Dialysis to Med-Surg unit?

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Specializes in Dialysis.

Greetings everyone,

Some of you might already know that I am an unhappy new dialysis nurse from my previous posts several months back. I got into dialysis after passing my nclex bc it was fast money (my mistake). Although I am grateful for some of the experience i have already acquired while working at this extremely political, unprofessional facility, I still hunger for more. I don't feel that I was properly trained at all, we don't even have a nurse educator there! I understand that learning is by doing, so by all means I kept on working and asking as many questions as I could, but for every new problem that arises, I am sometimes utterly clueless. I want proper training, and I want to see more! Right now I am putting my resume out there with an interest in the med-surg unit. My question is....is this an easy transition? Has anyone ever converted like this before? I am very scared and unsure of myself 70% of the time...I know this is a dangerous trait to have as a nurse, but I think my fear will slowly diminish the more I do, the more I learn. I remember being very scared to touch dialysis machines or pull out needles from heavy bleeders and hep c pts, but now it's all becoming second nature to me. Anyway...I am not sure what to do...I am even afraid of going to another dialysis unit bc I think that they are gonna be able to handle myself like I'm a pro...but I'm really just 5 months in.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Apply and see what happens. Meanwhile, stick it up.

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Specializes in Dialysis.

Job hunt still unsuccessful, and Im still undecided as to where I want to work...I don't know what I like anymore...

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Maybe you could try a different dialysis unit, or how about acute dialysis?

Funny, because I was miserable at an extremely political, unprofessional, and unsafe med-surg unit.

I went from there to dialysis over ten years ago, and am happier.

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My Acute Dialysis Unit has so far broken every labor law, myself and coworkers are exhausted from working an average of 18-20 hours. The problem is they cannot keep nurses! I have told them several times I was unsafe to do treatments because of exhaustion and it does not help. I enjoy my pts, but when I cannot think straight I feel I am doing them an injustice. This is a chronic problem, I have been there for 6 months and 6 RNs have left!!

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical, Telemetry/ICU Stepdown.

I like med-surg, have been doing it for 2 years. We also have "telemetry" patients in our unit but their rhythms are very benign, at the worst we have 1st degree heart blocks, a-fib, lots of PVCs (i'm probably having PVCs myself as I drink this coffee here). The telemetry component is not a major challenge, it just sounds scary when you haven't done it before. I'd say go for it, but it involves a tremendous amount of walking during a busy shift so you feet and back will be hurting. Patients are mostly stable, code blues are rare, plus you get lots of young surgical patients. Young surgicals (30-50 years old) are the easiest because they are very independent and they are not total care. They can have a small abdominal incision and may ask for pain meds, but otherwise they function independently.

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Specializes in Dialysis.

Thank you all for your input! And now I am still more undecided than ever lol. I'm scared to do acute dialysis although I think it would be the best of both worlds as far as med surge and dialysis are concerned? I have several job offers in other dialysis units, but I am not confident that I would excel anywhere else bc I don't have anyone precepting me to tell me otherwise. I know that if i tell myself "I'm gonna mess up" then i will bc I'm putting it in my head, but i can't help still thinking that way. I'm so desperate that I'm willing to relocate to almost any state, and I'm beginning to look into residency programs (before my yr is up).

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I would say try to get some medsurg experience if you're unsure of what you really want to do. It exposes you to a lot of different patients and helps with assessment. You just see so much variety, but after a while it gets old. I've been doing it for about a year now. It's been a good learning experience.

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Specializes in Dialysis.

I've been looking for med surg jobs but they all want experienced nurses and I'm a little too late in the game for a residency program :(

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Hey.. did you ever find a residency job? I too left a dialysis job due to inadequate training . I was told they will train me 9-12 weeks but that didn't happen . Fortunately I got accepted into a residency program which will start nextweek . I was an LPN prior getting my RN so I used to work in SNF and it was better than working in dialysis .

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