Choosing jobs wisely

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Hello everyone, I am a new graduate and became an RN in march. Yesterday I was offered a home health job with a good salary, benefits, vacation and of course some complicated patients providing great learning experiences. The place also offers regular promotions and raises from within. I am returning to school to become an NP so I do see a good future here with this company. However, I also want to specialize in critical care and take some time to be a critical care flight nurse. To do this, I need experience in an ER or ICU. My question is this: is it a smart move to take the home health job and gain some experience as a nurse then reapply to hospitals in a year? Will home health experience make it harder for me to get an ER or ICU position, or will it help me? I want to be involved in helping patients as a whole as well as emergency work. I love both so much. I just want to make the right decision here. Thank you for your thoughts and input.

Layla

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

It is smarter to be employed over unemployed. That being said, Home Health won't do much to help you get into ER or critical care.

Sometimes the job we really want isn't the one that is available. If you have applied for ER and critical care and have not gotten any bites, I would accept the HH position.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

I agree with the previous poster. If you are serious about being "on the road" towards an ER or ICU position, a job in Home Health is a "detour" not a "bridge." The longer you stay out of acute care and away from hospitalized patients, the harder it will be to get an ICU or ER job.

However ... being unemployed is not a good thing. And sometimes in life, we have to settle for what we can get and make the best of things rather than waste away as we wait for the perfect opportunity to come along.

What type of NP do you want to be? What type of work do you want to do long term as an NP? If you want to be an acute care NP in an ICU, then Home Health will not help you get there. But then, if you want to be an outpatient NP working with the types of patients you will be seeing in the Home Health job ... then that Home Health may be the perfect job for you now. (Maybe it is the ICU/ER/Flight nurse fantasy that is the "detour/distraction" for you. Maybe it is time to let that go, if you see yourself as not working in ICU/ER/Transport long term.)

So ... what type of work do you really want to do in long run? Let that be your guide.

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