I graduate with my BSN in May, I have been an LPN for 9 years and my experience includes inpatient psychiatric nursing for a few years and I have worked at an outpatient addiction clinic for 5 years. I'm a pretty strong student, 3.9 GPA but I am also well aware that this doesn't translate to being a good nurse in practice.
I'm currently wrapping up my med surg 2 rotation then I will begin my transitions. I chose inpatient psych for transitions because honestly its my comfort zone. I'm scared of medical nursing. The nurses on med surg I have been working with have all told me I do fine and I am right where I should be. The last two days both nurses I worked with complimented me on how well I did. But inside I feel extremely scared and I am well aware I have soo much to learn. There is a part of me that wants to do IMCU or even ICU because I do love to learn about and experience that kind of nursing but then there is this huge overshadowing fear of incompetence in myself and an inability to actually succeed. I feel like on my own I wouldn't be able to handle the work.
There are times on med surg where we will have 5 patients, 1 aide for 20 patients, an admit, a discharge, patients needing things, meds due, new orders etc all at once and I think to myself yeah I would just flounder doing this on my own. So I want to run to psych where I don't know if it is what I want to do forever but it is where I know im comfortable because thats where my experience is and I feel less likely to harm someone or make an error that would harm someone there. However, I can remember feeling overwhelmed and scared when I first started psych too. I remember the first few weeks there I went home crying to my mom telling her I can't do it and I ended up really liking my job and feeling confident in my position.
Is this normal to feel this apprehensive though? What do you suggest I try to go for upon graduation? The hospital has an opening on IMCU, ICU and Psych and new grads are welcome to apply to them all. I just have no idea what I should do. I'm very conflicted.
