Outpatient RN to med/surg, 2 years after graduation. Can it be done?

[Jaellys]

I graduated almost two years ago and have been working in a very busy rehab facility and at a busy clinic as a RN. I will now be working at a hospital on the med/surg unit with 10 weeks of orientation on nights. Does anyone have any tips for me with this transition? Has it been too long since graduating to the point that I will not have the right critical thinking skills to function well in the hospital?

I used a lot of my nursing skills in both settings (rehab and clinic), but I have heard that its a different type of thinking than the hospital and many people crash and burn if they dont go right into the hospital after school. I am very excited to learn but also a bit nervous because of what I have read on here about needing to start in the hospital, which I obviously didnt do. I took what experience I could get until I scored a hospital job.

[Jilly1234]

Any new nursing job is a challenge in itself...learning new policies, intervention, medications, etc. With 10 weeks orientation, I think that's great! I've worked a year in acute rehab, nursing homes, and SNFs. I also worked for 2.5 years in an outpatient peritoneal dialysis clinic. I started on a med surg floor about 6 months ago with only 6 days of orientation. It may be the hospital I work for or maybe it's because I work with some awesome people, but I personally find med surg more organized and not as crazy as a SNF. I work on a pretty busy floor with a patient turn over rate that's pretty high, but the admission process is soooooo much easier! I remember working SNF and the admission process was a nightmare. I feel that anyone that can do SNF can do med surg. The CNAs on my new floor have so much down time, it's funny hearing them complain because I feel that there are no harder working CNAs than the ones I've worked with at SNFs and nursing homes. You got this! Just make sure that you ask a lot of questions and get familiar with policies and procedures. You'll never stop learning. And if your hospital is like mine, things change all the time, so what we do one day might end up changing later down the road. You'll be surprised at how much you already know, but remember to double check their policy. What I was able to do at one nursing job, I couldn't do at another.