Is it a career mistake to go from ER to Urgent Care?

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I'm an ER nurse with 10 months experience in ER. I'm extremely burnt out and ready for a change. The only offer I have at the moment is for an urgent care. I am excited at the opportunity for a break, but I do want to know if I am sabatoging my opportunity to get into other critical care areas by "downgrading" to urgent care. Is urgent care experience considered useful? As valuable as med surg? With a few years experience as an urgent care nurse can I move over to an area such as pre op or PACU if I so desire? 

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2 Answers

Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.

You should be mindful of building a work history that appears favorable on your resume, which includes staying at a job for a minimum of 1 year.

If you're feeling burnt out and you're only 10 months in, like with your ER job, it's still worth considering whether a longer stay could help you get some positive experiences to leverage for your next role. That said, health and mental well-being should come first. If urgent care or a similar role offers a more sustainable pace, transitioning after less than a year might be justified. Just avoid job-hopping.

Urgent care does not build skills for critical care (meaning ICU), but should not necessarily prevent you from being considered for pre-op or PACU. MedSurg is an excellent foundation for a nursing career. As a new nurse, the experience you gain in MedSurg is invaluable.

Best wishes with your decision,

Nurse Beth

Random thoughts.

Sometimes the "grass isn't always greener" warning isn't appropriate for various reasons, but I wonder if it may be appropriate here.

The UC is going to put patients through as fast as, or faster than, ED fast track. There may be more or there may be less resources available than there are in the ED (support staff, etc). Not sure if you have nursing experience prior to ED, but if you aren't already aware - many nursing positions (and their associated staffing levels and job descriptions)  in lots of different types of settings have been tweaked to ensure there will be no idle moment while on the clock--and that is putting things rather generously. Reality is they want you to feel responsible for more work than one person can possibly accomplish. You may have help, or you may be the one stocking supplies, rooming the patient, collecting samples, running the POC testing, administering the meds, discharging the patient and turning over the room, then documenting all of that plus trying to do a dozen administrative "RN" responsibilities. It's hard to say.

If you are generally doing well at learning the ED role and taking care of ED patients, have even a half-way supportive admin, are not in any kind of trouble or being treated very poorly, it might be worth a second thought on whether you can take a couple of extra days off, rest and re-compose yourself and stick with the ED for a bit longer. You can still look for other openings in the areas you mentioned.

Obviously there are personal and job-related situations where it's just better to leave and let the cookie crumble however it will. If you really think that's your situation then you gotta do what you gotta do, as they say.

Take care ~

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