After more than 3 years, I finally landed a hospital job!

[murseforever]

After more than 3 years since graduating nursing school, I can finally begin my journey as a nurse in the hospital setting! I am very excited but also very nervous as I haven't been in an acute care setting for so long and feel like I have lost most of the stuff I have learned in nursing school. Do you guys have any advice for someone entering the acute care setting this late in the game?

p.s.

For those still looking to get a hospital job, don't lose hope! It took me years but finally made it. I worked in home health and community to get some experience. I also became a hospice volunteer to pass time. if you can't get a hospital job right away, get your experience elsewhere and volunteer! It's better than becoming an old new grad with nothing to show for.

[Nola009]

Wow, congrats! Did you do anything different lately or do you attribute this new job opportunity to previous experience(s)?

[murseforever]

Wow, congrats! Did you do anything different lately or do you attribute this new job opportunity to previous experience(s)?

Thank you! I would say both. The experience helped but also I changed up my resume and answers to interview questions. I had a few interviews in the past for a hospital job that I didn't get. I figured I wasn't answering the questions correctly so I worked on it. For this interview, I was more confident and answered the questions with assertiveness and gave examples based on work and volunteer experience.

[Farawyn]

Congrats! I hope you love it!

[GuEsT78]

Congratulation! I hope you love the work. Just keep in mind that hospitals (particularly on day shift) have a level of politics that's likely to go far beyond anything you may have experienced in other health-care settings. That's particular true of the larger hospitals. You'll need to learn how to play certain games while keeping your integrity.

Here's one illustration. I worked nights on the Hem-Onc unit of a top children's hospital. It was very demanding. Most of kids had leukemia with IVs running fairly fast. They voided two or three times in the night and we needed to track and total their fluid in and out at 6 a.m. That was the norm.

But occasionally, there'd be a little boy or girl who was just admitted or was about to go home. They didn't have an IV running and, like most ordinary kids, didn't need to void during the night. Given how tired they often were, I hated to wake them at 6 a.m. just to get a number to put in the charts. There wasn't a medical reason for it. As I told one colleague, "This little boy is in the same situation he was the night before when he was at home and no one cared if he voided or not."

I hit on a solution. At 6 a.m. I wouldn't wake that poor kid who, if he was about to face chemo, needed every bit sleep he could get. I boldly placed a "0" in his fluid-out column. But by 7 a.m. day shift had arrived, making so much racket, no one could sleep. Then he'd be awake, and then I'd make a point to get a void to record.

The politics was that some stickler for procedure on day shift might scream bloody murder about that zero total. That wasn't just likely. It was almost certain. Two of the day shift nurses were that ill-tempered. But I stopped them cold with that 7 a.m. void. "See," I could say, "this kid has no problem. He voided fine. In fact, his fluid out for the shift is actually more than his fluid in"

Thanks to those 7 a.m. voids, those kids got to sleep on, and I never was hassled. That's politics. It's learning to play the games without hurting yourself or your patients. You have to be clever, but it can be done. Work at it and get good at it, You can even learn to enjoy those games.

--Michael W. Perry, author of My Nights with Leukemia