I have posted on various occasions on this forum and have had some fantastic advice but would be very grateful if someone could point me in the right direction AGAIN 😊!.
I am a new graduate RN and recently started dialysis at a clinic and HATED it. I left after three days as I knew that they would waste time and money and it just was not for me!
I have an interview next week for a community hospital with a predominantly older people population. However the dodgy staffing agency that contacted me in the past have made contact with me again and tried to persuade me to work on med surg unit this weekend. They are offering triple the money of the hospitals and all other practice areas! Triple! I am so scared to go with the agency as I have no experience and actually turned down an offer already with that hospital due to non existent staff patient ratio! .
My dilemma is that my husband started screaming at me saying I'm lazy as I'm too scared to do agency but he said that I have to start somewhere and why start on a similar unit earning buttons when I will be paid so much more with agency.
The staffer said he has 6 new graduates working perfectly in that hospital and if they can do it, then why can't I?. I feel out of my depth and it would not be safe. He said I will work side by side with veteran nurses and just to try it!. I feel so bullied by him and hubby. I have 4 children and a mortgage to pay and my husband is so sick of all my toing and froing.
However, I feel that the community hospital if I get it is far safer even if I do start on a very low salary. I will get experience. Thanks so much if you've read my story. Please please advise me and thanks in advance!
His reply?. He said that if I can't see that it's me with issues than that's my own problem.
Yep, just like I suspected. The truth is that HE KNOWS a counselor will call him out on his BS. He just won't have it.
I have no friends but I will make some when I start work. There are many in the world who don't have the luxury of making choices. I do. My husband even threatened to report me to my family like I'm a child!!. I left home to work at 17 years old and they have not been part of my life since then. They come to see the kids a couple of times per year but are not part of my life and he wanted to report me!!!!
This is also typical of an abused woman. The abuser makes darn sure to isolate her from family and friends so that she will feel HE is the only one would ever "put up with her." He does this because he knows full well that friends and family members would counsel you to leave; would have counseled you to leave long ago.
I hope that after you sort all of this out, you will re-connect with family again. If they advised you against marrying this jerk, they clearly saw what you did not. Forgive them if you can and see if you can mend fences.
Yep, just like I suspected. The truth is that HE KNOWS a counselor will call him out on his BS. He just won't have it.
This is also typical of an abused woman. The abuser makes darn sure to isolate her from family and friends so that she will feel HE is the only one would ever "put up with her." He does this because he knows full well that friends and family members would counsel you to leave; would have counseled you to leave long ago.
I hope that after you sort all of this out, you will re-connect with family again. If they advised you against marrying this jerk, they clearly saw what you did not. Forgive them if you can and see if you can mend fences.
Good luck. We're all pulling for you.
The funny thing is that he has done the opposite with my family. They were never supportive of me growing up and I left home young. I was really alone and was very wild and lived in America until I got pregnant over there with my eldest Daughter after a short relationship. I arrived in the UK pregnant and it was not until I came home to Ireland that I met him. He was an asylum seeker and we married after 10 months together!!
I was a bit unstable, I think. After I met him, we had three children and he encouraged me to get my first degree and continue to contact my parents to try to forge a relationship with them for me. It was up and down with them and they insulted him on numerous occasions going to far as to say that 'I wore the pants' in the relationship as he was 'letting' me go to University up the country to pursue nursing whilst he cared for the kids.
I would beg him not to keep contacting them as they were really upsetting me being around them but they really love him now as there is nothing he will not do for them!!. They always feel sorry for him having to 'put up' with my depression etc. That is why he said that he would ring them if I don't snap out of it and make a decision regarding work. They would then pounce and start making feel like an incompetent idiot.
So that's it in a nutshell - I have no confidence. However, I have my nursing degree and nobody can take that away unless I work for an unscrupulous agency or do something that I am not comfortable with and risk someone's safety. I believe that it really is a matter of time before I start making some little savings bit by bit and if I get this job, it is permanent and I will be able to rent a house and make a new life. I love my Husband so much after so many years but I will admit that I feel so worn down too and need to learn to make my own decisions again. All I want is peace of mind and to pay my own bills and make my own decisions and laugh. I love to laugh with the children and be silly and have fun. I just want to laugh with all my heart again. x
There are a LOT of issues in your post but I will try to stick to the nursing oriented ones.
In the US, most reputable agencies in my area will not even consider a new graduate in their employment until they have a year of experience. The agency reputation is on the line with their contracted hospitals if they send a nurse that cannot cope, makes errors, etc. If that nurse is made a Do Not Return to the hospital for the above reasons, they will not be able to work there at all so that job option is lost. Not sure how it works in Ireland but if that occurs in your area, be very very careful if you go with agency work due to the money as you could be shooting yourself in the foot for the future employment with any/all hospitals near you.
Newly graduated nurses need mentoring. Period. End of discussion. Putting yourself and your license or future employment on the line for money by working without any mentoring is a very scary proposition. After a year you have both come clinical experience, critical thinking skills, and some time management. A med-surg or some other general area will go a long long way for future work. Unless you dearly love and are committed to working only in women or children's health, you could find yourself at a disadvantage for long term career if you start in those areas but want to transfer to ED, critical care, etc. At least in the US.
I am a new grad in Australia and my position is in the nursing pool, so sort of like agency filling sick leave within one hospital. No way would I take an agency contract as a new grad - my job is only manageable because I have supportive ward staff, a clinical facilitator available to me 24/7 to help me out with new skills or if I am having a **** shift, lots of training, and low patient ratios (never more than 1:4 in day or evening shifts and 1:6-8 at night).The fact is that working in conditions that are beyond your scope can mean mistakes (I've made a few already even with all the support) which can jeopardise your registration. So I suggest taking the lower paid job if it means more stability and safety.
Specializes in Crit Care; EOL; Pain/Symptom; Gero.
Try to take some time to figure out why you left the dialysis job so quickly - did you feel you were in over your head, were the co-workers unfriendly, was providing care for patients with ESRD a problem for you?
It sounds as though you had little or no orientation to the position, which brings up the next point - Consider what other posters are saying about the reasons for hospitals paying triple time to agency nurses. This typically means that they are understaffed, and poorly managed. As a new graduate, you want to avoid a situation wherein you will be expected to be independent and fully functional.
A position in a community hospital with lesser pay but more structure for a new nurse sounds safer in the long run, as you build your skills and find your niche.
Your finding steady employment may help calm your spouse.
I'm so very sad that dialysis nursing was not a fit for you. I retired in September
, 2014 after 31 years with my hospital. I started as an ICU RN, opening the SICU unit in 1983, ( brand new graduate! ) and spent 14 years in SICU. As I had done 2 years of dialysis as a PCA during my school years, I found it a very rewarding experience and decided that I would like to try dialysis as an experienced RN. I found my place!
However, saying that, I know dialysis is not for everyone. I was lucky to be a part of a close, very experienced group of nurses in our hospital's in patient unit, not as a clinic provider. As my health became an issue with the long hours (12 hour shifts and call) I realized that I could not continue to "give it my all", I moved into a "desk job".
I have never missed giving up anything as much as I missed my dialysis job!
I realize I'm rambling on, old people do this...but that's one of the gifts of being in nursing, to have the choice of so many aspects in nursing. As a new grad, I know that choice may not have been made known to you yet, but hang in there and you will find the place that makes your heart sing! I also know the pressures of choices having to be made when family and/or money make those decisions even harder.
You and all the new grads out there are in my thoughts and prayers and that the Higher Being that you believe in will help guide you through your career.
Specializes in Family Medicine, Tele/Cardiac, Camp.
Thanks so much for replying to my issue.
I asked hubby to go to counselling last night as there is an organization here which I didn't know about until yesterday that gives free counselling for 6-14 sessions. Thanks to advice from here, I went online and found this resource.
His reply?. He said that if I can't see that it's me with issues than that's my own problem. He called my two elder daughters the the kitchen and told me that it was only fair that he let them know about how I'm carrying on. He said that Mummy is messing the family around and won't go to work and we are struggling. He asked if I want to stay home for good and made out he would support this in front of my girls but he would not.
...
I have completely digressed from my original issue on this thread but I can't thank you all enough for the priceless feedback,advice and time you have given to me here. The power is in my hands. I don't have to accept this anymore!.
Reading this, I have a few thoughts.
I would wager to say that your problem isn't the fact that you can't see that you have issues. Your problem is that he doesn't care that you have issues. Please don't misunderstand me. Obviously, the main issue is that he does not treat you with the love and respect that you deserve. And you DO deserve to be treated with love and respect. But another problem is that he doesn't care that you have a problem with the way he is treating you.
Couples counseling works best when both parties care about the well being of the other in addition to the well being of the relationship. If he denies that he's treating you badly or doesn't care that he's treating you badly, or doesn't have the balls to man up and address the fact that maybe he could be treating you badly, counseling may be a moot point. The disconnect lies in the fact that he doesn't seem to be caring about what you're feeling. Whether or not someone's spouse agrees with them, the spouse should still always be supportive and want to help the other.
And the good in a relationship should still outweigh the bad. When you're scrambling to find reasons to stay with someone who doesn't seem to give 2 flying figs over what happens, it's time to re-evaluate. Which is something you seem to be doing.
My last thought was something my mother told me when I was going through my last relationship which was "intense" at best, "dysfunctional" always, and - I can only now really see in retrospect - pretty darn abusive. She said, "When you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, you'll do something."
And when I was, I did.
Only you know your needs, wants, and limits. I'm glad you're reaching out and re-discovering truths about yourself.
Wow, I know this is the internet but all of you guys on here have filled my heart with so much love and hope!!. I am going to see the Doctor this week as I am aware that I am in deep depression and it's affecting everyone around me. My Husband is a different story and one which I don't feel able to cope with for now. My plan is to get a job, get some savings and if things are really dead with him, to get my own place and start again. I can and will do it. It would be too much now to try to do anything without any job etc.
Don, my heart will sing again. Its just a matter of time and you are so inspirational. Snowshoe, I will never ever forget that advice!!. When I am sick and tired enough, I will have to move on and start again. First things first, mental health and career. Thank you so much for everything you have all given me on here!. It is the greatest gift and I feel invigorated and exhuberent that I can do it. I will push through my depression and manage it in such a way that I will be able to stick a job long term. Tomorrow is a new day.xxx
Its so much harder to make life decisions once you are in a committed relationship, and especially when you have children! I have had a somewhat atypical jobs and life path myself, and I have 5 children.
At first glance it might seem that your husband did an awesome thing caring for the children and working nights during your nursing school time frame.
I wonder whose children he thinks he was taking care of though? Were you/are you not working toward a goal that will be mutually beneficial for you, him and your children?
Since when was marriage guaranteed to be equally quid pro quo? I have to, just HAVE to mention also: do you and your husband know how many current nurses there are who have cherished children, and who go to work nights, pay attention to their significant other and continue primary care of their children and resources and time and home care that entails? So, him working a night shift in order to balance your school responsibilities was an awesome thing to do at the time, however, it isn't something which should make you feel like an indentured servant paying off your debt to him for doing it.
I'm pretty sure there are a few thousand nurses here who could very quickly delineate for you and him the level of responsibility on 'night shift' does not just magically equate to 'you would basically be working as a care aide if you work nights.' Additionally, care aides work their booties off as well. *Shakes head and bites lip...
We within these hallowed allnurses virtual walls know full well that nursing school provides the initial foundation one needs...and then you get out there and learn the day-to-day "ropes." A good solid period of time on staff somewhere will provide you with time to learn and grow professionally and THEN you will be set to choose among the many higher-paying positions!
I think many women have lived the path of working jobs we don't like, are over-qualified and under-paid for and even physically detrimental -- often in our child-rearing years. Whether one is in an ultra-conservative relationship probably has bearing on it, but perhaps your husband could become better informed about the life of a nurse through listening to your living of it, instead of either a friend of a friend giving him stories of successful mid-career nurses, or reading about it somewhere.
You should listen to your gut instinct as well as close friends who have your best interests at hand. Find a loving way to communicate to your husband how and why it is really for the best to work in a stable position at a local hospital now for some time, then later shoot for the higher-earning potential of agency work.
I do not know your private situation which you are describing as 'depressed.' If you are, please seek counseling. I will say from your posts however, that you seem to be dealing with a lot of pressure and anxiety just as many of us (*both male and female) do when starting off any new career. A good amount of that is normal and not necessarily 'depression,' though both can contribute negatively toward the other.
Sometimes its easy to hear the louder voices in our lives than to listen to that quiet, still voice coming from our own heart...or gut ^-^. Best wishes.
THIS a million times over. A nervous nelly new grad has NO business taking this position and this agency scares the bejeebers out of me that THEY think this is a good idea.
Oh, and beyond this, OP, I think you need to consider marriage counseling...U
OTE=Whispera;8941922]I think there's something hidden in the job you were offered. In this time when there are oodles of nurses looking for work, why would an agency pay three times the usual rate? Why would they push you to take the job when there should be a line of nurses waiting for any job?
What's the orientation? Is there any?
People who hire seldom know what it's like to work on a unit. Work with experienced nurses? I think if everyone has 8-12 patients, no one will have any time to help you, even if they are there!
If there's little or no orientation and few if any experienced nurses there, and available to help, it's a set up for disaster for you.
Ask for a day of job-shadowing before you say yes!
That's not a valid reason for him to scream at her...
Perhaps, but considering that her husband has been almost single handedly holding down the fort with 4 kids while OP was away at school, I think he deserves to get a little benefit of the doubt. More than likely, once OP is working, that situation will be improved and/or resolved. If not, then OP will need to address that separately.
Get your experience where you will be better supported as a new nurse. Then later down the road, you can look into trying agency when you have the experience & confidence to do so. If your husband tries to push you towards it because of $$, list all the reasons posted above that it would be a bad idea. It may very well end with you being quickly unemployed again due to the extreme stress you would likely be under, not to mention how that would translate to stress at home.
That's not a valid reason for him to scream at her...
At the time I had posted, OP had not given the in depth details that have been added since. If she said "scream" earlier, I guess I missed that, or, without the later details, was interpreting that as frustration coming to a head. I agree that the marital issue is far beyond what it first appeared & OP needs to make a plan & get out of the situation.
Horseshoe, BSN, RN
5,879 Posts
Yep, just like I suspected. The truth is that HE KNOWS a counselor will call him out on his BS. He just won't have it.
This is also typical of an abused woman. The abuser makes darn sure to isolate her from family and friends so that she will feel HE is the only one would ever "put up with her." He does this because he knows full well that friends and family members would counsel you to leave; would have counseled you to leave long ago.
I hope that after you sort all of this out, you will re-connect with family again. If they advised you against marrying this jerk, they clearly saw what you did not. Forgive them if you can and see if you can mend fences.
Good luck. We're all pulling for you.