Starting med-surg first hospital job!

[RN_SummerSeas, MSN, APRN, NP]

Hi all!

Let me start with where I live newer nurses with associates degrees or diplomas rarely ever get a hospital position, big push for baccelaureate prepared nurses here.

I have been a nurse just over 3 years-and still feel like a newbie, I hear that will last until I hit at least 5 years!

I was looking to switch out of home care and decided to apply at a bunch of local (ish) hospitals and low and behold a month later I have had two calls for interviews! I feel like its a miracle! I was offered a position with the first one, I am still going to go for the second interview since its this Tuesday.

I am in shock I was offered the position and super excited to try hospital nursing! I was quite pleased when I met with the nurse manager and the first thing she said looking up from my resume was "you must have excellent assessment skills"! YES someone finally aknowledged the fact that as a homecare nurse you better have great assessment skills, especially in hospice where my patients were often in very unstable, acute changing condition. Symptom control was huge and can be tough from a home. I did love it though and I learned a lot.

Any thoughts, tid-bits, advice etc. anyone wants to share would be appreciated!

Thanks all!!!

[jjmm RN,BSN]

I don't really have advice because I'm a new RN that has only been working in med-surg for 3 months. Just wanted to say congratulations! I work on a crazy unit, and I'm new but I love it so far. Good luck!

[RN_SummerSeas, MSN, APRN, NP]

Hi, congratulations to you too and thank you :)

[WKShadowNP, DNP, APRN]

Good for you!

Advice? Have fun, relax. Use those assessment skills but learn from your peers. It's a different, but good, animal.

[Murse9185]

Congrats!!

[icuRNallie]

Congrats on the offer! Very exciting. I always thought home-health nursing would be one of the more difficult areas to go into. Putting symptoms together to form a big picture can be difficult and easy to miss. Having that experience will really help you.

Honestly, in the hospital it is similar in that you can walk into a room and immediately start assessing the situation, before you even pull that stethoscope out. Are they awake and talking, are they engaged in the situation, do they track you with their eyes, how fast are their respirations, pain complaints, etc etc.

Be familiar with general med-surg medications. That will help with your comfort level.

Take ACLS if you haven't already.. It will make you feel much more comfortable in a critical situation than just having BLS. You can arm yourself with that knowledge and feel more prepared for a patient crashing on you. With excellent assessment skills, many times you can beat a code to the punch and get the help you need (although it's not always possible).

I always arrive 20 minutes before report and get a quick idea of my patients. Look up most recent labs/medications and then I can ask any questions I have during report. I generally try and filter my questions during report however...if it's something I can easily look up myself, I'm not going to peg the previous nurse with a billion unnecessary questions.

Your home-health skills will definitely help you! The pace is different but in the end you are assessing and implementing in order to prevent further decline/promote health. Same end goal. Good luck and have fun!