Did I pigeonhole myself ???

[miriamb]

Do to some personal issues that occurred immediately upon completion of nursing school I wasn't able to enter the nursing profession until 1 1/2 years after I received my degree and license.

I sent out a few resumes and then had a referral for a residential treatment facility dealing with adolescents with mental health and behavioral issues.

I was hired per diem and it seemed like a great idea at the time because honestly I just needed to get started somewhere and put the RN after my name to good use and earn some much needed cash.

Now, I have been here for a little over 6 months and I cannot even get another area of nursing to look at me .

Any advise? I have considered taking a perioperative class , do you think this would help? I am going to get my BSN, should I just go for it and stay here per diem until I finish>? or am I just damning myself more to this work?

Thanks for any advise.

[miriamb]

I am unsure what unit exactly I would like to work. I originally thought OB ,OR, or ER but I haven't enough experiance to say where exactly yet.

I enjoyed aspects of all in clinical experiance .

[sharpeimom]

Hi miriamb! Welcome to Allnurses! Check out the site as you get a chance and the Breakroom too. You will have to log in again on the Breakroom side. It's for nonnursing topics.

I began in ortho and absolutely hated it after about six months but hated to quit that soon. I began watching the job board in he hospital where I worked and about two and a half months later an opening was posted in inpatient psych. I thought, "What the heck!" and applied anyway. No psych experience, almost no ortho experience, and only a shiny new BSN degree. Just when I had given up all hope, I was called for an interview. I was hired! The week I was hired, I discovered the person who had been hired just before me had quit with no notice.

I worked there for almost two years and was hired for a more challenging psych job. A few months later my mom was told her breast cancer three years ago, had come back with a vengeance and was untreatable and incurable. It was now in her liver, gall bladder, pancreas, and brain. Yikes! I, without being asked, resigned and surprisingly was handed an excellent evaluation and recommendation. I moved home again and it was seven horrible months until she died. Afterward, I was an emotional and physical wreck.

My mom's twin sister coped with her grief by trying to control absolutely everything! She lived 650 miles away and never went home.

I had both legal and medical POA for my mom and even that was a sore point. My parents were both attorneys and after my dad died suddenly when I was an undergrad, my mom took care of POA and related things right away. I chose to respect mom's wishes and arranged for hospice care at home.

I was so tired of my aunt's constant drama that the remaining family's support didn't help much. Even though I got grief counseling, it didn't really sink in. I was on a committee that had a new-to-town psychiatrist as a member as well, and he noticed my distress. He suggested we talk "a little bit" after the meeting. That was all it took! My husband suggested that I take a breather now that I was myself again. It ended up being almost four years before I worked again. When I began applying again, I was totally upfront about why I had been out of work and it worked out well. When I applied for a job in a place I wanted, I tried hard not to appear desperate and anxious. I was offered a job as a staff nurse and took it even though it wasn't in a psych area I was interested in, I grabbed it. I did that job for two years and applied for another inhouse job and got it.

I'm sharing all this to encourage you and to give you some hope. Just when you least expect it, things have this crazy way of working themselves out. Make sure you have CPR, etc. and all your credentials in order. Make sure your references are in order.

Good luck!