RottylvAPRN

That's great! Always wanted to visit the Pacific Northwest. We're also in TN, just about to start my first NP job in Palliative Care. Best of luck!

Tony, have you made any decisions?

I graduated from a direct entry program, and we were doing skills right away in our clinical sites (for the BSN portion of the program). I agree that our senior preceptorship was the best way to learn, as we basically took an assignment every shift and were expected to be "the nurse" with those 1 or 2 patients that we had (of course with our preceptor). They also started bedside rounding at that time and we were expected to present the patient in rounds with the team from the first week on. However, my floor that I did my preceptorship on was very used to students and new grads. I was hired on that floor after graduation and the transition was great, we had 3 months of orientation. It wasn't in any way easy but the support was definitely there to help you succeed in that first crazy year.

Like everyone said, definitely just insert with the bubble. Random tip, I started putting ice on the area I was about to inject for just like 30 seconds or so (had to do it for 9 months) and I barely had any bruising at all the whole time (may not have been the ice but made it feel a little better too!).

We were required to precept as part of being a teaching hospital. That being said, our director did a really good job of dividing up new hires and students so we weren't constantly required to be teaching someone!

Nashville's a tough area, I spoke to a recruiter and they were saying they're not even trying to place people in this area because employers have such a surplus of applicants for NP jobs.

I worked 12 hr rotating shifts, we did 2 weeks of nights then 2 weeks of days (7-7). It took me forever to adjust to the night weeks and by then I was back to the day shifts :) We also did self-scheduling and it was really helpful, you could have a lot of days off in between switching from days to nights.

I also did a brick and mortar direct entry program in Boston, but we were required to work a minimum of a year as an RN. Most of us continued to work and waited a little while to go back to the NP portion of the program. I worked for 3 years on a medicine step down unit while finishing the NP program, and I just accepted a Palliative Care position. Most of the people in my program had NP jobs within a couple of months of graduating.