Choosing Between Two Jobs - So Conflicted

[SJ1993]

Hi, I just graduated in May and passed my NCLEX on August 11th. I have two job offers, one is med-surg at the hospital, overnight shift. The other is at a cardiology clinic Monday-Friday 8-5. 

I have gone back and forth. Deep down in my heart, I truly want the med-surg job because I want to keep all of my skills current, that I just spent two years learning. The only dilemma I have is that I have a 3 month old daughter at home and she is my priority, which includes making sure she is taken care of. I feel like the overnight shifts will be difficult to work around because my husband works 24 hour shifts as a firefighter/paramedic. 

The hospital has expressed that they would do the absolute best they can with working around his schedule, but I am worried. I was a medical assistant while in nursing school so I am familiar with the clinic side, but not as an RN. The clinic job obviously has stable hours and I would always have daycare covered, but my heart is just pulling me to start in the hospital, it’s an indescribable feeling I cannot ignore. I am also worried about not utilizing my nursing skills to the full extent.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks! 

[JKL33]

20 hours ago, SJ1993 said:

The hospital has expressed that they would do the absolute best they can with working around his schedule

This is a real wild card. They can say whatever they want but ultimately you won't be signing any contract that notes these people are going to work around your husband's schedule.

This aspect of your decision-making boils down to whether you have a solid childcare plan for if/when they don't work around his schedule. You can take your chances, but if you want to go that route then you'll have to consider other factors, including what risks you're running if you can't make their scheduling work and need to leave the position.

There are some other factors you haven't mentioned as well. Are there major distance (driving) differences between the two? Pay that is significantly better/worse at one place? Contracts obligating you to pay back money if you need to leave the position before X length of time? Types of orientation offered? Culture/vibe at the two workplaces?

[amoLucia]

Take note: oral promises aren't worth the paper they're NOT written on.

A manager can try accommodating you now, but say in 5 months, there's a new manager who just doesn't care. Oh well, I guess you're out of luck!

Awful risky to me.

[Hannahbanana, BSN, MSN]

You’re not that far out from school, so please listen to the voice of experience. What students call “nursing skills” are tasks and psychomotor actions that while interesting and initially exciting are not, strictly speaking, what nurses are. There’s tremendous pressure to pass “skills labs” and competition, even if subliminal, to “do” them in clinical.  Nod your head if you’ve ever heard or said, “Oooh, you’re so lucky, you got to do a ... in clinical,” or, “I never got to do a … as a student and I’m worried that my new job will look down on me,” or something like them.

This focus on what nurses “do” as opposed to what nurses are is what’s coloring your expectations. I can also see that in your description of clinic work as seen by a medical assistant, again, as what you “did.”

You are at the beginning of your nursing career and have little foreknowledge of what being  a nurse is, really. You can be a nurse who changes a life in a clinic setting every bit as well as in the most complex critical care unit in the land. You will learn from your friends that those “skills” you so keenly don’t want to lose will be minor, minor parts of their days-weeks-years. What you will have that’s unique to you is your own life and your degree of control over it.

This is why if you have an opportunity to take a position that avoids the huge stressors of staffing coordinators who will not honor whatever rainbows and roses the recruiter mentioned, awful childcare options, and time away from your husband, you should jump at it. You will rarely have such an opportunity in nursing (especially as a new grad). The decreased stressors and opportunity to learn how to be a nurse, as opposed to how to do “stuff” in a hospital setting, is no less valuable in developing a better sense of what nurses are, rather than what they do.

Good luck.

 

[SJ1993]

15 minutes ago, Hannahbanana said:

You’re not that far out from school, so please listen to the voice of experience. What students call “nursing skills” are tasks and psychomotor actions that while interesting and initially exciting are not, strictly speaking, what nurses are. There’s tremendous pressure to pass “skills labs” and competition, even if subliminal, to “do” them in clinical.  Nod your head if you’ve ever heard or said, “Oooh, you’re so lucky, you got to do a ... in clinical,” or, “I never got to do a … as a student and I’m worried that my new job will look down on me,” or something like them.

This focus on what nurses “do” as opposed to what nurses are is what’s coloring your expectations. I can also see that in your description of clinic work as seen by a medical assistant, again, as what you “did.”

You are at the beginning of your nursing career and have little foreknowledge of what being  a nurse is, really. You can be a nurse who changes a life in a clinic setting every bit as well as in the most complex critical care unit in the land. You will learn from your friends that those “skills” you so keenly don’t want to lose will be minor, minor parts of their days-weeks-years. What you will have that’s unique to you is your own life and your degree of control over it.

This is why if you have an opportunity to take a position that avoids the huge stressors of staffing coordinators who will not honor whatever rainbows and roses the recruiter mentioned, awful childcare options, and time away from your husband, you should jump at it. You will rarely have such an opportunity in nursing (especially as a new grad). The decreased stressors and opportunity to learn how to be a nurse, as opposed to how to do “stuff” in a hospital setting, is no less valuable in developing a better sense of what nurses are, rather than what they do.

Good luck.

 

Wow, thank you so much for putting this into perspective for me, your point of view is much appreciated. I have accepted the clinic position as of a few days ago and am very excited to start. I appreciate you taking the time to respond! 

[amoLucia]

Good for you! JMHO but I believe that you made the right choice.

PP Hannah's last paragraph said it all so very well!