I want a hospital job but I'm afraid I don't have the right kind of experience

[miksyrak3]

I graduaduated nursing school in May 2011 with my ASN and had a very difficult time finding a job. In September 2011 I accepted a position as a circulating nurse in an OR for an eye surgery center. It was not my dream job but it was a job and I was grateful for it. I have now been employed there for 1 1/2 yrs. My problem is that I do not feel like I am learning anything. Other than taking vital signs and charting I do not feel that I am using any of the skills that I learned in school. In addition, I did not have any real orientation. A girl that I went to school with got a job there 2wks before me and she is who trained me. The rest of my training was more of a sink or swim kind of thing. Throughout my time there we have had some more experienced nurses come and go and I was fortunate enough to learn some from them. . Anyway the majority of my nsg school friends are working in hospitals and using and perfecting all their skills and then some. I am so envious of them and I feel like they are "real" nurses and that I am not. I would like to try and get a job at a hospital but I am afraid that I don't have the right kind of experience to get one. I don't know what to do. Please help.

[BSNbeauty, BSN, RN]

Update your resume with the skills you used in the OR. Any experience is better than nothing. Remember that "real" nursing isn't just for those who work in a hospital. Being a real nurse means you are confident in your skills in any setting.

[Fiona59]

The grass is always greener somewhere else.

You have a job with very low stress, no nights, few if any weekends, and patients for the most choose to be there.

I know more than one nurse who would be happy to be in your shoes.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

I always cringe when I hear something like this, when somebody thinks that because s/he isn't in a hospital that s/he's losing "skills." Honey, those are just tasks, and we teach most of them to lay people every day.

How about applying for a job in a local OR/PACU, and even better if you have an eye hospital nearby?

[SuzieVN]

Unfortunately, the days are long gone when there was a nursing shortage, and a nurse could work wherever she wanted, and even quit and start somewhere else the next day. there are far too many graduates, and far too few jobs, and far too many more demands being imposed (must be RN, now BSN, now this credential or that, on and on), and far too much downward pressure on pay. Think of you as being lucky to have a cake job, without your job or license being threatened every day, and the pressure that causes?