Help! Need some advice

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Hello fellow nurses!

I'm in a rut right now with my nursing career and I was hoping someone could help me out. Here's my timeline:

5/16 graduated from a Master's Entry Nursing program (had BSN in Bio)

6/16 got first RN job at an adult sub-scute/SNF

11/16-3/17 worked at a day care for medically fragile children

4/17-6/17 worked at a children's hospital.

Ok, so I'm still employed at the sub-acute/SNF, but as on-call since April (and they haven't called me to come in). As for the children's hospital - it was my dream job, but problems arose while I was there. It was my first acute position and I was hired on the busiest Med-Surg unit in the hospital. As much as I tried, I couldn't meet their expectations. Basically, I couldn't keep up with the fast pace. My preceptors and the managers were really helpful, they even gave me extra training, but I still couldn't keep up. So I resigned.

Now I basically have no job, almost no experience in an acute care setting, and even though it's been a year, I still feel like a new grad with no experience. There are times where I'm afraid to apply for job because I'm worried the same thing will happen again. And when I do apply I'm pushing my luck because I don't meet the "1yr in acute care" requirement. And I live in CA by Sacramento, and d/t family reasons, I cannot travel far for work.

What do I do? I feel so helpless right now.

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Specializes in Stepdown . Telemetry.

I think you are still able to apply for "new grad" positions since you were only at the acute position 2 months. Im not sure what the nature of your resignation was but if you left on ok terms, you still have a fair chance of getting into a new grad progam.

Yes, you are going to feel the stress of the fast pace of acute when u start (and for a while after that) because everyone does. But a good new grad program should be supportive and get u through that rough first year. If acute is your goal, then apply for new grad programs!

Good luck!

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Sub-acute is something akin to acute care, and you're not that long out of school. I don't know that hospitals would consider your experience "acute," but you did work sub-acute for 6 months and acute pediatrics for a few months--these experiences should count for something, I would think. If I were interviewing you, though, I would be more concerned about your having held 3 positions in one year. Job-hopping isn't all that uncommon in nursing, but rapid job-hopping doesn't look good. Please consider your next job very carefully, because you probably should stick with it for at least a year, preferably two.

Sit down, get honest with yourself, and assess your strengths and weaknesses. If you weren't comfortable in a busy pediatric med-surg unit, I have to tell you that you probably won't like adult med-surg at all; staffing ratios are almost always immensely better in peds. Long-term care might suit you better, and your 6 months' sub-acute/SNF experience will likely suffice. A smallish community hospital's peds unit might be OK, too, since they don't get as many or as sick patients as a children's hospital.

Anyway, I wish you all the best in your career. Nursing is an amazing profession and it really does have something for everyone. Now you just need to figure out what wonderful niche it has for you.

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You have a MSN?

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Yes I do have an MSN. Thank you so much for your advice so far! I truly appreciate it :)

kaylee, I don't think I qualify for new grad programs anymore because I have nurse experience. New grad programs here in CA require no experience or

ChryssyD thank you so much for being honest about adult med-surg. I have been thinking lately about doing home health. I've been doing research on it, and it might be a nursing path better suited for me. But yes I will think about my next step carefully.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, LTACH, LTC, Home Health.

I noticed that you have a "BSN in bio". Where did you work as a nurse prior to obtaining the MSN?

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I'm so sorry that's a typo. I meant to say I have a BS in Biology. I don't have a BSN, so I never worked as a nurse before studying the MSN (hence why I didn't the Master's Entry Program)

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