How does a new nurse with 1+ years of experience in outpt. apply to hospitals? Residency?

tenderfootjoe · Jul 5, 2015

Hi everyone,

I want to first say thanks to everyone for all of the support and wisdom on this site. I am so relieved and thrilled that there is a place that I can ask fellow nurses for career advice! :)

I am a nurse with 1.5 years of experience, 6 months in LTC/Rehab and am now 1 year in as a RN in a very busy peds clinic.

I am going back to school for my BSN now, and I am interested in transitioning to acute care within the next year. I am thinking that my ultimate goal is surgical nursing, but I would like to try floor nursing first to learn some valuable skills that would help transition me to that field.

The problem is, I have seen that most residency programs require less than 6 months of experience as a nurse. How does a nurse with no acute care experience, but with professional nursing experience, apply to hospitals? Do we apply to normal non-residency positions in the hospital? Some do not specify experience, but how would the training be in non-residency positions? Thanks everyone!