I'm just so lost on what I should do for the future of my career... I'm going to be brutally honest: nursing/caring for people I don't know is not my passion. My passion lies in the creative field (design, acting, writing, art). But, I was brought up by my parents to be first and foremost pragmatic and realistic, so I went into nursing for the security mostly, and to be honest, I was so introverted growing up that I didn't make a lot of meaningful friendships that could've opened up paths into other fields. All I believed were those things like (starving artist, not having any clients to support a living doing what you love, etc) that I was too scared to try anything that may not have a demand in the future.
I admire people who had the courage to pursue their passion, but I know I wouldn't be able to sleep or eat if I didn't have a way to support myself. I don't want to rely on my parents, they've done enough raising me and I don't want to burden them when I feel like I should have the means to support myself and give back to them for bringing me up. I just don't know if I made the right choice to become a nurse, but I'm at this point where I somehow ended up farther that I originally expected for myself (somehow survived nursing school, passed boards on first try, successfully landed first job in acute care), and now almost 5 months in, I'm mostly unhappy and I can't tell what it is precisely that I'm struggling with.
But in those few months, I've learned some things about myself:
I prefer patients to be medically stable. The stabler they are, the less stressful it is. I was transferred to a short term rehab inpatient unit and for the first time since I started working as a new grad, I didn't feel like I had no appetite and anxiety 1 day before coming to work, like I did when I was working on a medsurg floor before I was told to transfer to a unit with 'less patient acuity'. I was busy, which I loved, but not so busy as you would expect on a typical floor, which was where I started out.
I prefer to take care of my patients for more than 3-5 days. I want to get to know my patients, and unlike those nurses (kudos if this is you) who don't mind walking into a shift with different teams than they had two days ago, I feel very uncomfortable not knowing what to expect or what is normal with a particular patient (their 'trend'). Also, as a person, the longer I know someone, the friendlier I am and easier it is for me to interact with them. That's not to say that I'm not 'friendly' - I'm just very introverted and quiet, and no, I can mask it, but I can't change who I am.
I feel more confident with less patient sizes, but what I've found is that taking a team of 6-7 who are just really there for therapy and ready to go home is vastly different from taking a team of 5-6 who have acute issues going on and need frequent monitoring and attention. For my personality, something that cannot be changed, the latter is much more stressful and the exhaustion I feel bleeds into my life away from work. It's affected my appetite, my sense of humor, my personality, and to make matters more complicated, I already have a general pessimistic outlook on life.
On the other side, I do not want to work in a facility with a patient load of 20+, no matter how long they will stay there.
After I was told to transfer from a medsurg unit to a place with more stable patients, I was in shock and ashamed. Then I found out that the place I'm transferred to has several rns who also came from medsurg in the past, and needless to say, we bonded a lot over that. Due to my exp in my previous unit, I was able to pretty much start working on my own, even though technically they were 'orienting' me. They were pretty impressed by this. Tragically, due to business reasons, my new unit was to be closed. Even though the time I spent was short there, I genuinely liked how my patients didn't need tele or had any 'acute' problems that needed to be treated. I don't know if that is my niche, but I do know that I liked that level of care. I was involved in patient care, but not too involved. It's like the goldilock's zone, if you get what I mean.
So I was put again on a new unit and this time, it is again like how I started out, only more or less acute, and not anywhere close to being stable enough that patients don't need tele.
The admin on the new unit is aware of my history, but in case I'm looking to transfer to another unit like the one I had before, there's no other unit like it. Now all of that is going towards community/outpatient basis, even though the nurses on my old unit felt that those patients were not stable enough to be outside of a hospital, but not unstable enough that they need a bed on the floor.
Thanks for reading this, if you got this far. I apologize if I sound whiny, I'm really not trying to be. But I guess I'm looking for input/advice on what I should do. With less than a year of exp, I honestly don't know where to go or what kind of future job is right for me. I don't want a management position - I'm far from a leader. I also don't really want to go back to get more schooling, since like I said before, it's a miracle (to me) that I was able to grit my teeth and get through nursing school when it's not a field that I was born feeling passionate about.
