Career advice

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Just after some advice. Im 2 years qualified, i have a year in an AMU and a year in A+e under my belt. Had to move to a new area because of my wifes job. There wasn’t much job choice and I couldnt find any acute so i got a job in the community for an MDT rehab team. So the pro’s are its good hours, flexible, no nights and im out and about. The job is fairly easy, not like district with a massive patient load, coming from ED its a doddle. Cons is I feel like im de skilling and its quite boring. Its therapy led so as nurses we dont have much input despite the normal skin and medication stuff. I do want to progress into management at some point and im just wondering whether my next few years would be better spent elsewhere. Theres a job come up in ITU but its still early days. Plus its back to shifts and nights. Am i wasting my time here? Would i better off going back into acute care. I dont feel like ive found my niche yet and have no idea what to do with my career. Thankyou for reading, any advice would be grand.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

Hi, Nicholas. Welcome to allnurses.

What country are you in? I am guessing that it is not the United States as I am not familiar with most of the abbreviations you used in your original post. As most (but not all) members of allnurses are from the US, it might help if you identified that country you are in and/or place the post in a forum targeted toward your country to get the most effective responses.

Yours is the type of post that usually get several good responses -- but if people aren't sure where you are, they might be hesitant to offer advice.

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Sorry I couldnt find a UK specific forum. Im in the UK, i will try and post this somewhere else

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Specializes in NICU/Mother-Baby/Peds/Mgmt.

Can you move into management in your current job eventually? Would you want to? If not, if might be better to go back to the hospital where you'll meet more people and there are more chances to move into management. And I would think that someone who has experience in more areas would be good manager, as long as you have experience in the area you're managing. You'll see lots of different ways of managing people and units and to me that's a plus, as long as you aren't continually job-hopping. What's ITU by the way?

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1 hour ago, Elaine M said:

Can you move into management in your current job eventually? Would you want to? If not, if might be better to go back to the hospital where you'll meet more people and there are more chances to move into management. And I would think that someone who has experience in more areas would be good manager, as long as you have experience in the area you're managing. You'll see lots of different ways of managing people and units and to me that's a plus, as long as you aren't continually job-hopping. What's ITU by the way?

I would like to say yes but my current job is therapy led so the occupational therapists and physios tend to do better, nursing is a smaller part of the team. And i am not sure really, i think because the scope here is too small I would be too bored having to wait for it. ITU is intensive care, and i agree I am conscious that i dont want to keep shifting around so to move again I need to get a few years in.

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.

Hello and welcome to allnurses.com, @Nicholas Farrell

We have moved your topic to the UK forum where you will receive support.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

Hi Nicholas, (you may want to change that as it is never a good idea to have a real name on an internet forum) Welcome.

After 20+ years in ED I can appreciate your dilemma. The no nights is a great thing but you miss the hustle and bustle and admit it, the adrenaline rush of ED. Also it is bad enough being told what to do by the medical staff but by physios....? Just wrong.

OK, have a good hard, honest look at what you are doing. Yes it is bringing in a salary but are you happy? If not why not? What will get you happier? Does your local hospital have pre-admission clinics? That can give you a Monday to Friday with no nights and allow you to use some of the skills you have.

You may have to bite the bullet and go back into an ED, or perhaps an MIU or similar.

Good luck with your decision and I hope it works out for you.

Sorry, I know you are looking for something more concrete but only you can make the decision.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.
7 hours ago, Elaine M said:

What's ITU by the way?

ITU = Intensive Therapy Unit, as Nicholas said, an ICU.

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Specializes in Advanced Practice, surgery.

Hi Nicholas, it's such a shame you can't seem to fine your niche in your current post rehab nursing can be so rewarding and true MDT working means you can develop skills used by your therapy colleagues to enhance your nursing skills.

I have been part of a similar team where we all have some shared competencies so for example I can assess and fit some equipment, assess gait and support mobility assessments, our therapy colleagues do some simple dressings, obs and continence assessments. We developed generic competencies to help with this.

I came to this job from acute care, I love it but i am lucky i work with very progressive and receptive people.

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On 9/28/2019 at 11:00 AM, GrumpyRN said:

Hi Nicholas, (you may want to change that as it is never a good idea to have a real name on an internet forum) Welcome.

After 20+ years in ED I can appreciate your dilemma. The no nights is a great thing but you miss the hustle and bustle and admit it, the adrenaline rush of ED. Also it is bad enough being told what to do by the medical staff but by physios....? Just wrong.

OK, have a good hard, honest look at what you are doing. Yes it is bringing in a salary but are you happy? If not why not? What will get you happier? Does your local hospital have pre-admission clinics? That can give you a Monday to Friday with no nights and allow you to use some of the skills you have.

You may have to bite the bullet and go back into an ED, or perhaps an MIU or similar.

Good luck with your decision and I hope it works out for you.

Sorry, I know you are looking for something more concrete but only you can make the decision.

...At least in the US physio is graduate level degree minimum. where as the baseline nursing is a ADN or BSN.

When it comes to rehab, I trust a physio far more than MDs or nurses. I worked as an MA in a pain clinic for years....the doc got people hooked on opiods and the physios got them off and out of pain.

My " experienced" Nursing professors have no clue about the Physiology of chronic pain as evidence by the wrong answers they gave me, but my 33 year old physical therapist literally wrote a book on it that they now use in pain medicine fellowships.

I find the more people talk *** about other professions, the less they know about thier own.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.
20 hours ago, TheAngryMan said:

...At least in the US physio is graduate level degree minimum. where as the baseline nursing is a ADN or BSN.

This is a UK forum and the person was asking advice about a UK work problem. Nobody cares what happens in the US.

Qualifications are different, no such thing as ADN or BSN.

My comment about taking orders from physios was a bit of satire/sarcasm as I used to have to do the physios work when they had every weekend off and I was left to mobilise patients.

20 hours ago, TheAngryMan said:

When it comes to rehab, I trust a physio far more than MDs or nurses. I worked as an MA in a pain clinic for years....the doc got people hooked on opiods and the physios got them off and out of pain.

Again nobody cares. The question was about an MDT - do you know what that is or even what that means?

Nurses and physios do different things but rehab in the context of the MDT means frailty and/or long term illness not pain relief.

20 hours ago, TheAngryMan said:

My " experienced" Nursing professors have no clue about the Physiology of chronic pain as evidence by the wrong answers they gave me, but my 33 year old physical therapist literally wrote a book on it that they now use in pain medicine fellowships.

And your point is...?

Chronic pain is a recognised problem hence the "Pain Team" who deal with this as a specialty.

20 hours ago, TheAngryMan said:

I find the more people talk *** about other professions, the less they know about thier own.

Remember that the next time you interject yourself into a conversation about something you know nothing about in a country that is not yours using a healthcare system you are unfamiliar with.

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Specializes in Critical care.

If you’re after a change of scenery then itu will do it for you, however, getting into senior positions in critical care means sticking it out for the long haul, if you’re after climbing the ladder into management as a long term goal it may be worthwhile looking at a different path.

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