big city vs. small town

[all4schwa]

all of my clinicals have been at the small, community hospitals. I wanted a job at a big hospital for many reasons, and have been hired at one. however, a nurse at clinical yesterday made the comment 'oh, you won't know what to think when you get there, us hicks do things a lot differently" was she trying to make me anxious?

so my question for those in the know....what are the differences that i can expect to find between rural and big city hospitals (as it applies to nursing).

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

Don't worry about it; you can adapt. School doesn't teach you how to be a nurse, in any case.

School arms you with the tools to learn to be a nurse 'OJT'. Where you learn that OJT is at least as important as school.

You'll do fine.

~faith,

Timothy.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

i've worked in both. did my clinicals for school in smaller community hospitals and worked in large teaching hospitals including one in ohio. every hospital does things differently than every other hospital. larger hospitals, i will say, tend to be very organized. it's probably because they serve a much larger population of employees. it doesn't necessarily mean that they are formal or cold. that is purely due to the personality of the individuals that work there.

i liked working in the larger hospitals because they, in general, had more resources. when you are working in smaller places you often have to wear many hats and do many different jobs. in the large medical centers we had nurse specialists for just about every thing you can imagine: diabetes, wound care, cancer, psych, infection, transplant, cardiac, surgery, neuro, and on and on. you won't see that many nurse specialists in smaller hospitals so the nurses are expected to take on those roles. we also had residents and student doctors who were always around for backup. when we had a really sick patient, a real doctor was only seconds away. that is a real relief to know. i also saw so many different and varied patient problems in the large medical centers that i would have never seen in the rural places. i had never seen sickle cell patients, hard core drug addicts, deaf patients or indigent patients who needed a great deal of social service support until i was working in large hospitals.

[grinnurse, RN]

I did my clinicals in small, rural hospitals. 1 was "independant" and the other 2 were owned by larger coporations but I chose to begin my career in the small rural hospital. The differences that I saw were the same that Daytonite stated.

Lots more hats to wear in the rural hospital and extremely limited resources ie., staffing, supplies, etc. and lots of hospital politics. At the larger hospitals, you get more exposure to lots of different disease processes and skills, tend to have most everything you need and more autonomy.

I chose the smaller hospital for my first year b/c I had done clinicals there but also b/c I had worked there prior to and during nursing school so I thought that if the first year is the hardest then this could help me in the transition phase of nursing and it has helped me tremendously.

I think that as a new nurse you will adapt to your surroundings where ever you go. So, go with your heart, big or small and you should do fine. Good Luck during this first year!!

[all4schwa]

:thankya:Thank you guys very much, your words of wisdom mean a lot to me!!

~Angel~

:flowersfo