Is It Hard For a Private Duty Nurse to Get Back into Facility Nursing?

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I've been a private duty nurse for a year and took a year off of nursing previously. I have 3 years of acute care expierence. I am trying to get a second job in a facility or in hospice. I have not had very much success. I need the money because in the state of Florida private duty nursing by itself does not bring in enough cash. Does anyone have any suggestions? Also, do recruiters take private duty seriously?

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Specializes in Float Pool - A Little Bit of Everything.

Hi,

I am not sure based on personal experience but based on the experiences of colleagues I am told it is hard to get back into a facility when your most recent experience was outside of an actual facility or agency. For example I have known nurses to go out and try running their own business and have had a lot of trouble getting back in, I was told it was because the facility had no way to verify experiences from that time. I have also read it is hard for people who get completely out of nursing, like a stay at home mom or to care for family.

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Specializes in Cardio-Pulmonary; Med-Surg; Private Duty.

I've been a private duty nurse for a little over two years now. I've worked for three different agencies, but PDN is my only experience in healthcare.

Hospitals around here wouldn't hire a new nurse who had no experience in healthcare. If I had known, I would have worked as a PCA/PCT during nursing school -- that would have counted as "healthcare experience" and I could have been hired into a hospital as a new grad.

Now that I have two years under my belt, I put my application in and got a job offer after my very first interview (I start orientation on Monday).

So in my area (Michigan), PDN is considered "healthcare experience".

Job availability is very regional... living in a state where lots of people want to live will mean that it's harder to get a job in general. (Nobody wants to live in Michigan!)

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I do PDN and LTC facilities through staffing agencies. Try it that way.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.

I'm in Florida and the only experience I had prior to my current job was 6 years as a Private Duty LPN. Fortunately enough during my interview last May at a GN hiring event I impressed the nurse manager. She offered me the position as a Med Tele RN before I even took the RN NCLEX exam. So, no it is not hard for a Private Duty Nurse to get back into facility nursing. Go for it!

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I am not sure what part of Florida you are in but Florida is a nurses paradise as far as I am concerned. You may have to search around and take possibly a night shift but many facilities are so short of nurses they will be happy to have you. Don’t sell yourself short. Private duty is still nursing. Make a list of the skills you have learned while doing private duty like vents, Trach, gtube, PT/OT exercises, documenting, independence, knowing how to deal with an emergency when there is no charge nurse with you, etc... I think you will find that you are a hot commodity!

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