I have been a nurse for 4 years, different settings such as telemetry (2 years), ER (3 months), stepdown (6 months) , telemetry float (6 month), ICU staff (1 year), ICU float (3 months)...I know that it doesn't look like a stable person's career. But here is the thing...I chose a career not suitable for my personality and still trying to figure out a way out or a way to fit into my personality. Despite all, I work with people really well because I have to pay student loans and mortgage. LOL LOL. Every unit I have worked in, my co-workers truly love me, including my managers and supervisors because I understand the system and I am extremely helpful to others but the problem is that I am forcing myself to be social and helpful to hide my true self. Over the years, I have learnt that my ways of life isn't truly accepted or understood, thus in order to have a peace of mind, I have to fit in to what is considered to be normal. It basically means I am a fake person to pay my bills...sad I know. Thus, I find it necessary to switch jobs before I offend someone else or may be before my true self is discovered. I know u are wondering who I truly am...LOL. I am a highly rational person, very intuitive and scientific and less sympathetic. But I know how to fake it or avoid such uncomfortable situations. I think things thoroughly; what they meant and their purposes. I see things in patterns. I like challenges, and hate routine work. May be that explains why I tend to switch working environments so quickly. I enjoy working hard, and sorting things out so that the system works well for everyone involved. I am a problem solver and there is nothing out there I feel I can't solve or any task out there so difficult for me to figure out. I constantly need challenges and some kind of disorganization for me to sort out and make it perfect/organized. So I choose such environments for work where I feel is highly disorganized. Very organized environments are very threatening to my personality because I feel that I am useless. As an example, my first career as a nurse is in a very prestigious hospital in NJ, very organized and very disciplined. And I never felt I was truly appreciated or valued even though I had worked really hard. This is on telemetry floor. I requested to be transferred to ER but yet found myself to be in such unchallenging situation, thus bored. So I took a travelling assignment to Washington DC where I was assigned to a cardio-vascular step down unit. I was seeing patients s/p CABG, s/P AVR and vascular surgeries including amputees....I was truly happy to work in these environments unlike everyone else. This is a level 1 trauma, high acuity hospital in Washington DC. By the way, I had felt that this hospital had lacked organization ever since I had started working as a travel nurse, because 50% of the staff in that unit was traveler or agency nurse. I had always wondered why they had high level of agency/travel nurses compare to other hospitals. I took advantage of the situation, and I volunteered to float as a telemetry nurse after 6 months of working as a cardiovascular-thoracic-vascular surgery step-down RN without realizing I would be the first floater in all their telemetry units. In my mind, I figured I would be off good use for them and at the same time I would be experiencing things I had never worked with, such as s/p PCI, s/p CABG/AVR and so on. I realized that I was the first person to do so, because I found another agency nurse complaining that someone started floating to all the units thus every agency/traveler/per-deim nurses had to start floating. I didn't identify myself as being such the person, but I was kind of surprised that the system had to change because of me. And a year later, after leaving that hospital and started working as ICU nurse, I applied to another hospital for perdiem position where they gave a personality test first. I was called for an interview with other nurses, but my interview was with the Chief nursing officer where as everyone else was with managers. And he explained to me that he was starting float ICU nursing positions for all the per diems and if I was interested in it. Mind u, I never applied for float ICU position, but respiratory care unit per diem position unit. So freaking weird...so anxious about it. I started talking to my friends of my experiences and they told me to take the myers-Biggs personality test and turned out that I was INTJ with a couple of different tests, very few of us. 1% of the population. So surprised and affirming result. I have known to feel so weird about me for long time.....I enjoy being alone, I truly don't need others for my pleasure time. I love reading and rationalizing. I am creative i.e. I enjoy drawing, painting and decorating my place constantly. I am a loner for most part. I am very good in school, and especially natural sciences and mathematics such as biology, chemistry (general, organic), and anatomy/ physiology, calculus, discrete mathematics courses and so on. I was a premed major for a couple of years before switching to computer science as undergrad, which I did really well as well. And as a second degree accelerated nursing program, I did well with 3.56 GPA. But at that time, all I was concerned with was getting a job that paid me so that I could support myself and my family. So I found nursing to be a good job without realizing what it took to be a nurse.
As I mentioned above, I work well with others at work places, even though I am a private, unsociable person. I help others...I am the first one to start new things in the working environment and the first one to teach others...whether others want to learn new things or not...I found myself most of the time against a brick stone...where nobody really cares to change the system, where as I see the opposite. And I get discouraged at times. Thus explains my continuous change of working environment...but now I am realizing may be nursing isn't really for me...but don't know what else to do with advanced nursing...I truly hate dealing with people...I like a job where it requires me to do physically and leave everyone else alone...I am very independent...but I sometimes feel like nursing doesn't allow me to be independent. The way I compensate for it is that I do my job independently but yet help everyone else who feels like they need help so that I don't get to be seen as not a team player. Even as a float nurse, I do everything myself...from patient care (thank God to the automatic rotational beds) to understanding patients' symptoms and dealing with it...I am a CCRN certified after 1 year of ICU. But surely, I am not your typical kind of nurse...Please people give me a hint on what I should do as a nurse, surely bedside nursing isn't for me. I applied to CRNA schools, a couple of them, thinking that it doesn't require socializing at all. But any other suggestions in nursing field is very appreciated. I truly need help!! I am currently in Acute Care NP program....because my advisor thought that was the right fit for me because it turns out that it's hard for acute nurses to get a job as acute nurse NP thus forced to get their DNP and eventually teach!!! LOL...that's just my thought!!!!
P.S. Don't be judgmental of my grammar and spelling...I am a bit disoriented of the wine I have had....if u don't understand, please state nicely that u don't understand...no harsh comments are welcomed, since I am highly sensitive, but very nice, understanding person....BE A NURSE AS U READ THIS!!!!!
