehealth integral to modern healthcare delivery. As a nurse, your roles in telehealth services could range from telemedicine consultations to remote patient monitoring.
The seamless integration of nursing skills such as patient education, triage, and care coordination into telehealth roles reflects the natural transition into this digital landscape. With ongoing digital transformation, there is a high demand for nurses skilled in telehealth, providing numerous opportunities for career advancement and side hustles.
Writing and Blogging: Sharing Your Expertise
Another avenue for nurses to share their clinical insights is through freelance writing or starting a nursing blog. This not only allows you to share your expertise but also provides the following benefits:
- Flexibility to set your own hours
- Ability to choose your pay rates
- Opportunity to select your clients
- Ability to work from anywhere
Your nursing education equips you with valuable health insights. By generating content ranging from day-in-the-life videos to educational posts about health conditions, you can educate others through freelance writing. The only resources you need are a camera or smartphone, a computer, and an internet connection. With potential earnings from $100 to $800+ per month, freelance writing can be a profitable side hustle.
To find freelance writing work, you can look to websites, news outlets, and magazines. The opportunities are vast, and with your unique nursing background, you are well-equipped to provide valuable health content that caters to a wide audience.
Crafting Health Content
As a freelance nurse writer, you can create content for websites, news outlets, and magazines. Your clinical expertise allows you to cover a wide range of topics from patient education materials to specific medical conditions. Maintaining clarity and inclusivity in your health content is paramount.
To ensure the trustworthiness of your health content, it should be based on high-quality clinical evidence and reviewed by subject matter experts.
Starting Your Own Nursing Blog
Starting your own nursing blog allows you to reach a wider audience and share your clinical insights on a platform that you control. Selecting a niche in an area that is not widely covered but where you have education and expertise could be your first step.
As your blog grows, you can monetize it through advertising, sponsored content, affiliate marketing, or offering paid subscriptions for exclusive content.
Educational Pursuits: Tutoring and Teaching
In the realm of education, nurses have a range of teaching options available. From serving as adjunct faculty members to engaging in in-person or remote teaching, the opportunities are vast. With your nursing experience, you can provide specialized tutoring for nursing students, helping them prepare for exams like the NCLEX-RN, and understand and perform clinical skills. Beyond nursing-specific subjects, you can also offer academic assistance in various undergraduate health and science courses, such as:
- basic anatomy and physiology
- pharmacology
- pathophysiology
- medical-surgical nursing
- pediatric nursing
- maternity nursing
Tutoring can be a rewarding experience, providing a platform for you to impart knowledge and make a difference in the lives of future nurses. Whether you’re facilitating tutoring through nursing schools, local agencies, or online educational platforms, you’ll be playing a crucial role in shaping the future of the nursing profession.
Teaching is not only rewarding but also a potentially profitable side hustle. With the rising demand for qualified healthcare professionals, the need for experienced tutors is also on the rise. Whether you’re tutoring one-on-one or conducting group workshops, you have the potential to make a significant impact while boosting your income.
One-on-One Tutoring
One-on-one tutoring is a profitable side hustle for experienced nurses. With your strong academic records and teaching skills, you can provide specialized tutoring, helping nursing students understand difficult concepts and improve their learning experience.
From assisting students in preparing for critical exams, such as the NCLEX-RN to helping improve students’ clinical skills, your expertise can make a significant difference in their academic journey.
Group Instruction and Workshops
Group instruction and workshops present another avenue for nurses to leverage their teaching skills. You can lead group sessions, teaching first aid courses to diverse audiences including school staff, students, and business employees. To teach CPR classes, you’d need certifications through organizations like the American Heart Association or the American Red Cross.
Group instruction roles, like teaching and overseeing clinicals for nursing students, are often perceived as less stressful than bedside nursing due to their educational focus.
Health Coaching: Guiding Others to Wellness
Health coaching is another side hustle that allows nurses to guide clients towards wellness. As health coaches, you can:
- Provide guidance on improving overall health and nutrition
- Help clients replace bad habits with healthy ones
- Assess clients’ wellness needs
- Establish achievable goals
- Offer support and guidance to improve health and wellbeing
You can either provide health coaching in person or online, offering great flexibility in choosing when and where you work.
You can tailor your health coaching services to specific needs, such as:
- helping clients change eating habits
- lose weight
- manage fertility issues
- address joint problems
You can also guide them in areas like exercise and stress management. To facilitate nutrition planning as part of health coaching, you’d need resources such as nutrition software and a computer.
Whether you’re helping a client to lose weight, manage a chronic disease, or simply improve their overall health, as a health coach, you have the chance to make a real difference in people’s lives. Plus, it allows you to leverage your nursing skills and expertise in a new and rewarding way.
Defining Your Coaching Niche
Determining your coaching niche is vital for achieving success as a health coach. You can start with areas where you have existing expertise, such as:
- experience in working with geriatric patients
- nutrition planning, which allows you to advise individuals on health management and wellness goals
- specializing in a niche such as helping clients manage a condition like congestive heart failure
These niches can distinguish you and cater to a more targeted audience.
Remember, having a well-defined niche provides you with a competitive edge, making you more distinguishable to potential clients looking for specialized coaching services.
Building a Client Base
Establishing a client base is a significant step in your journey to success as a health coach. Start by:
- Identifying your ideal client type, such as new mothers or diabetic patients.
- Determining the target clientele.
- Define the specific therapies and modalities you would use to assist them.
Marketing yourself on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook can be an effective strategy to build your health coaching client base. Don’t forget to acquire coaching insurance to protect both you and your clients. Networking and collaborating with other healthcare professionals are crucial steps in building a successful business.
Medical Transcription: Turning Speech Into Text
Medical transcription is another side hustle that nurses can consider. It involves transcribing medical reports or physicians’ notes into written documents, leveraging your medical knowledge and understanding the context of reports. Transcribing audio files into written documents is a key responsibility for medical transcriptionists. Medical transcription work can be performed from the comfort of your home and on your own schedule, offering great flexibility.
Having fast typing skills greatly benefits a medical transcriptionist, enhancing efficiency and productivity. With the evolution of the role of medical transcriptionists to include editing and correcting documents produced by speech recognition software, there’s an increased demand for those skilled in this field.
Medical transcription requires a strong understanding of medical terminology, so if you’re a nurse with a knack for accuracy and a keen attention to detail, this could be an ideal fit for you. Plus, it’s a side hustle that allows you to work without seeing patients, representing an avenue for using your medical terminology expertise.
The Role of a Medical Transcriptionist
As a medical transcriptionist, an in-depth understanding of medical terminology and jargon is necessary for the accurate transcription of medical records. The responsibilities include:
- Listening to voice recordings of medical professionals
- Transcribing these into written documents
- Reviewing and interpreting patient information contained within medical records.
Getting Started with Transcription
A high school diploma or GED is a prerequisite for venturing into medical transcription. Medical transcription certification can be pursued through community colleges, vocational schools, or online programs and usually takes 6 to 12 months to complete. The necessary equipment for medical transcription work includes a computer, headphones, and a foot pedal.
With the right training and equipment, you could soon be on your way to providing healthcare services, an important service in the healthcare industry.
Diversifying Income with Clinical Trials
Clinical trials present an additional avenue for nurses to diversify their income. Working in roles such as research nurse or clinical research nurse, you could contribute to critical research studies while earning additional income. As a research nurse, you act as a liaison between patients and researchers, taking on the responsibility of coordinating consent and ensuring ethical treatment. Monitoring safety conditions during the trial and the collection and management of patient data are central to the role of clinical research nurses.
Breaking into the field of clinical trials requires a BSN for research nurse positions, while a master’s degree is often necessary for clinical research nurse jobs, along with strong analytical skills. Once you have the necessary qualifications and skills, you can find opportunities across large universities, medical facilities, or local healthcare providers that administer studies.
The world of clinical trials is not just rewarding but also offers a chance to be part of groundbreaking research. As a nurse, your unique skills and expertise can significantly contribute to the success of these trials, making this an exciting and lucrative side hustle.
Roles and Responsibilities
Working in clinical trials involves:
- Directly interacting with patients
- Being involved in academic or hospital-based studies
- Acting as a liaison between the research team and the patient volunteers
- Facilitating communication and adherence to protocols.
Senior Clinical Research Nurses may function as team leaders, coordinate research protocol implementation and data collection, and support protocol adherence and human subject protection.
Breaking into the Field
Entering the field of clinical trials requires holding a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), RN or LPN licensure, and having some acute care experience. Advanced Clinical Research Nurse roles require not only a nursing degree but also one to two years of practical nursing experience along with the capability to manage research-related interventions independently.
Earning a Master’s in Clinical Research Management can significantly enhance your credentials, making you more competitive in the clinical research job market.
Entrepreneurial Ventures for Nurses
The entrepreneurial spirit is not limited to the business world. As a nurse, you have a unique opportunity to venture into entrepreneurship, starting a healthcare staffing agency or offering mobile IV therapy services, or even medical spa services. Starting a healthcare staffing agency enables you to connect healthcare facilities with qualified temporary staff, leveraging your organizational and communication skills, along with professional connections and knowledge of the healthcare industry.
Mobile IV therapy services require a set of specific equipment such as IV supplies, along with medical training. Safely administering IVs and monitoring patients in these services rely heavily on your nursing skills. Your expertise is crucial in ensuring patient safety and care. Providing mobile IV therapy services can offer additional income, with average monthly earnings ranging from $300 to $2,500 and beyond.
Nursing skills can also be utilized in the field of medical spa services. You can use your understanding of facial anatomy and aesthetic sense to offer these services. Whether you’re launching a healthcare blog or starting a travel nurse service, the opportunities to create your own business ventures are vast.
Identifying Business Opportunities
Recognizing business opportunities that resonate with your expertise and market demand is key to the success of your entrepreneurial venture. For instance, if you have a strong background in pediatric care, you could start a childcare center. Or if you have expertise in nutrition planning, you could start a business offering nutrition planning services.
Specializing in a niche such as helping clients manage a condition like congestive heart failure can distinguish your services and cater to a more targeted audience.
Steps to Launch Your Business
Initiating a nurse-led business calls for meticulous planning. Crafting a well-structured business plan encompassing goals, insurance strategies, start-up capital, location, permits, and provider insurance is an essential initial step. Identifying your niche and leveraging niche worksheets can help you identify your strengths and determine who would benefit from your expertise.
It’s also important to consider legal aspects such as obtaining a national provider identifier and malpractice insurance. With the right planning and resources, you could soon be the proud owner of a successful nurse-led business.
Freelance Nurse Consulting: Capitalizing on Professional Experience
Capitalizing on your professional healthcare experience, freelance nurse consulting emerges as another profitable side hustle. Whether it’s healthcare consulting or medical legal consulting, your expertise can significantly impact patient care on a larger scale. In healthcare consulting, you can advise on patient care standards, safety protocols, and improvements, while in medical legal consulting, you can assist with cases requiring medical expertise.
Consulting in both healthcare and legal cases necessitates specialized knowledge and computer skills. As a freelance healthcare consultant, you can earn an average of $500 to $3,000+ per month, and as a medical legal consultant, you can earn between $1,000 to $5,000+ per month.
With your nursing experience, you’re well-placed to provide invaluable insights in legal cases, often serving as expert witnesses to help interpret medical records and testify on healthcare practices. If you’re tech-savvy, you can leverage your clinical experience to consult on healthcare technology products, such as mobile apps geared towards medical professionals or patients.
Consulting in the Healthcare Industry
As a nursing consultant in the healthcare industry, your role is to:
- Help healthcare facilities improve clinical care by designing custom systems and processes
- Assist healthcare organizations with strategies to deliver high-quality patient care
- Pursue nursing excellence, which can have a significant impact on the retention of nursing staff.
Your insights can foster nursing engagement and resilience, catalyzing cultural transformation within healthcare organizations, thereby contributing to nurse retention.
Legal and Tech Consulting
In legal consulting, your medical knowledge can provide invaluable insights in legal cases. You could serve as an expert witness, helping interpret medical records and testifying on healthcare practices. If you’re tech-savvy, you can leverage your clinical experience to consult on healthcare technology products, such as mobile apps geared towards medical professionals or patients.
Your contributions to healthcare app development can ensure that these tools meet the practical needs of patient care and clinical workflows.
Summary
In conclusion, the world of side hustles offers nurses a multitude of opportunities to boost their income while utilizing their skills and expertise. Whether it’s leveraging nursing skills beyond the hospital, exploring the digital healthcare landscape, venturing into the world of freelance writing, or engaging in educational pursuits such as tutoring and teaching, the possibilities are vast.
We hope this guide has inspired you to explore the various side hustles for nurses. Remember, your unique skills and expertise are valuable assets that can be harnessed in a wide array of side hustles. So, why wait? Start exploring today, and unlock a world of opportunities!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can nurses have side hustles?
Yes, nurses can have a variety of side hustles, such as telehealth nursing, freelance writing, tutoring, and health coaching, leveraging their skills and expertise.
What is telehealth nursing?
Telehealth nursing involves providing nursing services remotely, typically via phone or video calls. Nurses can conduct health assessments, communicate with patients, and provide care recommendations in this role.
How can a nurse start a blog?
To start a nursing blog, you can choose a niche, craft compelling content, and establish your blog platform. Monetization can be achieved through advertising, sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, and paid subscriptions for exclusive content.
What is medical transcription, and how can a nurse get started in this field?
To get started in the field of medical transcription, a nurse would need a high school diploma or GED, medical transcription certification, and the necessary equipment like a computer, headphones, and a foot pedal. This would enable them to transcribe medical reports or physicians’ notes into written documents.
Can a nurse become a health coach?
Yes, nurses can become health coaches and provide guidance on improving overall health and nutrition through in-person or online coaching.
