Skip to main content

The Cons of Doing a Post-Doc

Many faculty positions require a post-doc, but actually doing one isn't feasible for everyone. There are a lot of reasons not to do a post-doc. Here's a few core ones.

It's Not Financially Feasible

Post-doc salaries aren't always great. The minimum salary is $45,000. For many people who have already sacrificed for many years to finish their PhD, it's not possible to continue the sacrifice. Full time employment that capitalizes on the PhD credential may be the only alternative.

It May Not Be Good for Career Progression, Depending on Your Age

Nurses and midwives complete doctoral degrees at many ages. Candidates need to ask themselves if spending two more years in a post-doc is the right career move. Academic nursing, in particular, can have many career forms and depending on your life stage and goals, going right into a faculty position is a perfectly viable option. Programs of research can still be developed with this pathway through both internal and external institutional support.

Candidates also need to consider their long term career goals. If you seek a leadership position in Academia long term, going right into a position where you will understand how the institutions work (and don't) is a better decision. Develop your credentials as an educator and/or administrator first and  make sure your scholarship sustains itself.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

There Are Other Masters Degrees Besides a Nurse Practitioner - Part I

It strikes me that many students and nurses do not seem to know about the "other" masters degree options for nurses.  Everyone seems to want to be a nurse practitioner these days.  Now, that's great news for the primary care provider shortage, but we need nurses with masters degrees who can work in other positions and have other skill sets. Let's review the other masters degrees in nursing.  Nearest and dearest to my own heart is Nursing Education.  Remember that really cool clinical instructor you had in your entry-level nursing program --that could be you!  Do you like precepting new hires?  Are you the person on your unit who unofficially keeps everyone up-to-date on the latest evidence?  Do you really enjoy patient teaching, whether in the hospital or community setting?  Do you just like to teach?  Nursing education is the right masters for you.  Skills learned in a nursing education masters cannot be learned on the job.  Cur...

Is it time to get your PhD in Nursing or Midwifery?

 Over the years, I've written a lot about pursuing a PhD in nursing and I'm including midwives because we need more PhD prepared midwives too.  Getting a PhD is a great way to address the problems you've seen on the frontlines of COVID-19, another way to address the social injustices of racism and discrimination on health outcomes, and to make your voice heard by the decision-makers. A third of the 1% of nurses with PhDs will retire in the next five years so we need people to take their place. We cannot lose our voices in all the places where nurses and midwives with PhDs work. Here's a compilation of the posts I've written about getting a PhD and the things to think about as you figure out where you want to apply. PhD or DNP?   This is where many people start when trying to decide on their doctoral-level career advancement. This post has my two cents on the topic. Should you work as a nurse before getting a PhD?   There's a lot of opinions out there on this sub...

Turnover in Nursing Staff at the Unit Level: The Single Best Indicator of Manager Performance?

Recently I had lunch with a former student who was passing through town. Lisa graduated a little over two years ago and was one of the lucky ones who found a job fairly quickly. What was most interesting about our conversation was the turnover rate on her unit. In 15 months, 15 nurses have left. The most recent was a group of five experienced night shift nurses, the kind any manager is loathe to lose. They left, according to the student, because they were tired of how they were treated.  Lisa is now the most experienced person on night shift at two years out of school. The loss of 15 nurses on one unit has also cost the organization nearly a million dollars. In an era of cost tightening, that is a steep price. Acknowledging that this is only a report from one person, there is still something that rings true in her story: Well managed patient care units do not have high turnover rates of staff. So let's think about what constitutes turnover in nursing staff and it's causes. G...

Translate