Jonesp75

I got In to the women's health track.. best of luck to everyone!!

Good luck everyone, fingers crossed!! Been checking my email daily, I applied for women's health track

Hi everyone I am hoping to get some insight on possibly returning back to the bedside and I’m torn on what to do. I am a newer nurse (only 1 year Bedside) who was able to land an office job with blue cross blue shield as nurse medical reviewer. A little background about me is that straight from nursing school I was able to start out in a Level IV Neonatal ICU which had been my dream speciality since nursing school. I loved the aspect of taking care of these high acuity fragile babies and at the time could not see myself doing anything else. The same month I was due to graduate March 2020 I also found out I was pregnant with my first child. Although not an ideal time I was just thankful I didn’t have to experience it while I was still getting through school. I oriented on day shift and worked day shift up until I left for maternity leave and absolutely loved my job. However after I had my baby my whole perspective on the hospital as a whole changed drastically. Looking back on it I do believe I suffered a bit from post partum after having my baby. I only took 8 weeks off and switched myself to night shift ( as a new grad I was going to night shift anyways but decided to do it earlier). Since my baby at that time Was still sleeping during the day mostly I figured it would be easiest for me to just transition to nights where dad would be at home and I would take over when I got off. This worked for a bit until it didn’t. As you can imagine I totally exhausted myself, and felt most of the time I was sleep deprived. Daycare at this time just was not an option for me as we were heavily still in the mist of covid & it just was not my preference. It took me about 6 months after returning from maternity leave to land the office job. At the time when I applied for the office job it seemed so appealing because I had worked for a utilization management company for several years before nursing school and always thought that was the type of nurse I wanted to be. (I also feel that my experience in the insurance world pre nursing 4+ years is what made it easier for me to land this type of job) I liked the thought of having a ‘normal schedule’ M-F with holidays and weekends off and not having to be on my feet for 12+ Hours or a high stress environment. This job originally was suppose to be work at home which was the biggest factor for me in accepting the job. Later finding out that they placed working at home on hold indefinitely and that I would be working in the office & not at home. This was a total bummer for me but at the time it felt like the grass was still greener on the other side so I still accepted. I place my child in daycare and took the position. For anyone who has placed their baby in child care knows the first year is absolutely miserable! Since starting daycare my baby has had multiple respiratory viruses, secondary ear infections as a result to the viruses. And a febrile seizure. Because of this, this has caused me to get ‘occurrences’ at my job for having to miss work & I absolutely hate it because I’ve always been great about my attendance. However I’ve been in this medical review position for a couple months now and it’s just not fulfilling the way I thought it would be. My commute is 45-1 hour long one way (depending on traffic) five days a week. I am quite frankly bored of the job and don’t care for the environment. Things are weird in the office because it is half empty as most of the staff are working from home. Even my manager that I report to lives in a different state and works from home. I will admit I am a bit salty about the working from home aspect because when I applied for the position that’s what it was for & then changed at the last minute. My entire department will still be working from home & when I spoke with my manager about the possibility of working from home at a later date I was told this was not going to happen as they were no longer having working at home opportunities but yet they just hired 5 more nurses who ARE working from home. This is a salaried position however if you miss and you don’t have PTO it’s counted as hourly and you don’t get paid for that time missed. I also feel that I lose out on so much time with my baby and only get to really spend a lot of time on weekends when I’m not working. ( as by the time my child is picked up from childcare) he is exhausted and ready to go to bed. Returning to the hospital I feel would allow me-to be able to spend more time with him since I’d only be working 3 days out of the week. I’ll be able to keep my technical skills and I also like the fact that you can have multiple days off where you don’t have to use PTO if you wanted to take a vacation. When I think about my long term goals I know that I want to further my education. Whether that is the CRNA Path or NP path. I know for a fact if I choose CRNA path I will need to go back to hospital. (I am highly interested in a CRNA program where NICU experience fulfills the ICU requirement). NP path Although highly suggested getting more clinical experience before applying, NP schools have made it quite easy to get in without having to have that clinical experience. Although eventually when clinicals start for NP School working M-F would be hard to do. The only thing I really don’t like about returning to hospital is the mandatory weekends and holidays. I absolutely hate the thought of having to work on Christmas or thanksgiving rather than spending that time with my family. & missing out on my babies first holidays..Those are memories I could never get back! I do love night shift & to be honest would much rather be on nights than days but it does make it hard to leave my family at night to go to work I do like the fact that if I return back to the NICU my child is in daycare now so working nights I’d be able to come home and get adequate rest, I am able to pick up OT as often as I’d like ( I’m in the process of trying to become debt free, and also save for a home). In my salaried position I’d have to pick up a second job if I wanted additional income to save for my goals. I just don’t want to go back to the hospital especially with the mass exudus that’s happening with nurses leaving beside now & feel like I’ve made the wrong decision in going back. Also I want to add, I was offered a NICU position on nights already & so I need to make a decision.

Awesome!! Well let me know if you need any ideas on areas to look for places or any other questions I’m always happy to help.

Thank you!! Okay yeah I’ve been to Cedar Rapids a few times it’s only about an hour away from Davenport. & yes girl I love it here. & the weather is sooo much better! No snow or below freezing weather to deal with!! There’s so many things here to do. I think you’ll really enjoy it. When will you be moving here?

What part of Iowa are you from? I am also from Iowa. I’ve been in TN for 5 years but I use to live in the quad cities (Davenport) I received a call and email offering me the position in NICU!! Is anyone else on here who will also be in NICU or L&D? CONGRATS to everyone who received offers as well!

Congrats on everyone with their interviews and offers. Can any of you recall the questions they asked during the interview. Mine isn't until March 30th for NICU and I'm wondering if they are asking the same general questions for all new grads or more specific questions relating to the unit you're interviewing for.

Awesome!! That’s good to hear, I am so nervous!! Good luck. Hope you get it!

The openings for interview dates may be based off of track choices, as I also had several days to choose from with NICU.

Congrats!!

Yes! my first choice was NICU and thats what my interview is for !! Thank you It starts with J. However, I don't believe they are going by alphabet as one of my good friends received notification of interview yesterday for L & D and her last name starts with S. A few people in my class also received interview invites but they were all for adult specialities from what I am aware. What did you apply for as your first choice?

Anyone who applied to NICU/peds tracks hopefully should be hearing today, I just heard back regarding interview this morning.

@EDboundSN Vandy allows you to wear any color, the only area I am unsure of ED. I believe ED where's all black at Vandy. Vandy however lets you wear Vandy t-shirts and gear with your scrub bottoms so you don't have to actually wear a standard scrub top with them. Centennial or for that matter all HCA hospitals here nurses wear Navy blue scrubs even in the ED, and St. Thomas all nurses wear sky blue.

@samkit102092 From what I have seen with their past residencies they have always hired 14 new grad nurses in NICU. So hopefully it will be the same for the Summer. @BHrn Yeah they are pretty big because they are the only level 4 in our area so all of the hospitals send their really sick babies there if they don't have the equipment to take care of them. The children's hospital is right next to the main hospital. So you would just take the shuttles, which is nice that you would haven't to go far out.

I think you guys will like it. I also applied to NICU. I currently work for Vanderbilt now in the peds urgent care and its great. I also did my shadowing experience in Vanderbilt NICU. they have 2 split Nicu's. The bigger one where they have 90+ beds is located in the Children's hospital side and its very nice. They decorate the doors and its very colorful there. The other NICU is smaller and attached to the labor and delivery in the regular Vanderbilt hospital. From what my preceptor told me you can split your time between working in both of the NICU's. I also like the fact that they separate by pods so you have your most critical babies in certain pod areas, and your feeders and growers who just need to be monitored in other pods. I wish everyone the best of luck!!