Is this a specialty or is it even considered nursing experience?

[rn865]

I work at an urgent care facility because I have no experience whatsoever and has a hard time getting into hospitals. I just got lucky I was hired here. I have read some posts that say an urgent care is a specialty area and you need a few years experience to be able to handle it. But then, one of our part-time nurses who works full-time in an ER said this is not considered nursing experience, I need to get into a preceptorship/internship as a new nurse.

Note: At our urgent care, I draw blood, start IVs, give health teaching, operate x-ray machine and other tests, do injections and coordinate tests with outside labs and more.

Edit: Please don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that I have a job. I'm jsut wondering if I'm on the right career path. I really want to get into ER nursing.

[mentalhealthRN]

How is that not nursing experience? Are you a new nurse or a student?

[roser13, ASN, RN]

You are definitely gaining nursing experience. You are likely gaining more hands-on nursing experience than alot of office nurses. Is it a specialty? Not that I know of but so what?

Maybe the ER nurse was just saying that Urgent Care experience didn't count as ER experience?

[tothepointeLVN, LVN]

Well I would think the skills at least would cross over somewhat. Are you an LVn or RN? I agree it seems harder to get a job if your an RN without hospital experience vs an LVN who most of the jobs are in similar style settings.

[caliotter3]

Working at an urgent care is more experience than you would get working in the young girl's department at Macy's. I don't do any of the skills you mention in the Note except for health teaching. I would be happy to draw blood or start an IV once in awhile. Your time to work elsewhere will come a lot sooner than the time for an RN working at Macy's. Good luck.

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

if it is a nursing job, it is nursing experience. i think the er nurse was referring to acute care experience. most employers want acute care experience when hiring a nurse for a hospital position (especially the er). of course this is only true in a picky employer market. this is not be true otherwise. gl!

[jjjoy, LPN]

As others have noted, what you're doing is nursing experience. However, it isn't the kind of acute care nursing experience that many facilities are looking for in nurses that they hire. If a job required "two years recent acute care nursing experience", you can't assume that your urgent care experience would count, since the experience is different. But the experience itself is still very valuable to you as a nurse. It seems like it's definitely better than no nursing job at all!

[rn865]

Thank you for your replies everyone!

For the questions: I have a BSN degree, this is my first job, will be a full one-year experience in a couple months.

Another reason I'm wondering is I work with MAs and in our facility, MAs or RNs do everything from cleaning to starting IVs. So I guess I'm wondering if either I'm only getting MA experience or is the MA gaining "RN" experience.

Also, is this the right track to getting into an ER since we are being trained to be on the fast track and triage?

[tothepointeLVN, LVN]

You can sell it to potential employers like that. I think when looking for a real ER job your going to have to try avoiding the online application and get in touch with a hiring manager to sell your wares.

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

Personally (imho only) I'm not real happy seeing you operating an xray machine. That seems out of the scope of practice. What does your state board say. Otherwise, it looks the same as doctor's office Nurse.

[rn865]

Personally (imho only) I'm not real happy seeing you operating an xray machine. That seems out of the scope of practice. What does your state board say. Otherwise, it looks the same as doctor's office Nurse.

I have been reading the state board but I haven't seen anything about x-rays or maybe I just didn't look hard enough. Unfortunately at our facility we are expected to do them since it's just an RN and MA everyday. Mostly it is just positioning because the machine is already set up for the different body parts, we just have to push the button. We only need to adjust if the patient is too big, there are also settings set up for peds. We don't read the results or anything though because our docs are ER docs and they can do it.

One question: is this something nurses in outpatient radiology/imaging services do?

[DogWmn]

It certainly counts as experience, you didn't say what you wanted to do in a hospital, but if you are getting IV starting experience you could get on an IV team. You can read on this board the number of nurses that struggle with IV and phlebotomy so these are two skills that you will have when you decide to move on.

Urgent care is a bit different than a clinic, you are dealing with a huge variety of issues that you would not necessarily see in a clinic setting unless it was a very rural family practice type clinic.