From exuberant passion to fringing on defeat.

[Shaska]

My mother was an OR tech, and she frequently took me to work with her. Her personal life was enveloped by her identity at work, and so it seemed natural for her to bring me into it.

I grew up surrounded by nurses, and I felt like they were gods. In school I drew myself in scrubs, and I always chose nursing when presuming a future career. In high school I was in all of the peer assisting programs, including counseling. I nurtured all of my friends; the injured birds that they were. I cultivated so much gratification from helping others in any way that I could. I volunteered in every avenue that I could pursue. The suicide hotline, food pantries, non-profit medical centers, etc. As soon as I graduated high school, I began my pre-requisites for the nursing program at a nearby junior college. This was just prior to the crash in 2008, and I thought that I'd be lucky to have had a head start. The classes immediately filled up with other nursing hopefuls, eager for a chance at a second career or a flexible schedule. After making very little progress, I realized that my only option to actually obtain my coveted nursing career would be to attend a private school. Something with no extensive wait lists or lottery systems. I found one across the entire state; an accelerated BSN program.

I packed everything that I owned into my small SUV after setting up a room to rent out of a house, and that's before I even took the entrance exam. I knew that this was my one opportunity. I was able to get into the program and get situated, and the beginning came with relative ease and comfort. I was good at being a student; I'd had nothing but straight A's for as long as I could remember. Eventually, however, the core content came with startling new expectations. We had to learn every medication in our pharmacy books in eight weeks, no exceptions. We were tested rigorously every week utilizing software designed to provoke insanity. "While this answer is correct, it is not the most correct." I witnessed my friends failing out in every term. It was harrowing to say the least, but I still managed to graduate Magna cum laude whilst also balancing intensive volunteering schedules at a local non-profit and as a "care provider" in a nearby magnet status hospital.

I passed the NCLEX on the first try, and then I sought off to obtain my first job. I hadn't realized that my school rescinding our promised preceptorship at the end of the program would be a handicap. I hadn't realized that hundreds of thousands of nursing students had also just graduated. I didn't think that my issues in getting into a nursing program would follow me into the job market. I had believed in the call to remedy the nursing shortage, but I had believed in a lie.

I obtained my first job at a home health agency as a Liaison and discharge coordinator, but soon after realized that it didn't cater to my thirst for hands on care. I did this for about six months before my husband moved us back across the state to be near my parents and also to obtain his dream job which he did so successfully. After a few months of applying, I finally landed a single interview at a skilled nursing facility. They put me on the evening shift, and I realized what it was like to manage thirty patients at once. In the acute wing, I was responsible to dispense an incredible amount of narcotics. I set up and hung all of the IVs for the facility. I implemented all of the emergency procedures. It was a lot for a new nurse, and the first six months aged me horribly.

I was promoted to nurse manager, which allowed me to oversee the care provided by four nurses beneath me. I was responsible for all of the admissions and discharges, careplan updating and maintenance, and as one of the only RNs in the building I still managed all aspects of IV therapy for everyone. I wanted to become more specialized, so I most recently decided to pursue wound care. I became a full time treatment nurse and learned everything from negative pressure therapy to basket weaving to utilizing medi-honey as often as possible while still fulfilling my nurse manager role on weekends. This role is mentally and physically exhausting. I have trained many subsequent new-hires, and they've all fled from the gravity of the job demands.

I have pursued every avenue, and have tried everything that I could to obtain a position in a hospital. I've applied hundreds and hundreds of times. I have never received a single interview. I have tried different levels of follow up. Calls, or not calling. Dropping by or not. Nothing seems to make a difference. It's an incredible blow to my ego. I thought that this had been my calling. I had received the grades, obtained the right memberships and certifications, volunteered wherever I could, and rubbed elbows with all the right people. None of it has ever done me any good. I have upheld this compassion and empathy for my fellow man for my entire life. I had thought it meant something, or that it was directing me. I have been an RN for two years now, and I have only ever received two interviews; both jobs which I obtained. I can't help but feel demoralized and irrelevant. I know that my story is nothing near unique. That others might have it worse than I do. The fact remains that, after all of it, I'm starting to consider whether I'm truly cut out for this industry. Perhaps I should look elsewhere. Maybe it's just not the right path for me, anymore.

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

I am guessing you live in a state with very fierce competition. It's extremely difficult for new grads to find jobs in my area, but nurses with two years of experience as a nurse don't generally have problems switching specialties here.

Do you have your WOCN cert? With your experience, you could market yourself as a wound care nurse and maybe slide into a hospital that way, and then transfer into a different position six months down the line if wound care is not what you really want to do.

Good luck!

[Altra, BSN, RN]

If I am counting correctly, you have had 4 jobs in less than 2 years (you indicate you spent several months applying after the move). That may be affecting whether or not you get called for interviews.

[dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN]

My old burn unit would have snapped up someone with woundcare experience.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

OK...

1). Hugs, hugs, hugs :) have a vacation if you can! Burnout is a serious thing.

2). Once upon a time, sit and think. What, precisely, you want, dream of, or hate, period, in your career? What you still can, and absolutely cannot live with?

3). I know, it sounds like a totally idiotic question from interview, but where would you like to be in, say, 5 years? Are you, for example, dying for normal 9-5 M-F week? Any big plans for family (kids, moving, etc)?

Once you figure it all out, start playing from there.

I am a big proponent of agency work because it can give you a chance to be exposed to totally different facilities without much investment of time and emotions (and they pay really well, too). It is not true that only "bad" facilities work with agencies; any hospital or unit can enter period of acute staffing crisis and use help from outside. The problem is how to find a good agency which will work with you as an individual and offer what us the best for you as well as for them and not just shove out a warm body to cover for a shift. I was extremely lucky to get into just such place by pure chance.

If there is a LTACH or acute rehab place near you, take a look at it. Your background in elderly care and wound care will serve you very well, and you will get an experience which most probably will be somewhere in between med/surg and lower-acuity ICU and more variable than stepdown (LTACH) or less acute med/surg (rehab). If you try and like it, you will better know which area in acute care from the aforementioned you would enjoy. If not, you can always switch to purely wound care (I agree - get your WONC certificate if you did not do it before) or make contacts and go to something entirely new like acute dialysis or case management.

Or, if more power, knowledge and decision making are more to your liking, get MSN.

Good luck, and you did not "fail" anything. You are just still in journey, as we all are