Bsum1

Hi PippyM, congrats on making the 6 month mark! To keep coming back into work everyday when it's making you miserable is no small thing, so kudos to you. It's very common for grad nurses to be experiencing high anxiety and low mood from work, but hospitals work to make sure this isn't the norm. No one wants grad nurses to have to struggle like this. Some companies offer free access to counselling. Is this something available to you? Before meeting with your boss, I would recommend speaking with a careers counsellor, or your Nursing Body for advice. I recommend speaking with your boss about your feelings and concerns. You are not the first miserable grad your manager has worked with, and you will not be the last. Managers have lots of experience and could have some helpful advice and insight for you. In regards to being fined for breaking the contract, this is often waved on compassionate grounds, or because the employee can prove that the hospital did not meet their duty of care i.e. issues of bullying or not honouring their training promises. My number one recommendation: Access all of the support resources you have!

This is what I know about myself so far: 1. I struggle really badly with time management on busy acute care wards. (That being said, I have no problem caring for 12 sub-acute patients at a time. Or one acutely unwell patient. I think it has a lot to do with how competent I feel in a specialty). 2. I really enjoy working one-on-one with people, whether they be sub-acute or intensive care level unwell. 3. I dislike shiftwork, not because I dislike the odd hours, but because I dislike bad rostering, and missing out on important events in my personal life. 4. I am well respected for my ability to educate others, and for providing behavioural therapy for children. I've recently been considering PACU, because of the good hours, and the 1:1/1:2 nurse to patient ratios. However, I don't know much about it (what it's really like, the rewarding areas of the jobs, opportunities for career growth), and people (often non-nurses) tell me that they imagine me in an allied health or education kind of roll instead. So I'm looking for ideas! If you work in/know of any areas of healthcare you would suggest looking into or steering clear of I want to hear it! Always great to hear stories and experiences from other health carers. And if you have any PACU experience please share your knowledge :)