I graduated in 2010 and nursing have been a bumpy road for me. Thousands of applications later and I still have not been able to work in acute care. For the past 4.5 years I've been busy in SNF, home health, clinics. I pass meds for 36 patients, change catheters, put IV's, tend to the dead and dying, assess, order meds, talk to MD's admit discharge, know a lot a about ventilators, trach suctioning, PICC lines, wound care, J tube, diabetes, and overall patient care. However none of these skills seem to be of any importance as long as you have the abbreviation SNF attached to it. I have an insanely strong back and speak 3 languages.
I figure that the only way I'll get my experience will be going someplace where no one wants to go. Because here in California is literally a waste of time to even apply to any hospital. I was looking just at Sutter Health in my "jobs page" and I have applied more then 500 times in the last few years. I sometimes think that these jobs don't even exist.
Can anyone tell me of places that might be hiring RN's with my kind of experience. My dream and only dream is to work as a traveler around the Bay Area, and all I need is one year of acute care experience. So I decided to stop everything is go after that. Can anyone help me?
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
Slightly OT, but just a reminder: if you move out of state to pursue your goal (with your experience, a hospital job outside of crazy Cali seems attainable!), if your ultimate dream is to return, don't let your Cali license lapse.
Keep it active, and while it will be an added expense for awhile, in the long run you'll be glad you did. Less hoops for you to jump through on your return.
Good advice. Not all states require a certain number of CEs to renew like California does.
I second Texas..houston in particular. A lot of growth and development in the area..and yes they can give u a relocation bonus or a sign on bonus.. Of course u have to stay and work with them for two years. Most of my coworkers' background are SNF, we have a couple of new grads as well.
That sounds like a good deal of experience to me! I just got hired in Northern CA for new grad med-surge. I had to relocate from southern CA. I only have nearly 2 years of experience in psych. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with endorsement to another state. I still had to do a real interview for it. For my psych job my interview was "why are you interested?" and that was it. You have an abundance of skills already, you should be able to get a job. I don't have any of those stills and I got hired.
I've considered moving to another state too. In my research, I found these suggestions: Alabama, North/south Dakotas, south Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico.
You need to leave the Bay Area. There are other parts of California that will hire you, although perhaps still not as readily as other states. I had to leave SF to get a job in LA
Specializes in School Nursing, Public Health Nurse.
Look in to the RN Refresher Program at Chico State. There's also Clinical portion which is separate. I got in to the refresher program and I'm moving to Texas with my husband anyway. I'm using this as an opportunity to move from school nursing to acute care. If we don't like Texas in a year we will move back to the bay and then I will have that magic one year of experience.
Nurse SMS, MSN, RN
6,843 Posts
Texas/Mexico border
Any rural hospital
Most Indian reservations