Need some career advice

I know I probably made this request before, but I'm going to be working on my resume this week which means I'll be looking for a new job soon.

The ideal job, and the ultimate goal. would be something in teaching or research or administration (not unit manager). But I'm not sure how long it will take to find a job in those fields, and there's a limitation as to how long I want to stay with this present job.

So I'm also thinking about what other types of nursing jobs I could do in the meantime while waiting for one of the above positions to open up. Anything off the floor would be appealing: HH, hospice, cardiac cath, radiology, endoscopy, MRI. Any others that I've forgotten?

Of course those positions are less common than floor positions, so if I want to get out of this place soon I may need to find a floor position that's more tolerable than my present one. And that's where I'm going to need suggestions:

I work on a cardiac stepdown at a large teaching Magnet hospital. I've found that I hate the instability of the patients (pt going into afib can ruin your night), I hate the sense of entitlement these patients have, and I hate both the neurotically detailed charting required and the neurotic oversight of charting and everything else (the manager called around midnight last night to make sure the charge didn't forget the narc count!).

At my old inner-city charity hospital med-surg position, I hated the crazy and drug-addicted patients as well as the near-total lack of resources. Wasn't that fond of the patient ratios either. But I've found that I appreciate that the patients were more stable, that they were less likely to complain or control, that the management, while bad, wasn't on your back like my present place. As long as I'm not rushed, I don't even mind complete patients, even the confused/elderly type.

And I've found that I favor more conservative or palliative management of conditions. It appalls me to see the kind of people our place will perform a CABG or valve replacement on. And I've found that I like a more relaxed, more low-tech approach than the high-tech rush I have to deal with now.

So I guess in addition to wondering about non-floor positions, I'm wondering about what kind of floor positions I might like better than my present one, if I'm forced to choose between a floor position or a long wait for something more desirable.

Thanks for reading this fairly long post.
You've obviously given a lot of thought to this. Seems like you are repelled by the nearly continuous chaos of acute care environments. That's probably the highest priority, criteria-wise. If so, I would suggest you investigate environments that have a longer LOS like rehab or behavioral health. Rehab is becoming more important these days and there are some really top-notch facilities out there.... llike TIRR here in Houston, where Gaby Giffords is recovering from her GSW. There's some remarkable work being done in spinal injury/neuro rehab, so this environment certainly doesn't resemble LTC anymore. Most psych environments that are focused on programmatic intervention have a stable and predictable course of treatment. The larger organizations have great training programs also. Career advancement in either area can be pretty rapid for experienced nurses. I hope you are able to transition soon to an area that better suits you. Best of luck.
Palliative Care, ambulatory, case management, educator to non-RN students (MA, CNA, LPN, etc), Infectious disease?