Not trying to give up hope

[Versash]

At 40 years old I never thought my life would take a drastic turn like this with my career. I received my paperwork in November 2017 that I would be on probation for 2 years and would have to turn in evaluations quarterly to the board of nursing. I also must have a supervisor on the unit for 1 year and the 2nd year they just have to be in the building. I have also been restricted from working home health, agency, home dialysis and home hospice. I have applied to numerous jobs and have been on 6 interviews. Legal has always denied my employment. I feel as if my back is against the wall. I have been networking with other nurses. My ex-co-workers and supervisors have given me recommendations. To no avail I have been able to find a job. I begin my career in 2011 as a dialysis nurse, went on to work at the VA hospital in mental health care with the homeless veteran program and then worked in correctional. Even though I know I'm not the only nurse to be placed on probation with stipulations, it just feels that way after 4 months I am sincerely looking for advice from my nursing family because I know this cannot be what seems to be the end of my nursing career. I'm even having trouble finding non-nursing jobs, only to be asked why am I trying to get a job half the salary of my old job. The way I see it is any job is better than no job. Especially, being a single mom of a 5 year old with no help. I'm not trying to be hopeless but this tunnel is getting dark and very cold.

[Crush]

I wish I had an answer but all I can do is send good vibes your way and a gentle cyber (((hug))). Don't give up hope.

[Eris Discordia BSN, RN]

Is the probation public on your license? Formal, public discipline? That may be the problem, rather than the restrictions. I work with restrictions as well, many, many more restrictions than you listed. But I don't have public discipline on my license because in my state, I qualified for a "stay of discipline" if I complete a 5 year monitoring program. So my license doesn't have a mark and is officially unencumbered. If I fail the program at any point, the original discipline goes completely public on my license, I'll have a mark, and I would risk having my license suspended or revoked, depending on why I failed out of the program, I suppose. But I'm over a year in and it's going well so far.

Now, I had to disclose all this in job interviews, and they had to agree to accommodate my restrictions and to send in all the paperwork. But even with all that baggage, I was able to quickly find a nursing job that would hire me. I had to go outside my chosen specialty due to having restrictions that were completely incompatable with that area, but I was able to find a hospital job that was willing to work with me.

However, I doubt if I had a mark on my license and the situation causing my monitoring was public on my license with all my dirty laundry aired out in a convient PDF file for the public to see...well, I'm sure the job hunt would have been much harder.

I did completely disclose the situation behind my monitoring in interviews, and showed them my contract, but I think I dodged the hurdle of HR and corporate approving me because my license is technically clean. So, the decision appeared to be mainly in the hands of the nurses and managers hiring me as I have no criminal record and a techically a clean license as long as I keep my nose clean with monitoring.

Anyway, that's the first thing I thought of when I read your post. Your restrictions don't seem the worst as you listed them, so it makes me wonder if it's the public info that is on your license that is tripping you up.

Keep looking though. Psych, regular dialysis, urgent cares, and clinics are known to be monitoring/restriction friendly. And please do come over to the nurses recovery subforum. Many nurses are there who have restrictions, even without a substance/alcohol issue. Some have discipline issues, some are in monitoring programs, some have just had a complaint filed on their license...there is a wide variety of nurses there. We'd love to have you and there are so many people over there who can offer job hunting tips because they have successfully gotten jobs while under restriction or monitoring!

[SpankedInPittsburgh, DNP, RN]

Yeah here in Pittsburgh Long Term Care & Dialysis seem to be the most recovery friendly. Good Luck to you!!!

[Recovering_RN]

I've always heard dialysis is generally monitoring friendly so keep trying those places, since you have experience.

Try looking for a nurse support group if you don't already have one. Other nurses who are in monitoring. That's usually a good place for networking. Nurses who've gotten jobs can often encourage their employers to hire another nurse in monitoring. It's the employers who are unfamiliar with it and think it's too much hassle to deal with that will turn you down. But if they've had a nurse who's in monitoring already, they know the drill and they know we're generally exemplary employees since we're so darn grateful for the job! That's how I found my first job when I entered TPAPN.