New grad, questioning my decisions

[peachy512, RN]

Hi everyone, I graduated nursing school this past May. I worked as a CNA for 2 years on a surgical floor at the hospital where I'm currently a nurse. Instead of trying to take a job on my unit, I opted to try a different service line. I'm in a new grad residency program where we pick a service line specialty and then we have the option to rotate to different units within our chosen specialty if we choose to do so, or we can opt out of rotation and interview with the unit we're currently on to get a permanent position on that unit.

I chose the women's/children's specialty because in school I was very disturbed by the exponentially increasing maternal mortality rate in the US. I've been on L&D and am currently on LDRP, and while I love the job and being there for my patients and alleviating their fears during scary emergencies or answering the questions of first time parents, I'm missing my old unit so, so much. I oriented on days for L&D and will go to nights, which I don't really care about that, but I've bonded with the day staff and when I did a few night shifts, I definitely don't fit in with the night staff at all. They're younger than I am, and it just felt really clique-y and not very welcoming. There are multiple nurse residents on the unit right now, and well all feel this way and have noticed a difference in how we're treated versus how the direct unit hires (that are also new grads) are treated.

My old unit is definitely not the easiest to be a nurse on: high patient turnover from surgeries, we would get some really sick patients. Some that were pretty much intermediate ICU, and some confused and combative. Definitely a completely different world than L&D and LDRP. But the people who worked there were great and it was genuinely my most favorite job I have ever had. The entire time I was there, everyone was so willing to teach me things and my annual evals all had great reviews from my coworkers. We loved working together, our teamwork helped our super busy unit run like a well-oiled machine. Float pool nurses love coming to our unit because even though we are busy, we help each other. And my managers were great too.. there was a shift where one of our sister units was short a nurse that my unit manager took 7 patients, and my assistant managers would take patients on the floor as well if they need to. Our manager was good at fighting for her staff and recently was able to get their ratios reduced from 6:1 to 5:1.

I'm just feeling really conflicted and intimidated. I'm not contemplating going back to my old unit before my year in the residency is over, but I am wondering if that would be something I should try to do after my first year. I love what I do in L&D/LDRP, and it's intimidating to go from patients that are for the most part healthy to patients that are super sick, busy, and cannot do a lot for themselves. But I want to really feel welcomed and like I'm part of the team, which is something I haven't felt in the units I've been on in the residency. I don't need to go get coffee or drinks with my coworkers after work or anything, but I'd like to not feel like the black sheep.

Am I crazy for wanting to go back to a med/surg unit? Is what I'm feeling normal? Has anyone made the transition from L&D/LDRP to med/surg? I know it's a drastic change, I'm just wondering how others have handled it. Thanks everyone! Sorry this post is so long.