Advice for a New LPN and correctional nursing?

Specialties Correctional

Published

I am just starting my career as an LPN. I just began a job in corrections. It is very different from my experiences in clinical and my former position as a CNA at a local hospital. My plan is to go back and get my RN beginning next year. My worry is that all my classmates that are working LTC and rehab will be so far ahead of me in the skills dept when I get back to school. Am I setting myself up to be "stuck" into a career in corrections? Will hospitals look at my resume and look down upon my first years being in corrections? Has anyone here began in corrections and transitioned into a more traditional hospital setting? Just hoping I am making the right decisions for my career, and would like some advice from someone who may have some experience with this type of situation.

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Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.

Working in corrections is not unlike being a nurse in a small town. You see a lot of different things. I have seen medical conditions that I could have gone an entire career in conventional medicine without seeing. Since I haven't worked emergency medicine, my first exposure to gunshot wounds and stabbings has been inside the fences.

As an LPN, most of your duties will probably involve medication passes, although at my facility LPNs also work the infirmary and assist medical providers.

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I am an LPN. I have learned so much more as a correctional nurse than I did in LTC. We have limited staff and 1300 inmates. Weekends we have 1 Rn & 2 LPNs. We all take turns running emergencies. Stabbings...drug ODs...seizures...fake seizures (dude! Whats up? "I'm having a seizure ms nurse. " ) lock in a sock to the head...spider bites, can't poop because the phone in rectum got twisted sideways. (Seriously) entire dorm with flu symptoms...lots of walking into basket ball pole injuries...I need my Kops what KOP? My shampoo.....you have no hair...this is not an emergency!

I really don't know how it will affect my chance of employment at other types of facilities. I am pretty sure that not too much will ever shock me. Dealing with whatever walks in the door, or comes in on a strecher/ wheel chair keeps us on our toes. Limited access to diagnostic equipment (we have an ekg) sharpens observation skills. Listening and evaluating what is and what is not being said is a tool that works in any facility type. Psyc emergencies loom large after football and basket ball games.....when it is time to pay up on their bets. Super bowl Sunday is brutal!

On your future application...write it all down! ( well...maybe not...lol) All the problems you got to the bottom of without diagnostic equipment. All the mysteries you solved! ( we had one guy....bp normal..pulse187. He was Smoking tea bags.) Working in prison teaches you to think out side of the box. That is an asset any where you go.

Best of luck on your RN degree! I'm willing to bet that the second time you have to call a doc for a Tylenol order, you will be longing for the DOC.

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Thanks for responding. I really appreciate someone else's perspective. You guys have helped ease my anxiety a little about moving forward in my career.

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