Camp Omigosh Nearly Derails a Camp Nurse

Liddle, thank you for sharing from the heart. It is a decision not easily made. I made it under duress but am glad I did. Now I can concentrate on learning other things that I enjoy sharing with others. I am not tied down to a very frightening position,being responsible for another's life. While that may seem melodramatic it is the feeling I got when I did the last job, an on-call position. I recognized that I had to either up my game or find a new line. My plan at that time was a new line, perhaps home health, hospice,or some place where I would not be forced to fight death so hard. I had figured a part time job to supplement income and be part of allowing a natural death. you know that is not what happened. Instead I got out of it completely except for AN. I have few regrets. Money is one and another is the feelings I get sometimes that I should be using what I learned in school. I now recognize I use what I learned in nursing and in life for my current position. So usually I can self talk out of this "shoulding" myself.

I know this is no help in making your decision. Put it off until you are thinking with less emotion and get more facts about what you need to do and how you wold go about getting more education.

I'm at those crossroads myself.

I am deeply disillusioned by the way nursing has changed in many ways but mostly with respect to the very limited ability to gain employment being an older nurse with no BSN. I was a hospital bedside nurse for 30 years, lost my position back in 2008 for what I believe to be doing the right thing- I stuck up for an other nurse and the mob turned on me. That was before 'bullying' became a fashion statement. I have managed to just squeek by with one temp position after another, and sometimes an agency der deim now and then.

What I came to realize back in 2008 and 8 months of unemployment was, the world of nursing doesn't want us old nurses and especially doesn't want us without the BSN and in the hospitals. I thought it was me personally until I started doing alot of reading and following the news/current events.

My current plan of attack is to stick with seasonal work. Camp nursing was going to be one of them. I am not going to stick my neck out again.Hopefully I can get to that ever so precious BSN and see if that takes me to the 'far away places'(haha) academia promises. My travels into the world of "temp" has shown me there's more to nursing than the hospital environment- I have learned new things- LTC, telehealth, triage, epidemiology, dabbled into public health, outpatient family practice including pediatrics, case managment, disease management. I have learned new words like "clinical Nurse" "non-clinical""informatics" Call center". I have become spoiled and set free.

I will try my plan and see if it can take me to goal #1- that BSN and then make the decision of whether or not to leave Nursing totally behind; but I do know, I refuse to go back to the hospital again.

I wonder if the power that be in nursing ever dreamed that when they locked out the older nurses, the older nurses would end up not wanting to comeback, even those of us who are not retirement age.

Liddle- I know it's hard, believe me. I was so angry and lost after 30 years bedside was all I knew. The thing that kept me or got me to try the first out of the box was I needed full time employment and Nursing is all I know how to do.

I remember my first thought after I realized from the job loss in January 2008, I cannot just walk into another hospital and get hired tomorrow like it was in the 1980's. Something had changed and I thougt it was me. I didn't know what to do. It was cold hard reality that no hospital around me was hiring.

I started to apply to anywhere nursing- I googled the home health/VMA close to me. I called a coworker who started doing Home health and asked her what it was like. Up to that point I thought "home health was the child of the lesser god in nursing" but I was going to bite the bullet any way. I had to. I had 2 daughters counting on me, a home to keep, my savings we were living off of. I was too stupid to file Unemployment so no income. So, I was going to settle for what I thought was second best. Well I didn't get the position.

So I signed up getting the only hospital position I could get that July 2008 a per deim in a hospital cardiac stepdown and I signed up with an agency and told them all I wanted to do was LTC. I never did LTC in my life but to me that was also the child of the lesser god, less threatening; after all, "The Hospital was the creme del la creme" as we were told in school. The next dose of reality, the shifts weren't coming the way I remembered in perdeim hospital or agency nurses talked- agency work 7 days/week. the hospital was in financial trouble and cutting nursing staff hours. I thought I was safe with the LTC agency- wrong! LTC was cutting back also.

Well it was April 2009, I was also helping to take care of my elderly mom. I began to google (looking for her a medical day care to get some socialization and PT,OT). I found the Dept of Aging and got on the State Dept of Health website. On there I saw a job posting for a "Regional Staff Nurse- temporary, grant funded position in the Infectious Disease Dept". I thought to myself, I know isolation precautions- gloves, masks , gowns. So as a quiet joke to myself, out of frustration, I applied and forgot about it. In addition that day, being in the" fed up with the job hunt mood" I was in, I also saw a positing on USAjobs.gov for a "Clinical Nurse" at the nearest Military base and applied to that one too. What did I have to loose. I was essentially unemployed and I applied there to.

In doing my agency few shifts at the LTC, the perdeim few shifts and I signed up to do Flu shot clinics. Well in Nov 2009 I was called by the DOH and given the position. When i got to the "office" i didn't have one clue what to do. I stareted to jam reading sessions on Epidemiology, and every thing Epidemiology and after 3 months- it clicked.Just before that position ended, the Military base called and asked me to come for an interview. I got that job 2 months after the Dept of health job ended. Again- I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Went home crying every night almost quit and di googling telehealth, triage, case managment, then 3 months after the nightly reading jam sessions and a video i found on the Walgreen's website- it clicked. That job I loved and it lasted until this past May.


The dabble and experimentation gave me a glimpse of what else is out there, I am less afraid as I was back in 2008 to apply to the out of the box, other nursing areas, the non-clinical. The base job also gave me experience in pediatrics which I have sworn for 30 years I would NEVER do. My second phone call to a mom, I loved it and it came natural to me. So I am no longer afraid of Peds.

Moral of the story- Us old Nurse gals/guys have to not be afraid. If you examine your skills and ask your self "can I do this ??" ( like the Dept of Health Infectious disease job) The first step is hard- just close your eyes and plunge. Then do a mountain of reading and self study and it will click( it's just a learning curve).

I have sent out dozens of applications, no bites, I have had 2 interview- Home Health/VNA and an Home Infusion Nurse per deim, no word yet. I have by back up plan in place. I filed for Unemployment and signed up for the flu shots for this fall and my plan is chart reviews in the spring and camp nursing in the summer. I will work at grocery store if I have to make a full time pay. Either way- I will know whether I will continue in the roller coaster ride called nursing by the end of next summer.

Check out your dept of health, your elementary school for school nurse, the home health, the infusion companies, the doctor's offices- It sounds like you have alot of pediatric experience. Check out you church for Parish Nursing, the nursing agencies also-look in the careers section of the department stores- Lowes, Home depot, macy's JcPennies- they hire occupational nurses( I found a temporary occupational nursing position posting at Tiffany's jewelers in my state- I applied!! didn't hear anything but who knows) Check oput the nurse advise lines around your area. I think you posted you are in NH or Maine- check out Sironahealth.com Check out the pediatric hospitals for after hours nursing advise lines. I think both maine and NH are compact states- that's why the nursing advise lines are more plentiful up in New England and you have more rural areas. More opportunities in the remote( work out of home office on the phone!!) triage area of nursing. In my state we have postage size lawns- people slammed up against each other.

At the department of health- i didn't see one patient- it wasn't that kind of position. I loved it. At the base- I saw very few, just talked to them on the phone, I loved it- no call bells, no 4 people talking at you at once, noover head paging, no meds to give out. I just had to talk on the phone and give advise and there are protocol books to give the answers

keep us posted. Do what you have to do.

All the "terrible" things you listed about what you had to put up with at camp sounded fine to me - your description of busy camp nursing with all it's pitfalls and emergencies actually seems right up my alley. But I love that kind of stuff, and I love working with kids. It sounds like you really hate it, which is totally okay, so just say no. Let somebody know (and soon) that this was your last year, so now they have a year to find a replacement and they can't tell you that camp won't go on without you. Good luck! There are so many fields of nursing, you just need to find something that better fits with your personality.

One thing I would suggest is to write P&P based on your experiences. You and your partner have been doing it long enough you know the routine things. This year has given you experience with the non-routine things. Make sure you put in how to get kids and staff to doctor, hospital and dentist. (teeth get knocked out frequently). I have a relative who can give you pointers (after the summer). She used to be a camp director so she has some idea of all the things that can go wrong.

I wrote tons of P&P. It helped me to think through situations better and write the cookbook so not everyone had to fall in all the traps I found.

I just thought of that. It is a confidence builder.