Judged because you are a Correctional Nurse

[cchezem15]

Hey Everyone -

I have been working at a county jail as an LVN for about 8 months now (it was my first job out of nursing school). So far I really love the environment and most of the people I work with. The only downfall is that I work every single weekend (my schedule is Sat-Tues). I get that I am new to the facility and all, but the fact that we do not have rotating schedules bugs me - Although I do not have children, I do have a husband and friends I would love to spend time with - but everyone I know is a M-F worker and has weekends off. My husband & I were talking a few weeks ago and he stated he would really enjoy it if I had a job where I had some weekends off a month (me and him do not have days off together, so we only get to spend a couple hours a day together) - So I went to apply at some different places to see what all was out there. I had one interview last Tuesday and the whole time the interviewer was making statements on how correctional nurses are typically mean and have no compassion, etc. The whole time I felt as if she was talking down about me because of my current place of employment.

This got me to thinking - is working in a correctional setting going to be a negative thing against me when I get my BSN and try to work in a non-correctional setting? Do you guys ever think that you are judge because of the type of work you do?

I truly love what I do - I believe that I am getting some really great experience working here because I REALLY have to use my assessment skills, I see people on all different ends of disease spectrums (if that makes sense haha), and I never have a boring day. (Of course I could go on and on)

I just hope that in the end working this job will not work against me.

[Corrections Nurse, ADN, LPN]

Look at putting togather answers that reflect on your assessment skills, can you do some volunteer work. Most of the nurses leaving our correctional environment go right to the Mayo clinic. So we must be doing something right.

[katethegreat]

There is a stigma. I've been told that I'm too nice to be a correctional nurse. Definitely follow snookgirls' advice. When interviewing you've got to play up your strengths.

[wyogypsy, RN]

I applied for weekend supervisor at a LTC facility after working in corrections for years. They wanted to hire me but the Administrator wouldn't let them until she had interviewed me herself as she thought I would be tough and uncaring. The interview went well, we laughed a lot, and hopefully she changed her mind about what she perceived as a stereotypical correctional nurse!

[NottaSpringChik, BSN, RN]

I agree there is definitely a stigma but Snook girl has great advice re the community volunteer service. That is valuable no matter what your nursing experience is. Also good advice to be prepared to talk about the strength to your assessment skills as well as the other pieces like the opportunity of working with underserved population and the community health piece. I also love my work in county jail setting. There are nurses who do hiring that have prejudice against all kinds of other nursing so I don't think that kind of ignorance is limited to correction nurses.