NICU Before Moving to L&D

[Amtrojan]

I was recently offered to work as a new grad in a Level 3 NICU or new grad in Labor Delivery at another hospital.

My true passion is to be a great OB nurse and possibly a Women's Health Nurse Practioner on the side. I want to be able to travel around and be competent in my job.

I was wondering if I should do NICU before L&D to improve my skills at listening and assessing sick babies so that when I get to L&D I will be able to quickly pick up on what is wrong.

[labordude, BSN, RN]

Yeah, I thought that was an odd thing to say. Sepsis, NEC, CDH, 24-weekers with intercranial hemorrhages, term newborns on head cooling 2/2 HIE from birth trauma. Not what I'd call fun.

Perhaps my phrasing could have been more clear. Just because individual situations are bad doesn't take away from the fun of the job itself.

[ssrn13]

Perhaps my phrasing could have been more clear. Just because individual situations are bad doesn't take away from the fun of the job itself.

I'm think they were referring to my comment about the NICU babies being "fun," not poking at your earlier comment, but I agree with you... In no way did I intend to say that I take joy in babies who are really sick, or that spending an entire night titrating drips or resuscitating is "fun," but I really loved working with babies and immensely enjoyed my time in the NICU. Maybe my word choice of "fun" was poor in that context and I apologize for that. I just loved my NICU babies.

[Jory, MSN, APRN, CNM]

I hate to be a skeptic, but a new grad opening in L&D raises some red flags, especially if this is a community hospital setting and not a tertiary care center.

L&D is a highly sought-after clinical area. Many hospitals have current staff nurses working other departments on wait-lists for L&D openings, so these positions are rarely available to new grads. Some tertiary care centers have such busy L&D departments that they need large RN staffs and can justify hiring new grads and offering sufficiently long and thorough classroom and clinical orientation. That is rarely the case in small, community hospitals.

I'm sorry, you could not be more incorrect. I live in a rural area and new grads are hired in L&D and the NICU all the time. There is no evidence at all to restrict new graduates from those areas. 12 to 16 weeks is the standard orientation with a preceptor for new graduates and yes, they function very well at the end of that period. There is ongoing training, support for the first year.

So you are assuming that it's a red flag that there are new grad openings at every hospital in L&D and rural hospitals give deficient training? Wow...just wow.