New Job, Did I Make a Mistake?

Nurses General Nursing

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Anyone ever make a job change within the field and feel like they have made a mistake?

I think I have! I went from being a night shift RN in an ICU stepdown to a very useless feeling outpatient clinic RN.

Let me explain. I was on night shift for the last 4 years or so. I knew my job, coworkers and patients well, but felt it was time to explore other areas. Also, I was tired of night shift. I could no longer sleep during the day, we're talking 2-3 hours max. One day, my body said enough and I decided to peruse the job listings within the hospital.

Low and behold I found a position for an outpatient clinic RN with essentially banker hours. The job is 8-4, no holidays or weekends. A dream, right? Not so fast, I'm only on day 4 and I'm wondering what exactly my job is. I'm working for a NP, who is also only a few months in the position and the NP isn't exactly sure how to use me.

So, I sit in my own little office area. I look at work related training online until I get bored to tears, watch the clock religiously. I try to volunteer my services although I'm not sure what I'm doing.

I feel like I should have been paired with another outpatient RN from another clinic for a week or two. And so I sit here and wonder if I should swallow my pride and go back to my old unit and learn to live on sleep deprivation and plan on working holidays until I retire or just stay here longer and feel absolutely useless

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Specializes in Primary Care, LTC, Private Duty.

Don't room the NP's patients and field/triage phone calls that come in from patients trying to reach your NP? When I worked outpatient primary care, I had to room patients (getting vitals, confirming meds and allergies, and taking the chief complaint), do telephone triage, process prior auths, help process refill requests, type up any letters of necessity requested by patients, collect samples from patients (urine, stool, etc), check the patient's A1Cs with our mobile machine, give immunizations and injections, perform ear lavages, etc. Maybe ask to sit down with your NP and go over delineating duties?

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Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.

If you are only on day 4 I would give it some time. Sounds like they just need to get organized and I am sure they will. I would just keep doing what you are doing, work related videos, offering to help etc. until they figure it out. Yea, they probably could have scheduled better training but I would just enjoy the calm before the storm. I doubt they are going to continue to pay you for "being useless" very long, LOL.

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Don't room the NP's patients and field/triage phone calls that come in from patients trying to reach your NP? When I worked outpatient primary care, I had to room patients (getting vitals, confirming meds and allergies, and taking the chief complaint), do telephone triage, process prior auths, help process refill requests, type up any letters of necessity requested by patients, collect samples from patients (urine, stool, etc), check the patient's A1Cs with our mobile machine, give immunizations and injections, perform ear lavages, etc. Maybe ask to sit down with your NP and go over delineating duties?

It's mental health, and kind of a new concept here.

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Specializes in school nurse.

Maybe if it's new, you can help put your "stamp" on the role. Any opportunities there for patient teaching? Case management? Participation in studies?

Definitely don't write it off yet. If night shift was affecting your health, be sure it was doing more damage than the boredom you're currently experiencing...

Speaking of that, allow your body sufficient time to do a reset. Don't make any key decisions until that happens.

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If the np is new, she may need some time to build up a client base. I would hang in there. I actually think it would be exciting to work in a new practice... even though it may be slower at first, you can probably define your practice more than a nurse in an established office. You could help formulate policy and procedure for that provider. I work in a medical clinic and the possibilities would be endless.

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I had a very similar experience early in my career. After working a year of straight nights on a post-op cardiac unit by choice (if you agreed to straight nights, you were able to self-schedule, which I did 3 on and either 4 or 6 off) I decided to return to the land of the living. I took a job in an outpatient family practice. I was the only nurse amongst several MAs (they also referred to themselves as nurses though). I went from making what I felt were life saving decisions and using critical thinking to taking height, weights, vitals and drawing blood. It was a very task-oriented job and I was bored most days. I thought I would enjoy having an hour lunch break during my work day, but was so use to eating quickly that I found it to be wasted time. But, I made a commitment and have always thought working at a job for less than a year wasn't giving it a full shot, not to mention anything less than a year can look poor on a resume. After I had worked 1 year in my position, I returned to the in-patient side.

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The transition from acute care to outpatient isn't easy. You go from having tangible, concrete tasks that you do throughout your shift to achieve your goals, i.e: teaching incentive spirometry to prevent pneumonia; titrating drips to maintain perfusion, etc, to more abstract goals: risk reduction, healthy lifestyle maintenance, and reduced medical utilization for populations of patients. In nursing school you were taught how, why, and when to apply the interventions and treatments. Care coordination and population health management isn't quite that obvious.

When I left acute care for primary care, I felt like the world's worst nurse because I didn't have as much hands-on time with my patients. I didn't understand how to fit my nursing knowledge and expertise into this new environment. Once I found the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing (American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing |) and spent some time with their resources (I highly recommend buying the the Core Curriculum for Ambulatory Care Nursing), I realized that I was doing EXACTLY what I was supposed to be doing in this setting.

Best of luck to you and feel free to reach out if you have any other questions or concerns...I'm happy to help!

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You haven't even started that job yet. Politely go to the person that hired you, and ask how your training should progress.

You are just not clear on the concepts of this new position and you may have fallen through some cracks.

Don't give up this sweet gig, learn and grow from it.

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Specializes in Oncology, radiology, ICU.

Going from floor nursing to any outpatient setting is a complete change but going from a floor to an office setting is a massive change. Four days is not even close to having a true feel of what the job should be. I currently work in an Radiation Oncology office setting as the only nurse in my office and my job responsibilities are weight, vitals, updating medication lists, working up consults and follow-ups, phone calls, obtaining pre-auths, IV's on occasion, scheduling tests and procedures, and whatever else needs to be done in the front office or whatever a patient comes in complaining about. I've done this job for just over 2 years and I'm getting ready to transfer to the ICU in a week. While it's nice working 8-4 M-F and having holidays off it's also very draining. I love my patients and it was a heartbreaking decision for me to decide to leave but I honestly can't see myself doing this any longer and am looking forward to feeling like a nurse again.

My best advice is to give it some time to see how you truly feel in a few weeks or even months. I know some places don't let you transfer for so many months after you transferred so you may have to wait out that time frame if you're wanting to stay in the same system you are in now. Seek out the office manager and ask them what they feel the responsibilities of your job should be. I went into my current job with the very basics of what other nurses before me had done and then just developed my role to what my doctors needed and what the office needed. I wish you luck in whatever you decide and sometimes it just takes trying jobs to realize what you like and what you don't. Luckily with nursing we have many opportunities in many different areas, not many career choices have that.

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Specializes in IMCU, Oncology.

If it is a new position, this is your opportunity to build the role into what you want it to be. It will get busier! I worked outpatient as an RN, and it can be a very busy and stressful role too.

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Update.....I'm thinking I will call my previous Nurse Manager today and try to come back, even if it's nights. I just can't deal with this level of boredom. I have done, maybe, 30 minutes of work in the past two days. This is a new position with very few job duties. I think they anticipated that the duties will grow as the NP's base grows. One of two things will happen, I will just move on, or they'll eventually figure out that I do absolutely nothing and move me. Either way, I'm a short timer.

Also, to reiterate, next time anyone feels that they would love a job where they kick their feet up for 8 hours and draw a check, think again. It makes me very annoyed to be useless while everyone else serves a purpose or function.

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