Not sure if I want to be a nurse, or what type of nurse..

Published

Specializes in M/S, Infectious Dieases, Pediatrics/NICU.

Ok, so I graduated 1/07 worked on med-surg for 7 months (VERY GOOD EXPERIENCE, but with 6-7 patients every day I felt burned out all the time.) and jumped ship once my required time was over. I am now in PEDS and am wondering if I like this any better. So my question to anyone, should I stick it out here for a few more months to see if it grows on me or within the first two months I would of known by now. I do work the night shift now(lord help me I am trying to adapt) and am finding it very unfullfilling. If I decide to leave peds I would feel bad moving to yet another floor in the health system I work in currently (nor do I wish to know what the upper management would think of me jumping around every 6 months.). SO any opinions, is it the shift or is it the job. Should I stick it out or should I suck it up and go with the flow. ANy help would be appriciated.

:bugeyes:

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Is there any chance of you getting into a float pool? The idea is you don't have a set "home" floor, you go to work not knowing where you'll be (or you might get a call a couple hours ahead of time to clue you in, depends on where you work). The pro side is that you get to get experience in every unit, getting better the more you float there, so you can either choose to stay in one unit or keep moving if that appeals to you.

The con side, of course, is that you DON'T have a home base, and you are always the 'outside' nurse wherever you float. Don't get me wrong, we love to see floated help! But still, it's not the same as being always on the same unit.

Anyway, some places require you to have a couple of solid years of experience before you do the float nurse thing. Others, not. Depends. Check into it!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Telemetry, CCU.

Floating sounds like a good idea, the only bad thing I see in that is that usually you end up getting floated to the areas with the biggest need and these just happen to be the areas where many people don't want to work (med-surg, tele, ortho, maybe others?). However, that could be just facility dependent and I don't want to be negative here, so you'll have to find out how it works in your hospital.

If you do some soul searching, maybe you can find out exactly what it is about your job(s) that you don't like. Is it the patient load, shift, coworkers, schedule, manager? There are many factors that can make or break a job, and you have to weigh the pros and cons. Only you can figure out what is right for you, good luck :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency, Trauma, Flight.

not that my opinon counts....

try nights.. stick w/ the night shift for a couple of months...

you will then know what you wanna do..

and hopefully.... you will realize that night shift is the best

:cool:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Government.

Just a question for the OP....did you have ideas about what Peds would be like that have been not fulfilled? I asked because I was a night Peds charge for 10 years and we'd get a lot of 'refugees' from adult med/surg. People often assumed because they had kids or liked kids that it would be so much better or more interesting. They hadn't counted on siblings running around all night, parents sleeping with/on their kid and pulling out the IV line, a million respiratory txs and a staffing of 10:1, sometimes 20:1 if everyone called in sick.

Is it night that are a problem or Peds or hospital care? Try and tease out your likes and dislikes. It'll help you avoid just changing jobs to change jobs.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion