Need advice on Inpatient Surgery RN position

[GaRN1982]

Hey everyone...

I've been checking out this forum for a few years now and finally decided to become a member, mainly because I need some advice on some job options. I graduated with my BSN in May of 2012, worked as an ADON of a nursing home for 6 months, and for the last 8 months have been working night shift on a Med-Surg/Telemetry floor. I feel like I have a good foundation of my basic nursing skills (even though I know there's plenty I haven't seen, done, etc) and am ready to move on to a specialty area.

My main reason for wanting to make a change now is, lately our supervisors have been calling nurses off left and right due to the patient census on our floor being low. I work at a fairly small rural hospital, so there's not a lot of opportunity to float us to other units, even though I'd love to at least orient in L&D or somewhere else. Anyway, I REALLY feel like OR nursing is where I want to be. It's a genuine interest of mine, but unfortunately in nursing school our time in the OR was minimal. My areas of interest at the end of nursing school were L&D and OR, but for whatever reason my teacher placed me on a Postpartum floor at a small hospital for my preceptorship. She said we had to take what we got because there were so many students she was having trouble placing us. I feel like I should have said something at the time, but that's in the past now I guess. I got very little valuable experience in either of the two areas I was interested in, and because I have no connections I ended up having to start my nursing career on Med-Surg, which I'm not very passionate about. I'm just feeling very frustrated because I don't want to be stuck on this unit much longer. There are other areas of nursing I would love to be doing right now. I just need to get my foot in the door.

I applied to a position at a larger hospital, which is actually closer to where I live, on their "Inpatient Surgery" unit. Naively, I didn't know much about what the title meant until I went for the interview, and the job description was vague. I just saw the word "surgery" and was interested. Basically this floor is pre- and post- Surgery patients, and I would be doing a lot of the same stuff I'm doing now. I won't actually be in the operating room. I haven't been offered anything yet; I'm supposed to hear from them in about a week. My question to all of you is, if I'm offered a job on this floor, should I take it? Will experience on an Inpatient Surgery floor (and having it on my resume) help me in any way get a job IN the OR in the future? If not, I may wait until December and try to get in an OR Nursing Residency at that same hospital.

Just wanting anyone's advice who may have some input. Thanks for letting me vent.

[ruralgirl08]

I think it would be helpful. You will get an appreciation for the work done in the OR, you may be able to make an internal transfer to the OR, you will get to know the surgeons you may be working with one day, you will be educating patients before they go for surgery, and make sure they are ready for surgery. You will be doing post-op teaching and care. You would be well rounded.