I am a registered nurse who graduated this past May of 2011, and I have observed a very disturbing phenomenon that is taking place. About two weeks ago, I began orienting on a medical-surgical floor at a hospital in a new town about 3 hours from where I lived previously. I was interviewed over the phone and relocated for this position. The hospital itself is in a small little town about 40 minutes from where I am renting my apartment, which is in a larger suburb of a nearby city.
After a few days on the floor, I have noticed things. (1) The hospital has recently gone on a hiring binge to replace people who have left. Many, many new graduate nurses have recently been hired at this small-medium sized hospital. (2) I have heard staff complaining about high turnover and "people leaving after a year." I overheard a male LPN in the cafeteria ruminating over people who leave and treat the hospital as a "proving ground" before moving on to greener pastures, as it were. (3) The new graduate nurses from the local two-year school here are treated favorably by the other staff, who also were trained at that school. These are people who were born and raised in this town and tend to resent outsiders. People who relocated to the hospital, like myself, are viewed with high suspicion.
I have already been questioned by LPNs and to a lesser extent, RNs, about why I would move from my perceived-to-be nicer area (a wealthy, cosmopolitan area) to this tired, old factory town to work. "Could you just not get a job back where you were?" Or, "Do you plan to go back there?" And, "Why did you choose here?" And also, "Are you one of the people who moved here?" People have probed me for information, asking dodgy questions in the hope that I will "out" the fact that I intend to leave after a year.
It is true that I moved here for a job, and that the area isn't the ideal for me, but that doesn't mean I will leave right away. I don't know about all of you, but I think it is rude to assume that new graduate nurses who relocate to find jobs have secret intentions to leave the area after exploiting the facility for its experience. That may be true for many, many people. However, generalizing an entire category of people based on prior negative experiences that happen more than is common flies against what nursing philosophy. That is discrimination. Imagine if I started asking a black person "Do you plan to commit a crime here? I've seen a lot of people like you commit crimes, so I just figured that's what your intentions were too." People would be outraged, and rightly so. Well, if it is wrong in one situation, then it is wrong in ALL situations. I am an employee of the facility I was hired at, just like everybody else, whether I relocated and they didn't, and I do not deserve to be labeled based on a category I belong to. I don't need it and I don't deserve it.
