New nurse need help

[NewRN_2019]

Hello, I’m a new nurse on my orientation period. Im not completely miserable with my position but it’s leaving me wanting more. I took a job as a nurse on a behavioral health unit.. ( I thought this was my dream job). Now that I’m on the unit I don’t feel as passionate about it as I originally thought and I find myself jealous of friends starting on different floors. I miss the more medical side of things and I’m not sure what to do. I don’t know if now is a good time to talk to my manager and try to see if I could switch to a more medical surg floor to start out. Any advice is welcome. Like I said I’m not miserable with my job conditions, I just don’t feel the passion I thought I’d feel as a first year nurse.

[JKL33]

Dreams and passions are interesting with regard to the working world. Nursing involves a huge period of adjustment that makes it really difficult to know whether the discomfort is because it actually is an area that you're never going to prefer (not your "passion") or whether it just takes a while to feel comfortable enough to feel like you are doing what you wanted to do.

For your own benefit, you need to think carefully about this dreams and passions stuff: Is it really that you would prefer to work in what you are calling the more medical side of things (and if so, what was it that made you think this would be your dream job) or just that you are experiencing the adjustment period that people have to go through regardless of what they believe their passion to be. It's easy to feel some longing for what other people are doing when one is experiencing the general discomfort of a big life adjustment, and we also tend to overlook the fact that others might be experiencing some degree of disillusionment/adjustment with regard to their choices as well.

My reply is based on the fact that at some point something made you think this would be your dream job. ?

[NewRN_2019]

I’m not really struggling to adjust or at least I don’t think so. I just don’t enjoy psych as much as I thought. It was my favorite subject and clinical in nursing school but after being on the floor I haven’t really enjoyed it as much as I used to. I also recently had a family member be diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder & turn to drugs so I feel like it’s made it harder for me to feel empathetic towards some of my patients who are similar. I think psych interested me but being a fresh nurse I feel that I will completely lose my IV, and catheter skills if I stay on this floor ( not that I’m great at them now but I’m afraid if I don’t use them I will lose them) I have friends working various floors from inpatient rehab to orthopedic floors and I have just been slightly jealous that they are doing more hands on skills which I didn’t originally think I would miss. I’m just trying to decide if I stick this out even though I’m not happy or if i should be honest with my boss when we have our face to face to talk about how I’m feeling so far. Thank you!