Career decisions......what to do?

[ottersloveoysters]

I have been working at a large teaching hospital for almost 3 years (first nursing job, BSN) working as an outpatient clinic/research nurse. I really want to get away from the research side of things and beef up my clinical skills. I have been applying to positions with not a lot of luck. One thing that gets in my way is I am only applying for day or evening positions. I have a history of depression and I fear messing with my sleep schedule will really affect my mood. I want patient contact, I want to learn and I want to work with a broader patient population. I have been applying to jobs outside my current hospital but it seems my experience is not appealing because it is not acute care. What would you do in my situation?

A. Continue to apply to jobs within current hospital

B. Go for a job at a SNF or rehab

C. Something else?

[akellisrn]

Hi there. You are correct in that it is really difficult to get hired without experience unless you are willing to go through some sort of internship. Since your only experience is not in direct patient care, you may have to realize that you'll have to "pay your dues". You have experience yes, but especially a large teaching hospital might prefer you go through a formal GN internship and start at night; that is typically the norm. You're basically asking to get hired on a unit w/ no acute care experience and unless you're hired as a new grad with all that comes with that... acute care hospital might be tricky.

I obviously don't know the extent of your issues with depression but you might be ok for a while at least if you can stick to a somewhat consistent schedule (meaning you can flip over a few days at a time to a day schedule when you're off) or if you have medication. I understand the concern though. I was never a good night-shift worker, I was tired for 3 years. It's just completely abnormal to my natural rhythms and I never adjusted.

I have found over the years that anytime you leave the bedside and do things that are not direct patient-facing (education, management, informatics, case management, etc) that the jump back to the bedside gets harder and harder as time goes on.

Best of luck!