New grad psych nurses

Specialties Psychiatric

Published

Do any new grad psych nurses regret going to psych right after graduation with no medical floor experience? Is it difficult to land a medical floor job after a few years in psych nursing?

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.
Do any new grad psych nurses regret going to psych right after graduation with no medical floor experience? Is it difficult to land a medical floor job after a few years in psych nursing?

No regrets here! However, I have heard that acute care facilities won't let you move onto them if you only have non acute experience.

Because I was an Lvn intending on eventually becoming an rn, I didn't mind working in psych as a new grad Lvn. Loved it and learned a lot!!

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Thank you so much for your response! My passion is psych and I went into psych right after graduation. However, I'm just worried that if life happens and I have to move somewhere else, I might not find a psych job.

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Specializes in Mental Health.

It seems that psych jobs are a plenty ; )

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I came into psych in an acute inpatient psych hospital right out of school. I have been here for a year now. I haven't regretted it. You will encounter psych patients in any line of nursing, as psych patients get sick like everyone else. I feel better knowing I've gotten a good handle on it at this point. However, I was just hired on a telemetry unit with a different hospital system. I never got any calls from previous applications and attributed that to being a psych nurse. However, once I got my magical one year of experience as a RN, I started getting calls from everywhere. I will remain PRN in psych because I do enjoy it. As I am pursuing my MSN in nursing education, I felt it would be beneficial to have a hefty amount of medical experience as well.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.
It seems that psych jobs are a plenty ; )

In my area, there are a good deal of psych jobs available for new grad nurses and aides. At least in privately funded psych.

I think it's because 1) a lot of people are afraid of psych 2) those that aren't afraid sometimes just can't handle the environment and 3) private psych pays less to staff than county/state psych facilities. This, I think, discourages those with lots of psych experience from applying. (My DON explained point #3 to me)

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Specializes in Mental Health.

What state do you live in?

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.
What state do you live in?

Cali. Central/Northern. 😀

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.

I thought I would regret it, but as time went on and I gained more experience, I fell in love. And psych turns out to be one of the easier specialties to get work in, because many nurses don't want to work psych.

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Thanks everyone for your responses! I feel better now :)

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