Work Opportunities for Nurses
In the Philippines, unemployment is a felt problem. It is both a societal and economic issue. It is not enough that you finish your years in the College. You have to find relevant work that would sustain you and your family. When you were still young, you would hear admonitions from your parents telling you to persevere in your studies so that you won’t have a hard time finding a job. The sermon would follow with “look at me. I just finished high school and look at the kind of job I am into now.” Indeed. During your parent’s time, to finish a bachelor’s degree would mean landing on a good job. Is this still relevant today?
There are many nurses who are still looking for a job. Some of the newly licensed nurses are found in hospitals, earning their certificate to land on a job somewhere overseas. Who would not be when in your own country, the nurses are earning a month’s salary of 12,000 pesos or roughly 266 USD. With the price of commodities, it would be a miracle if you can make this last until the next month. On the other hand, there are work opportunities for nurses while in the Philippines:
Nurses as Call Center Agents. This work would entail receiving a number of calls from clients overseas within an eight hour shift period. The account could be a medical or insurance account, a telecom or simply as a virtual assistant managing a client’s email and appointments. It is not an easy job. Most of the time, your shift would start at 3 in the morning and will end at 12 in the afternoon.
Nurses as Medical Coders. Remember those medical documents you use to fill in? Do you remember a patient complaining how difficult it was for him to claim for his medical insurance? The point is, these medical documents go through the medical coders. They provide the code on the documents, making it easier for the computer hardware to read and provide information for related medical processes such as insurance and claims. With nurses’ familiarity with the diseases and illnesses that beset the human body, it wouldn’t be long before a nurse can be at par in terms of speed and performance with those who already have a medical coder certificate.
Nurses as Writers. If you feel like you are not for the call center agent position, you may want to consider writing for internet marketing. Some nurses may have a flair for writing. It may be an innate talent or a skill honed through years of repeated practice. With the advent of the internet, businesses need skilled writers for their website, as dictated by the principles of white hat SEO. A medical website will need someone with an allied health background to provide fresh and credible information – a position any talented nurse can fill in. Because nurses were trained to investigate first before documenting, you should not be surprised to see nurses working as writers for non-medical websites as well.
There are a lot of opportunities for nurses in the Philippines. You can join a growing group of nurses in Facebook, called WON (Work Opportunity for Nurses). Who knows, you might stumble into a great-paying job. If you are open to the possibilities of developing other talents that you have, you may see yourself working at an entirely different place aside from the hospital and clinics. When you’re asked why you are applying for certain unrelated nursing position, you should answer: “Not because I am a nurse, I should only be seen in the hospitals or clinics. I am a human being, with so much potential for growth and learning. Given the right opportunity, I may be able to excel in areas that I would never imagine possible. I can only do that if I will be brave enough to go out of the comfort zone of the nursing profession I was molded into.”
