New Grad offered outpatient and inpatient jobs. Confused!

[mayberight]

Hi all,

I’m a recent grad interested in oncology, and I’m lucky enough to have two offers on my plate right now. I have an addition bachelors degree in public relations and hope to one day join the two degrees together to work as a medical director for a nonprofit, work in administration, or work as a cancer nurse navigator. I’m really attracted to both these job offers and honestly don’t know what to do.

The first offer is on a med-surg oncology floor at a hospital. I got an offer for days. I went and shadowed the unit and I liked it but I can tell I would get overwhelmed it’s so busy and I had really bad anxiety all through nursing school in my clinicals that involved bedside nursing. I never wanted to work in bedside for long, but I know it’s a big point to a lot of people for all nurses to do it for the skills development.

The second offer is nearby this hospital but is a cancer center. It’s one of the best in the nation and has an awesome reputation for oncology. The position is an ambulatory residency and after the residency we can choose our home unit of either radiation, infusions, or a clinic. It’s M-F, no holidays, weekends, nights. I love all these aspects, and as a second time career goer I’m not turned off by 5 days a week. The position involved a lot of education, and I’ll get to build better relationships with the patients because I’ll see them so often. They mentioned I’ll build some awesome assessment skills, and that the infusion and radiation are pretty hands on, but I’m worried if I take this position if I ever have to go to bedside I won’t be taken seriously due to lack of skills and that scares me.

Please help! I need nurse opinions cause of course my mom likes the idea of me being home for holidays haha.

[Lev, MSN, RN, NP]

2nd job all the way!! You will get lots of experience at the infusion center. Patients are there for hours getting chemo and they get other meds too. You will also learn IVs and how to access ports. Blood transfusions too.