As a new grad, should I look for medsurg job or work psych fulltime nightshift?

[sozia]

Hi everyone,

I just graduated about 6 months ago with my BSN. I got a prn psych nurse job working first and second shifts at an inpatient psych hospital (we have 8hour shifts). I discovered that I like psych alot. However, I did my preceptorship in an ICU (which I also liked) and feel like I am missing out medsurg skills.

At my job, I was recently offered a full time night shift position.

The benefits are....1.full time benefits

2. guranteed work hours

3. not floating from unit to unit (peds, acute, icu, gero) means I get to know the pt's on one

unit more

4. supposed to have alternate weekends off

The down side is....1. I don't know which unit they would put me on

2. the pts are sleeping= depending on the unit I would either wake them up to do an

assessment or let them sleep and document they are sleeping, RR normal, etc

3. 8 hour shifts means working 5 days/week

4. not sure I want to be in psych my whole career and am told the longer I stay in it the

harder it is to get a medsurg job

5. I'm a morning person

I've been prn at this psych hospital for almost 4 months. should i take the nightshift position, or keep looking for something where I can use my medsurg skills. There are 7 nursing schools in my area and the market is flooded with new grads.

Thanks in Advance,

Soz

[flgardens]

It depends on what your long term goals are. You will need to decide if you want to stay in psych or go to another area.

If you are wanting to work in ICU eventually, I would say the Med-Surg skills are more useful to get into ICU (if you can't get an ICU position right out of school which can be pretty rare these days, from what I am hearing from new grads) then many ICU managers look for someone who has a year or two of Med Surg skills.

Whichever your choice, I would not quit one job until you have secured another one due to the economy and if your area has a lot of new grads looking for work it would be even harder to find another job.