I have long wanted to take the certification exam and become a private
practise LC.  I am an RN with a MSN, but my specialty is adult
cardiovascular /critical care/transplant nursing.  I have had no bedside let
alone advanced practise experience in OB/ peds/maternal child
health,whatever.  So I doubt if I could get a hospital LC job.  I understand
that most hospitals these days hire RN LCs and ones with ped/ob type
experience.  Far. far from my formal nursing experience. (However, the adult
cardiac surgery ICU in which I work is one of the very few with its own
unofficial LC :)  When you work with a large nursing staff, you are
surrounded by pregnant women!!!!It's fun being an bfing educator/advocate in
that setting).
Howevery, a few years ago I ordered the Pre-Conference Conference tapes from
ILCA re becoming a private practise LC.  It was so depressing and
illusion-shattering.  One of the most well-known LCs in this country
reported making enough profit per year to finance all conference trips and
other professional travel,  and to buy her son a computer!!!!!Since I can
make relatively good money even as a bedside RN, its hard to justify to my
hardworking husband my plan to start a private LC practise with that kind of
prospective non-income!  It was reported on those tapes that one of the few
private practise LCs who actually was able to make a living income from
private practice LCing was putting in incredibly long hours each day  like
8am to 10 pm.

Lactnetters, is this (still) true?  Can private practice LCs have a decent
income.  Can people who need income from their work in order to put kids
thru school, retire, etc.  be full-time private practice LCs?  In the
meantime, I even put off taking the IBLCE exam because I dont need it for
the lay bfing work I'm doing now and can't justify the expense.  Credentials
are nice, but the driveway needs repaved............................

Looking forward to your replies.

Debbie, RN,LLLL
--
Registered ICC User
check out http://www.usefulware.com/~jfoltz