Too Smart for Rehab Nursing

I'm 6 months out of nursing school and was hired straight to an acute setting Cardiac Rehab floor, attached to a large hospital in NYC. Our patients are generally 7-10 days out of CABG, valve replacements, etc. I deal with IV abx, heparin pumps, PICC's, wound dsgs including JP's and vacs. I've been in on numerous MRT's and one complete code. Nurses who have been to other places say this floor is busy for a rehab unit and is more like med-surg at times. Many of these patients probably should not acutally be in rehab but pressure on the attendings causes them to be transferred to us early. I'm working nights, which I don't love but I am dealing with it okay. The leadership and other nurses on the floor are supportive and I do feel like it has been a good learning environment for me as a new grad. My assessment skills may be better because I don't have as many monitors to rely on. However, as someone else mentioned I am afraid of being "pigeon-holed" into rehab nursing. Any ideas on how to present yourself in an interview to show you are competent to handle med-surg like problems? I feel that in an interview I could describe the kind of patients I deal with, but on paper I am a rehab nurse and that might detract from furture employers even wanting to interview me. I like my floor and I'm okay for awhille. But things are slow on nights...rehab patients sleep. At least they should be. We all know that's not how it always goes. It definitely has moments of craziness but it also has moments of being boring. I see myself moving on. Though I don't know what it would be to...I just think I want to do something else....at some point.

When I took the review course for certification (haven't tested yet, but hope to next summer), we didn't discuss cardiac rehab at all. I guess I always thought it was a completely different specialty from 'rehab' as I see it, where our patient population is a majority of strokes, TBI, spinal cord, amputations, multi-trauma, etc. We do get some cardiac patients, but they are usually anoxic injuries after an arrest.

I did my leadership hours on a tele / cardiac floor, where most patients were in for observation, very rare to have an IV running, patients were up and walking and on their own - to me, that seemed less like med-surg type nursing, yet it counts much more than rehab... I didn't get that.

I don't know where that balance is, if there is one, when you present yourself. Your cover letter is your first impression, so be sure to include a blurb about your competencies and maybe even a 'typical' patient to show that you know more / do more than they may expect. Then, once you get the interview, you can expand on that even more.

amalbon, I think the fact that it is exclusively a cardiac rehab is in your favor. On your resume you could say something like: Acute cardiac rehab floor-Cared for post op cardio thoracic surgical patients in an inpatient acute care hospital setting. I hate that rehab gets such a bad rap. I too work on an acute rehab floor in a hospital, but people see rehab and they think nursing home. LTC also gets a bad rap BTW.

Just wanted to say how inspiring this thread has been. I'm a licensed massage therapist, now in the process of finishing up pre-reqs so I can apply to nursing school. I work out of a medical office and deal with a lot of patients with pain issues who often have complex health issues as well. I love seeing them improve and think it's the greatest thing when they don't need to see me anymore, or at least not as often.

I'm going to keep an open mind as I go through nursing school, but so far rehab nursing sounds like it may be the best fit for me. (I'm not too worried about not being valued as a rehab nurse -- I deal w/that all the time as a massage therapist, although thankfully not from my patients or the people who know & work with me! I'm old enough [42] to know that I just want to do something that I enjoy and to help people as well).

So thank you, rehab nurses!!

The older you get, the less you'll care what other people think about your career choices.

Because really, who hasn't been told "You're so smart, why didn't you do medicine?"....

[I say "well, because then I'd end up being a doctor"]

Do what you enjoy.

Because really, who hasn't been told "You're so smart, why didn't you do medicine?"....

[I say "well, because then I'd end up being a doctor"]

LMAO! Classic.