Refresher Course

I have applied for a 10-week refresher course with clinicals. It is really expensive at $2900, but it will be worth it if it gives me the confidence to care for patients again. I have been following this dream of returning to nursing for awhile now (I retook the NCLEX and passed!), but the current economic conditions scare me. New grads are having trouble getting jobs, and I hear that hospitals prefer them over returning nurses, so I'm worried about investing even more of my fast dwindling savings. Things have changed so much here in California even in the past six months. Hospital sponsorships for the refresher program have disappeared.

Has anyone recently finished a refresher program and been welcomed back into the profession? How did you do it? Because I gotta tell you...that 15 year absence on my resume just doesn't put me at the top of the heap and I know it.

What else should I do to make my resume look better? Classes, etc??

Thanks for any advice

If you do not get what you want, ie: like med surg hosp. etc......... there are some quick fixes ( well I say quick, but it may take a year or so) for me it was LTC, seemed like a field facing some real challenges, esp. with us baby boomers knocking at the door........ there is home health, there is hospice........

just because you were not on the "clock" for 15years, does not mean you lost intellegence. Maybe some current trends, methodologies etc....... but you are taking care of that with the refresher course.... also the clinical sites are a great source of "self marketing" everyone loves to hear, "I just love this unit etc., and you all work so good together"......... (even if you do not 100% mean it). There is nothing wrong with "I would love to work here either." I tell students to start selling their work worth and self early in clinicals....... Freq. they do not do it, but
us older........ why excuse me... more experienced have not problem.

Good luck, and welcome back !!!!

Hi Sally, Thanks for the response and for the much needed encouragement and advice. Yes, I know that I can network and sell myself while doing clinicals, but there are only about 10-12 clinical days and they are on weekends. So I'm hoping that my skills come back to me and I will impress someone. I hope those clinical days are enough...I wish it were more. (I must say I was an excellent nurse back in the day-hope I haven't lost it in the way that I have lost my vision ). If there are no jobs, at least maybe I can get a recommendation.

It's funny that you mention home health and hospice because that is my end goal. Hospice is the whole reason that I started on this journey, but I figured I'd have to do acute care first. Hospice around here is asking for two years of current acute care clinical. I've done home health before and loved it, loved it, loved it...but I feel that you need a lot of confidence because you are out there alone and you are often the only one that will notice that a patient is deteriorating. I wanted to do acute care, not because I like the environment, but because I think there is no safer way to develop/renew one's skills ....there is so much support around, unlike out in the field.

Just talking about it makes me smile. I've missed nursing so very much. So you think there's hope for me?

Thanks for the welcome back,

Karen

definitely it was some 19yrs. for me, and although I am now an adminstrative RN, I am bored, and returning to critical care this fall......... I had thought that I did not want to return to REAL nursing, after out so long, even though I had been on the fringe in medical supply sales etc...... but decided I would go back to school for an "allied profession", and did a respiratory therapist program at our local college. It was fun, and prior nursing made it very easy........ so I started working as ER/ICU respiratory therapist, and in 6mos. knew it backfired, I could not separate out just the respiratory system from the entire patient, and did the refresher courses to return to REAL nursing ......... Funny in Texas, Hospice appreciates a LTC orrientation....... It is an area I will work in sometime before I really quit

You will be fine, and something else, we enjoy it more now with our increasing age......

Good luck, Sally

So, you were gone from nursing for 19 years, but worked in medical supply sales. Then you became a respiratory therapist, then you did the refresher program, then you did admin, and now you're doing critical care? You must be something else! You had no problem getting hired after the refresher program? I never even thought of going for an allied health position, but that could be another route in the door.

What kind of admin do you do? I did utilization review for awhile, easy job, but frustrating and lots of angry docs.

Your story is very interesting to me.

facility nurse assessor at a nursing and rehab center/ADON

caution the allied health route can bite you in the booty, having to be "constrained within the limits of that allied role" was very frustrating, that is why I did the reactivation and refresher course route, the Tx.BON requires it after 5 years of not practicing........ now if I had just kept my lis. updated, wheather I was using it or not would have been better...... who knew the "burn'out"route would get boring......It also helps that where I plan to return to critical care is where I graduated from nursing school ( a diploma program), in gwaddddddddd!!!!! 1972.

Are they receptive to you (in critical care) once you complete the refresher?

Yes, I know...you never know what life is going to throw at you. (I graduated in 84...it doesn't FEEL like that long ago ) At least you didn't let your license totally expire like I did! but I think that was good for me...to totally retake boards...gave me confidence. Also, when I took a review course (the oldest person in the room with a bunch of new grads!), it gave me confidence that I really hadn't forgotten all and I did know soooo much more than the new grads.

You're not seeing age-discrimination out there? I know you didn't like the allied health bit, but I'm wondering how much 'working somewhere in the medical field' helped you? I'm willing to do whatever it takes. Of course, allied health would be pretty much a last resort....but you do what you gotta do.

All I know is that I'm getting zero response to my resume, so I'm going to start showing up with my dynamic personality and see if that changes anything!

Thanks for the input!

oh by all means show up with the dynamic personality !!!! cause all paper looks alike..

well, it appears home health and hospice is out. They say that state law requires that I have 'recent' acute care experience and they could not risk considering me for employment. My RN license does not even allow me to work as a nurses aide. So discouraging!