is it hard to get a job after two years off of nursing?

[catsmeow1972]

I've got a shade less than 2 years of this nightmare of a contract to go, and you know I'm counting days. In the duration of the contract, I've had 2 jobs. The first was 18 different kinds of horrible while the second was decent, just not in my comfort zone (career Peri-op nurse to med/surg). I've come to the conclusion that this stupid contract is a large part of why I have such a hard time getting and doing well at a job. I go into interviews and after selling myself quite well, I then have to field dress myself on the carpet in front of perfect strangers and I wind up feeling like damaged goods begging for a job. I just about have to ask permission to sneeze. I am old enough to have grandchildren (young grandchildren) and this stupid crap is so infantilizing.

I am in the position where I may be able to draw disability for the remaining duration of the contract (or longer if need be.) I am thinking of waiting until I don't have to even deal with contract junk at all to even go back to nursing. No more IPN elephant in the room waiting to stomp on any opportunity that I might have to actually not look stupid. I can look stupid on my own. I don't need their help.

i think my worry is, when I finally do go back to nursing, how do I address a 2 year lapse on a resume? What has anyone done when working outside nursing either by choice or while waiting. What do you say when potential employers for that retail job want to know why you want to work for $11 an hour. Is nursing even worth this? Some days, I think not.

[SpankedInPittsburgh, DNP, RN]

I don't think any monitoring program that derives its power from a BON would have any say over what employment you take outside of Nursing. Therefore, if you don't utilize your license or work as a Nurse I don't see any reason they even have to know about it. I don't blame you for not wanting some intrusive case manager talking to your supervisor about you without having the ability to provide input. Honestly that strikes me as simple gossip and sniping about perceptions that may not even have any basis or relevance r/t substance abuse or nursing. One of the nurses at my weekly support group that I'm sentenced to recently had her supervisor report her to her case manager because she called in sick. Are nurses in monitoring programs not allowed to call in sick like any other employee? Of course this reporting caused more testing, statements and expense for the nurse in question. I would not work as a nurse at all until this monitoring garbage was completed if I had the option but I simply cannot afford it. If I were you (and could afford it) I would pursue the disability claim fully and not work as a nurse until these idiots from the monitoring program were out of my life. Good Luck!!!

[OhioRN1234]

I am required to work as a nurse for two years to complete my monitoring. I loathe this.. The world of nursing nearly destroyed me and I dread going back into it. So why bother?? I wish to avoid being black listed by the OIG which would destroy any job in healthcare I could find using my degree.

I have found a wonderful job that I adore and will have to quit to work as an RN.. Unless someone knows of a nursing home in Ohio that will let me work four hours a month..

[catsmeow1972, BSN, RN]

If anything useful at all comes out of the weekly nurse support groups, I have heard of people who work off their key restriction via volunteer work at low income clinics and the like. Usually you can do minimal hours, enough to satisfy the contract vultures without having to quit your paying job.

[OhioRN1234]

I am not allowed to volunteer my time and have it count.

[catsmeow1972, BSN, RN]

Oh. Let's see...make it impossible to get job + make it impossible to end contract without having had a job = never ending money faucet.

Any other way they could come up with to make this harder and more miserable than it already is?

I'm sorry. I whine about the current state of my situation and tend to forget that others have it worse.

[OhioRN1234]

Thank you for your kind words. :) I consider myself lucky when I think about what it could have been. It took them three years to get to me and now its here. I have to face the music.

My lawyer has said that Ohio's "Alternative program" is a joke and she has not heard of anyone getting into it for YEARS. Yet they have all the information on their website making it appear as if you have a chance in retaining your private information. I was scared to death to fill that paperwork out only to find out I was rejected and they plan on using it against me to further my punishment. It doesn't appear to have happened that way and my discipline is better than I thought it would be. I will tell you that this has made me despise nursing and I will be overjoyed when I have only a black mark against my license and never have to work as a nurse again. I know how bitter i sound :)

[catsmeow1972, BSN, RN]

I actually self reported over a psychiatric thing. I was dumb enough to think that they were there to help me. Yeah. I had no idea just how badly i was shooting myself in the foot. I was under the very mistaken impression that i would be allowed that confidentiality that they trumpet about. Not. Even. Close. By the time the BON got around to me, I had been in and under contract for almost 2 years. In spite of my pleading, no one from the program bothered to inform the board that I was already a participant and i was subsequently board ordered to a program that i was already in, along with a huge fine and having it be public record. Sometimes I think I'd have been better off keeping my fat mouth shut.

[OhioRN1234]

Ugh.. I am so sorry to hear that. The way phych issues are stigmatized and mishandled in this country is disgusting.

I knew I needed help and reviewed the boards site many many times but read horror stories on the mistreatment, long sentences, high fees, extreme difficulty in finding work, and the high chance of public discipline ENSURED I did not reach out for help.

This was my doing, my issue, and my actions but the way these programs are set up is just pathetic.

You have been punished for doing the right thing.. So sad.

[mississippiRN71]

Have you checked into Care.com? It's a caregiver type job- usually for an elderly person , no license needed and some pay pretty good - I've seen up to 20.00/hr. I applied on Care.com but never worked because right after that I got nursing job as a dialysis nurse.

Good luck!

[dagobah, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

I had a year off, and the reason I gave was I was taking care of an ailing father. That is what I gave to explain the year off. Good luck Catsmeow!

[SpankedInPittsburgh, DNP, RN]

I also self-reported. I figured I was a professional who was charged with a crime and it was my duty. I also naively thought my beloved profession would get me some help. The night after my DUI I quit drinking on my own & started going to meetings every day. I was sober for almost 3 months and my life was improving then my PNAP counselor told me the terms and conditions of the program I was either going to join or lose my nursing license. Basically I had to quit practice immediately and not go back to the ER I worked in for a period of one year. I had to volunteer to go to inpatient then intensive outpatient rehab over a period of 4 months and not work during that time. After that I had to do Random DAUs. Go to weekly meetings, Get AA attendance sheets signed and send in weekly reports and I had to drop out of my DNP studies which I only had one semester left in. Basically, my life got nuked for a DUI on an off night. I immediately recognized these people had no interest in helping me with recovery and their only interest was punitive. I went to the state store and bought a bottle before I had to sign my monitoring agreement and vowed to survive this garbage somehow. I've done everything these caring professionals have asked over the last year but only to save the remnants of my career. Basically I do what I'm forced to do.

Last week a friend of mine called me and told me she thought she was drinking too much and thought about checking herself into a treatment facility. She asked if she should self-report and I told her I wouldn't. I believe these programs have nothing to do with helping nurses but merely maintaining a status quo between the rehab industry and the BONs. I told her to attend AA and get a sponsor. If she needed medical attention (she didn't) not to tell anybody she was a Nurse and never, ever tell the BON anything. She's not the first person I've told this too and I'm sure she won't be the last.

I think this is the real sin of these monitoring programs. Good Nurses with substance abuse or mental health problems should not be subject to this nonsense. This has a chilling effect whereas healing professionals cannot turn to their own profession for help and support. A real shame

[catsmeow1972, BSN, RN]

I think this is the real sin of these monitoring programs. Good Nurses with substance abuse or mental health problems should not be subject to this nonsense. This has a chilling effect whereas healing professionals cannot turn to their own profession for help and support. A real shame

^^^^^This exponentially!!!

What is supposedly a "disease" (even by the 12 step gods that infect these programs) is considered a crime to be punished for us for no other reason than we hold a license.

The idea of monitoring in and of itself is not the bad thing. I do think that there are people who should not be practicing except under some kind of watchful eye, or not be practicing at all.

It's the lazy, money driven, unethical dumping of all people with any sort of issue (who doesn't have something going on these days) into the same pot with the raging conflicts of interest and the goal appearing to be to break the person both emotionally and financially.

As a kid i always wanted to take care of everybody, from my stuffed animals to my goldfish. What I got in return was a sense of satisfaction and happiness. If I knew that as an adult that sense of satisfaction and happiness was going to be replaced by this, I'd have gone to make widgets on an assembly line....that i know of, widget makers don't hurt their own in the way that nursing quintessentially can.