Am I less likely to get hired into ICU as a psych nurse than a new grad?

beekee · Mar 29, 2019

Yeah, a six month stint in anything will not make your resume look better. Instead, you will look like a job hopper. If you want to do ICU, do ICU. If you want to do psych, do psych.

umbdude, MSN, APRN · Mar 29, 2019

If you want to work in ICU, psych is probably the worst place to start. Go with med surg, tele, or some step-down units if you can't get into ICU right away.

Jedrnurse, BSN, RN · Mar 29, 2019

No matter what you do, a six month stint will not bolster your resume, it will stick a red flag on it.

NooNieNursie · Apr 8, 2019

On 3/29/2019 at 4:02 AM, badfish2162 said:
Hey there,
Long time lurker on this site but first time posting. I just passed the NCLEX 3 days ago and I'm already finding myself in a bit of a quandary and was hoping to get some advice.
I currently work for a mental health institute that immediately offered me a psych nurse position after I passed my boards. My ultimate goal however, is and has been to work ICU (fortunately in my area at least, it appears that new grads were having little trouble being accepted into ICU positions). At any rate I accepted the offer from my company to transfer positions to become a psych nurse. In addition to fairly nice benefits transferring over (including a hefty pool of PTO that would be converted to the higher pay rate) I figured I would do it for 6 months and it would strengthen and diversify my resume. Now I'm wondering if that might have been a giant mistake after reading about others' experience transferring from psych to almost anything, let alone ICU:
https://allnurses.com/transitioning-psych-icu-med-surg-t664795/
https://allnurses.com/psych-nursing-icu-t275261/
My take-away from what I've read is that not only will accepting the psych nurse position not bolster my resume, it will actually make me less desirable (as an ICU applicant) than a new grad.. I definitely don't want to set myself back years as one of the above posters was and I definitely, definitely don't want to become less desirable than I might already be as a new grad. Does anyone have any experience making this transition or know of anyone who has? Should I bite the bullet of being a giant flake by dipping out on my already accepted psych nurse position and immediately start applying for ICU positions? Thanks a bunch for any input/advice you can give.

I dont know if you live in an oversaturated part of country.

If you do, it is not simply an issue of "getting an ICU job". Even if u graduated from best BSN school with 4.0 unless you know someone, you are not getting an ICU job as a new grad.

The way new grads get into the ICU these days is first step is accept a TELEMETRY position. Most RNs hate telemetry because it combines the worst aspects of ICU and med surg onto one floor LOL. In NJ you have state mandated 6 patients only, but most of your patients are highly acute and one step away from medical ICU. However, you have 6 pts, which is only slightly less from a standard med surg floor with lower acuity. As a result, tele jobs are easy to come by for new grads, particularly on the night shift.

Since tele is a higher acuity unit, you will likely be able to get your ACLS through your employer, which is a critical prerequisite before you are considered for any ICU job. After doing tele for 2 years with ACLS you may then be able to get an ICU job.

The days of recruiting new grad nurses fresh from school any specialty they want they got and they will pay for your ACLS and sign on bonus, that is over.

One thing is for certain, do NOT take a psych job fresh out of school if you want to work in the ICU. There is no way you hope to have even slightly relevant experience that will make any hospital no matter how crappy, consider you as a good prospect to take on. Now if you were working on telemetry for 2 years *and* have ACLS, there is chance you can get ICU job.

verene, MSN · Apr 9, 2019

A 6 month stint in anything will probably not help, because that is barely enough time to be off orientation if you are doing a residency position. Psych to ICU isn't really a logical transition, and a year in psych, while potentially valuable in many ways, will require great selling of your skill set to a potential manager. It's more likely you'd end up doing a year of psych, then a year or two of med-surg, tele, or step down, before ending up in an ICU position.

However, it is not impossible to make the jump; one of my coworkers in the psych setting was a new grad who stayed with us for a year before jumping to a CCU at a trauma 1 hospital, and last I heard was doing well there.

Question is how set on are you on ICU?

If you really have no interest in actually working with a psych population, it may be better to hold out for an ICU job. If you enjoy psych and are willing to run the risk of a longer road to ICU, then it may be worth it to stay for a year before moving on.

Seeing Myself Out · Apr 9, 2019

Not just ICU but also med surg, tele, OR, and everything else in my experience. This entire professional discriminates against psych nurses and assume that we are too incompetent to learn to do anything else. I work part time in psych but spend my free time on non nursing interests. Hope things go different for you.

RNNPICU, BSN, RN · Apr 9, 2019

6 months will not give you any experience for anything. Do not leave after 6 months. After a year off of orientation see if there opportunites to shadow an ICU or other unit maybe see if you could do a PRN on a medical unit or something other than psych. Psych is not a traditional stepping stone to ICU, but doesn't mean it is impossible. You have already accepted the job, so congratulations.

OUt of curiousity, what makes you certain you will like ICU more than Psych? It sounds like you have a place that is excited to have you and is supportive. ICU may not be like that nor have as supportive environment.

Matthew RN, MSN · Apr 9, 2019

Most people addressed the shortness as being a detriment on your resume, I agree, but will address psych as a jumping point.

True or not, the feeling in most hospitals is that psych nurses quickly lose all their clinical skills. Most places psych nursing is non-clinical, for example at my hospital a patient needs to be cleared as having no medical problems prior to transferring to the psych unit. Knowing most hospitals feel that psych nurses are not good clinical, then yes psych experience won't help in any way get to the ICU.

FolksBtrippin, BSN, RN · Apr 10, 2019

Psych nursing is not good preparation for ICU nursing. Not because we psych nurses are "not clinical". But because what we do is very different from ICU.

It's better for you to go to step down, tele, med surg for crossover skills to ICU.

Psych, ED, corrections, detox, developmental disabilities all have a lot of crossover. Psych is not a dead end.

But it sounds like it's not what you want right now. You may find that you go to ICU and hate it and wish for your old psych job. For this reason, I suggest you do not burn any bridges if that is still possible at this point.