Job advice, feeling overwhelmed- Wichita

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wow...i sure am struggling to find my "niche" in this rn life. i have had 6 jobs since graduating in may 2007. any advice? i know i want to continue to be a nurse..i just get so overwhelmed. i hate hospital nursing. i like procedures and surgery is ok, but i have worked so many places that i dont know what to do now. the last job i only worked a week. it was a home health place that trained me for one day! it was a pay per visit place, no benefits, no mileage reimbursement. they call you constantly (they are not paying my cell phone bill) and sometimes i get phone calls after my "available hours". the phone calls started on sunday and i dont work weekends. it was stressing me out, but i feel like such a failure! i cant seem to stay somewhere. the hours either are horrible, the patient:nurse ratio too much, the staff not helpful...etc. i am so worried about finding another job but couldnt stop from quiting this last position. i just want to be a good nurse. i sent a patient to the ed that was most definatley having signs of dig tox and the manager of company questioned me. she would nit pick every little thing. depressing..... btw that patient is now in an icu.

[color=#483d8b]where to go? any advice out there.

Specializes in Telemetry, ICU, Resource Pool, Dialysis.

I can only speak for the clinic where I work, I know there are some horror stories out there about some clinics.

My clinic has 16 chairs divided into 2 bays. Each bay has 1 tech for each 4 patients. One nurse for each bay. The techs basically do all the technical work - at my clinic, the nurses help out a lot, especially putting people on and taking them off. The nurses are primarily responsible for initial and post assessments, double checking settings, troubleshooting, giving meds. I'm still on orientation (it's a 3-4 month orientation process), so right now I'm with a tech. I know the nurses do lots chart stuff - keeping things updated, care plans, etc, but I don't know anything about that yet.

You have to learn the machine - which is very intimidating at first. It's sort of complicated to set up at first- but once you learn it, it makes more sense. The company I work for (Fresenius) seems great about education. I spent my first week in classes, and I have two more weeks of classes coming up.

As I said, the nurses I work with really love their jobs. We have a really great group of people, and my boss is awesome. Everybody is very dedicated and attached to the patients. I'm told that with dialysis, you either hate it, or you love it. It's fast paced, but not like the hospital. You don't have to deal with other departments making your job harder (pharmacy, lab, etc) Admissions, discharges, procedures, etc. Geeze I hated dealing with that. I can deal with anything a patient has to dish out, but I can't stand all the other stuff that goes along with hospital nursing.

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thanks! did you have any experience with dialysis before you went into it?

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That is the dialysis place I worked at and the boss hated me. I have to admit, I had a rough start. My daughter cut her knee open the 2nd week I worked, so I had to take her to the dr. Then, I overslept...thought I had my alarm on and it was off...so tried to fix that by switching my day off(wrong thing to do). Then, I was stuck in the bathroom with stomach crud one afternoon...she told me to leave. To top it off my daughter had some major medical crud go on a day later and I tried to work it out with them. However, they didnt want to hear any of it and totally minimized what was going on with my daughter. We had to go to a lot of specialists to find what was wrong. So, didnt work for me. Had that week been any different, it might have worked. :no: And, they were sending me to the downtown location where everyone had just quit. eeek. The boss at the west location pretty much ignored me till she was so ****** she sent me home. I am glad it is working for you.

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Specializes in Telemetry, ICU, Resource Pool, Dialysis.

to d&ggirl: no, i didn't have any experience at all in dialysis, except for taking care of tons of dialysis patients in the hospital setting.

nurse4life40rn: good grief - i'm so sorry you have had such a bad time!! if i'm understanding you, you are pretty much looking for a 9-5 m-f job, right? it's really hard having to work weekends and nights w/ kids, i totally understand. even though clinics pay less, that may be what you need to look into. don't feel bad about your job history, i think with nursing, most of us try lots of different things before we settle down into something we can live with.

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Specializes in psych, long term care, developmental dis.

My first job out of nurses training was at St. Joe's in Wichita. Might have been a good place to work BUT I was very overwhelmed as a new nurse in a big hospital and new home town.

I hated hospital nursing! Went to work for a private duty agency. Yeah no benefits but could work when I wanted to and with whom I wanted to. I worked that for about 3 years and loved it.

Don't put yourself in such a box, there is hospice nursing, school nursing, industrial nursing, private duty nursing, there is psych nursing, geriatric nursing, camp nursing, rehab nursing, cardiac nursing, doctors office nursing, just to name a few.

I agree with one of the others that felt you might have thought nursing was easy. It is a lot of responsibility. It takes a lot of you and out of you.

Every job has it's pros and cons and it sounds as if you are jumping in and out before you find out if this is the job for you.

Good Luck to you

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First of all...thanks for all the great messages!

No, I knew it was going to be hard...could see that just from clinicals, and working as a nurse tech....BUT I got so scared and still am scared. I agree...I have totally jumped into jobs because I needed something due to quiting before finding one. (Its a viscious cycle). I feel that panic rising again. I am not employed...have been unemployed for a week. My friend at the hospital...is like...I bet you can get your old job back...I am tempted because I am not working. But I know I will just get scared again. That was the unit that I had 8 paitents. I have had so many interviews and for some really great positions...just dont get hired. I have an interview tomorrow and a friend of mine works there and thinks that if she talks to her boss they will hire me. However, I started getting down tonight...I feel like I waste so much time in interviews only to get turned down. Man, I have interviewed for some great positions. I could not even get a hospice place to hire me. It was good pay, benefits and hours too. Sigh...I am just ranting because I am feeling down.

I will land a job and stick with it. That is the important thing. I need to stay somewhere and deal with the fear.

Thanks everyone for the advice! This website has really helped me!

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Specializes in psych, long term care, developmental dis.

Yo girl, I was overwhelmed as I said, have you thought of therapy? My self esteem was shot and I take my job so seriously that I gave myself to others and not myself and had to be taught how to take care of myself. We nurses are no different from others and need help in finding our strengths and weaknesses and learning to grow in our career choice. Please get some help as being an nurse should not always be overwhelming.

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Actually I did try to get some help cause I know my self esteem is not the best. Uh, I pretty much have none..lol. However, I lost my insurance. So, the place I got to told me the have a sliding scale, but it seems like something with the kids, or me is always coming up and I cant get in. I am going to make another attempt. I know it will help. I did have a great interview today, so with any luck....they will hire me. I need a job! I have promised myself to stick it out with the next job! :up:

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