Help regarding job prospects

[anonimo]

Hello fellow nurses,

I'm writing this post in hopes that one of y'all great nurses has any advice for me.

First off, I'm a youngish nurse who graduated and became an RN in July of '03. I subsequently got a job at a large teaching hospital on a med/surg floor. I worked there for nine months but started missing work after about five to six months. I cut back my hours to not be such a burden on the staff.

During this time, I often had a great time at my job. I really learned a lot on this floor and realized I was pretty good at dealing with patients and caring for them. I felt like I was truly being a nurse and even more than this, I thought pursuing medicine was something I needed to do. Some days were hellishly stressful, but I'd somehow make it through.

Most of the nurses I worked with were great. One charge nurse did yell at me saying that I did not act right in a certain situation and said horrible unprofessional things to me that hurt to the core. She had no right to what she said but the way she said them, I felt I could never trust another nurse totally again. Maybe that was the start of my downfall.

I gradually missed more and more work. I would totally plan to go to work, but anxiety would take over. I would imagine having to spend 8 or 12 hours at that place and while it was usually fine once I got there, some days the anxiety would make me miss work. This of course grew into a huge situation where my resignation was kind of forced. I had missed so much work that although they would have let me come back, I felt to embarrassed to go back.

Now I'm without that very good job with excellent benefits which I know many people in this country would die for.

This is not the first job that I've lost because of my anxiety. I'm on Paxil and I know I should probably see a psychologist for a while. Of course now that my job is over, I don't have insurance to do that. All things point to me very stupid, or at least someone who uses extremely poor judgment. Intellectually I know all this. Emotions are powerful and can be destructive.

My point is that I'm going to move to another city in the fall (I'm gonna be blacklisted in this city pretty soon hehe but not really that funny). It's about three hours from this city I'm in now. I want to apply to the hospitals there but am wondering about the application process. I'm still trying to get a hold of my former nurse manager to see if I can use them as a reference (meaning, am I eligible for rehire). If not, then do I apply to these new hospitals as if I am a nurse who never worked in a hospital before? I gained valuable experience at that teaching hospital but because of how it ended, I don't know what I should do. While I have some experience, I'm certainly not super nurse and would like more training opportunities. What sickens me too is that one of the applications of these new hospitals actually has a question that asks "How many days have you been absent from work in the last 12 months?" How can I truthfully answer that question without being laughed off the premises?

I apologize for the length of this post but I thank you for reading it.

El Príncipe

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Sorry for your problems right now. I think you've answered things for yourself though - to see a pyschologist and maybe get your meds adjusted. Shouldn't this be your priority? If you just jump into another job right away without making changes to prevent the situation from recurring - you are doing yourself a disservice. I wish you the best.

[llg, PhD, RN]

1. For most hospitals, if you are caught lying or covering up anything, it is an automatic reason for termination without possibility of rehire. So, I would never recommend to anyone that they lie during the application process. The penalty for being caught is simply too high.

2. From your post, it sounds as if you have not yet resolved your anxiety problem -- which you say is the cause of your repeated absences. Therefore, you will most likely have the same problem at your new job. You need to resolve your problem so that you can perform satisfactorily (with good, reliable attendance) before you get a new job. Having another "black mark" on your record will only hurt your career further, not help it. If it means getting a non-nursing job for a little while just for the insurance, then that's what you might need to do.

3. If your old employer will say that you are eligible for re-hire ... and you resigned, were not fired ... you need not volunteer a lot of information about why you left. Practice what you will say ahead of time. Get a couple of opinion on what you might say. You might consider something like, "I really loved my old job, but some things came up in my personal life that were making it difficult fro me to work regular hours, so I decided to resign. Things are different now and I am prepared to work the schedule you need me to work."

Please get the care you need. That's the first step. Take care and good luck,

llg