Aliceozwalker

OP here. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to reply. I really appreciate all of your feedback and advice. My mental health issues can be debilitating. I have been dealing with anxiety and depression issues ever since I was a child. Unfortunately, several people in my life have been suicidal or committed suicide. This happened in university, for the most part, had it happened sooner I likely wouldn't have gone into nursing. This has led to me becoming extremely anxious and worried about my patient's safety probably to an almost paranoid degree. I feel responsible for their lives and if I feel something is affecting that I become flustered and nervous. I feel that I am annoying my coworkers with my questions and concerns over patients' labwork/vitals/etc. I have reoccurring nightmares of patients/people needing me to help them and me being unable to rescue them. I have seen several psychologists and doctors. The reality is psychologists are very expensive and I don't feel I have the money to see one frequently. I don't have any sort of coverage to pay for one since I have been doing full-time hours with a part-time job since I started nursing. My mental health issues have been going on for years and I could be spending the majority of the money I make for services that have never really helped in any significant way. That's not to say I won't try, I did ask my psychologist to be referred to an anxiety clinic. I have gone on short term disability for a month at my previous job. It didn't really change anything and I just got anxious about how my skills would regress upon returning to work. Several people in my life also think I am putting too much stock in the job being the issue over the anxiety/ depression. It's hard to explain but I do feel that nursing is making things worse. Working with patients feeds my anxiety to a high degree. It's like my mental health issues are a small fire that I can somewhat manage outside of nursing. But work is the gasoline over the fire that makes things begin to burn outside of my control. Nursing plays into a lot of my deepest fears of not being able to protect people and yet being responsible for their lives. I think I would be happier in a job where I could be by myself more and not have to face people all day. I'm not 100% sure that changing jobs/careers will fix things but I do feel it will make things a bit better. I just feel I have to try something else to bring down my anxiety on a daily basis as I can't imagine continuing on like this for years to come.

Some of you may remember me from some of my previous posts. I have been a nurse for about 2.5 years now and have hated most of it. I began in an inpatient unit while I did hospice and then switched to a clinic. I was very hopeful that the new clinic job but things are going poorly. My mental and physical health continues to deteriorate. I am up to 170 pounds from 127 when I started nursing. I haven't been able to hold a relationship and have lost most of the friends I've had. Most of my days off I stay at home and feel so exhausted in the mornings I normally stay in bed for a few hours before getting up. My family held an intervention last week saying how concerned they were and said I can't continue on like this. I told them that I really do feel that nursing is swallowing me into this dark hole and that I am falling back into a depression with high levels of anxiety. My clinic works 12-hour shifts and doesn't get breaks until all the patients leave which is about 5-6 pm. Even then we normally don't get our full breaks, maybe 10 minutes or so. There are a lot of issues with the way the clinic is run and I've begun to fear for my patients and my license on multiple occasions. When I talked to my psychologist about this back in January he strongly suggested that I stay in the clinic for a year. I stayed at my previous nursing jobs for 1.5 years and 1 year exactly and he was a bit concerned about me being hired somewhere else. However, last week was sort of a realization point that I realized I have to be out of this job ASAP. I have decided that I am leaving bedside nursing and want to apply for more deskwork nursing jobs (such as nurse consultant) to see if that is any better. If things still don't improve I am going to be leaving the profession altogether. Nursing is honestly destroying my life, it was not a good choice of a field for me given my social anxiety and history of depression. All this being said, me leaving this current job is not going to go over well. My old manager switched me to this clinic as a favour and vouched for me as he knew I was struggling mentally there too. He will not be willing to give me another reference once I hear I left this job in under a year and I doubt management at this job will either. They also gave me over a month of orientation as I was quite new as a nurse, which makes the situation all the worse. There are also issues with staffing if I leave. We are just staffed enough to cover every shift exactly. There is a new staff member starting but not for another month and then they need the month of orientation. We were told that they were hired to cover for our vacations. If I leave soon, the staff will have a big issue with covering vacations and I will be deeply resented. I was to leave burning as few bridges as possible. I haven't told my current job any of my issues with mental health but am reluctant to list that as my reason for leaving. How would you proceed with quitting this job? Would you let the company know now that I am planning on leaving so they have a month or so to find someone? Should I wait until I have another job offer then quit giving them two weeks' notice? And what should I say when they ask me my reasons for leaving?

Thank you all for such well thought out and written perspectives. I'm sorry I haven't written back in such a long time, honestly, the only way I could cope was not thinking about the future for a while. I am a huge introvert and do have social anxiety. I think that overall, nursing might not have been the best choice for me. But the reality of the situation is that no job may be that great for me due to my social anxiety. I once saw a career counsellor who was honestly a bit stumped on what I should do for a job. I have a learning disability in math which puts out quite a few careers, including most businesses. My social anxiety limits a ton of others as well. I always liked the arts but you need talent in that area to make a living which I will be honest, I don't have. Nursing was honestly more of a fallback plan as I wanted a job that I could make a living at that was possible for me to do. I have booked a meeting with my psychologist. She may be able to open her thoughts about some other avenues or ideas for me.

Hello. I have been in nursing for a little over two years and I'm going to be honest... it has been a truly terrible experience. So much so that I'm reconsidering the profession. To be fair, some if not most of this is definitely on COVID. But everyone keeps saying that things will get better for nurses while things get worse and worse. About two years ago I started on an inpatient medicine unit and it was honestly the worst year of my life including a year in high school when I had major depression. I gained 30 pounds that year, had severe severe anxiety and was so miserable that I honestly wished that I could be seriously injured just so I didn't have to work anymore. I literally hated my job. About a year and a half later I was finally able to get out to what seemed like a dream job in a hospital clinic. I promised to myself that I would never work inpatient again it was so awful. I have been at my new job for 8 months and things have definitely been better for the most part. I don't love the job but it's tolerable. The one thing that always shocked me is that we never get breaks. Ever. The other nurses in the clinic have accepted that and told me that it just "isn't possible and part of the job". Since we do 12 hour days, that means I can go 12-13 hours without eating but they all do it. I was actually relatively okay with all this until things recently took a bad turn with Omicron. Several of the staff nurses in my clinic only have one or two vaccines. I have all three vaccines. Two days ago I wasn't feeling well. I had a headache, sore throat and diarrhoea. At this job, I have never called in sick for all 8 months. The charge nurse called me back when I left a message and told me that 5 staff members had been tested positive for COVID. I was shocked as no one had said anything to me up till that point and that it isn't considered an outbreak considering how small the clinic is. They asked me to come in immediately to get tested then call them once the result was back. I did get tested and it came back negative within 6 hours. Once it came back negative I called them back and work immediately told me to come back in. The clinic that I work in needs a specific course and very few nurses have it sadly so the usual nursing emergency sick call team can't cover it. They weren't able to get anyone else and were "extremely short-staffed". I was annoyed as I still felt like crap but came in anyway. Since then it has been, to be frank, a *** show since we are so short-staffed. We have been working 14 hour days, only being able to eat once in that period after the patients leave. Patients have been extremely upset since we are keeping them waiting 2-3 hours on average past their appointment time. Several have yelled at us. Management had no solutions since the nurses need that course to work there. There isn't anyone else to cover. What annoys me more than anything is that the person who first got sick was someone who only had one vaccine then went to a big party on New Year's eve. It almost feels like us triple vaccination nurses are being punished for getting the vaccine as the others have time off to recover. I am trying to be reasonable but between my time in inpatient and now all the risks to my safety and health again here, I have just had enough. I am tired of feeling like a human punching bag and holding up the crumbling health care system. I am being told over and over that things will get better but nothing has really changed in the 2 years and I don't know how much more of this I can take. The issue is, of course, I am not sure what else to do. I am 27 so starting a new degree would be catastrophic for my long term financial success. I am considering applying to other jobs outside of my degree but really don't know how that would work especially with the way the economy is now. Any solutions, stories about what you are going through or advice would be much appreciated.

Hi everyone, I know that some people have been following my posts, and I did mention that I would post when I had some news. Five weeks ago a full-time position was posted for the clinic at the hospital I work at (hospital pay, 9-5, Mon-Fri). I applied and then things got even worse. My mom had heart trouble and went to emerg, another relative got a cancer diagnosis, my main hospital position lost 5 staff members in a month period, my second job has a major issue with a family member and my health only got worse due to all the stress. I literally had a moment where I was crying in my car and saying to myself how I just simply could not hold up anymore and was considering going to casual nursing. Then they offered me the full-time clinic position. Words cannot express how happy I was. I was trying not to get choked up I was so happy when my manager called me to tell me. I was so so happy to be moving away from mostly all nights and a unit that I dreaded going to every time, no matter how lovely the staff was. Well, I didn't want to post until I started my clinic position, which I did, and it is already making such a difference. I have been there for about two weeks. I still do stay late, but I did at my old job and I am still learning. I do feel that the learning curve is huge, but none of the patients are confused/need to be lifted/delirious and I'm finding I prefer this patient population so much better. If I don't like a patient, I am with them for only 3 hours a day max, not 12. I have already started losing weight, as I have fallen into a routine of exercising after work and making a healthy lunch when I get home for the next day. My parents/doctors/psychologists are all pretty astonished at how much I am improving so rapidly, both in terms of my physical health and mental. I know that not every day will be amazing and there will definitely still be changes. But I am doing a lot better. I want to thank everyone for all the amazing advice they gave me on here and for helping me through a really challenging time. For new grads out there, there is some hope. My only concern now is I am 100% convinced that I never want to do rotating 12hr days to nights again. Ever. I pretty strictly want clinic work in a hospital from now on or any other position that offers me a 40-48 hour work week on strictly days. I am realizing I am definitely a routine person, and as much as I tried shift work it really is not healthy for me. Realistically, do you think it is possible for me to accomplish this in my nursing career? Pretty much everyone who knows me is telling me that going back to shift work at any point in the future would be a huge mistake considering how much better I am doing now.

I am so sorry to be posting again so soon but a situation just happened that has led to me considering leaving both nursing jobs. This job is definitely the better of the two under normal circumstances. All staff members at my community job received a message from our manager today. Apparently, the relative from a patient (pt was homeless) who recently died found out that their loved one passed away in our facility and wants the patient's belongings. Since the government was actually involved with this patient and their funeral expenses they stated we needed to hold onto the belongings as they sorted through some things. This led the family member to become enraged when they heard and they started calling the facility screaming/cursing twice so far. The relative was described as sounding "not all there" and possibly "under the influence of alcohol or drugs". The family member has now started showing up on the premises, pounding on the door. The family member is big, aggressive and we are apparently supposed to contact police if they show up again. The community facility is a very isolated area and there is little to no security. On night shifts, I am in charge and am alone with only two other staff members who are middle-aged women. There is no panic button or alarm system. My parents flipped when they heard this story, particularly because it hasn't been the first time something potentially violent has happened. The first incident was that a staff members car was on fire during a night shift. They didn't find the cause of the fire, and the incident was actually in the local newspaper. To be 100% fair this could have been something that the coworker might have done accidentally. The second incident was a man was seen touching himself in the parking lot and asked a staff member "why so many women were going in and out of the building." Sufficient to say, the police were called for the second incident and hauled the guy away. For about two weeks after they started sending patrol cars but then stopped. My mom is saying that she no longer feels the community facility is safe and wants me to quit immediately. She feels that not enough is being done when these incidents happen and the perpetrators always walk. While incidents have happened at the hospital job they have never been as intense as security has always rushed over to help. But for those who know me, I was actually trying to pick up more hours at the facility so as to avoid the med-surg position which I have come to absolutely hate due to the workload. I just really don't know what to do at this point, I don't know if I really should quit my job over this or if it's something (sadly) that a lot of nurses go through and just stick through. I can't believe I am now in a position of not feeling secure in either job and am honestly considering looking into other career paths. What is your honest take on the situation? Would you be honestly leaving the community job or sticking it out? For anyone who has been through something similar, what did you do?

Thank you so much for always responding, SmilingBluEyes and LibraNurse27. ? My parents are really pushing for me to stay part-time until December unless I find another position. At that point, I will have completed two years at the hospital and spent about 7 months looking if I haven't found something. Their point is that the position the manager offered me at the clinic was set for around that time frame. If he hasn't offered it to me and I haven't found anything else they are fine with me switching to casual. They mentioned to me that right now it is best for the long-term to save as much money as I can until December while I look and then switch to casual in December while they provide for me. But they want me to give the job search more of a chance which is fair since they are covering most of my costs.

I wish my anxiety was getting better the more experienced I got but if anything it feels like it's gotten worse. This also puzzles my psychologist but it could be that the more experienced I get, the more responsibility and difficult patients I get, especially with so many new grads on the unit. I honestly could not pick up any more hours at the hospice due to the new staff they hired. I am casual so the part-time staff get their hours first and they are fully staffed now at the hospice. I definitely pick up all the shifts I can. I am still applying to new jobs every day so hopefully, something will pan out. I do still live with my parents so at least for now it makes sense to stay in the area. My parents are supportive, but they want me to stay part-time at the hospital until December of this year, unless I find another job. They are not charging me rent or anything but do want me to be saving a decent amount every month. That being said, they have said that I can 100% stay with them until I fall into a more stable role. It sounds like we are in similar boats so I wish you all the best luck! I will for sure post if something pans out. ?

I actually don't live in the US. Where I live has universal free healthcare, so often nursing rates at the hospital are set based on the area across hospitals. In short, all hospitals and every unit make the same in a particular area. This has begun an issue of people wanting to go to hospital clinics and such in droves, as why wouldn't you in you make the same as in emerg or med-surg? This has particularly been a major issue with nurses leaving the ICU to the degree that an emergency mandate was issued stating that hospitals could keep move staff to whatever unit they wanted during COVID. They started pulling staff off floors to help in the ICU since they were so short (myself included) but that began to leaves medical floors short as well. While I like free healthcare for all, it definitely has its issues as well. Community does often pay less tho and at ranging prices so doesn't seem quite as strictly regulated by the country.

Hello! I post fairly regularly on this site but haven't posted in about three weeks. I figured would make a post as to where I was at since there were some concerns. As several members suggested before I followed up with both my MD and psychologist. My MD sent me for some blood work which came back normal. I am also getting a sleep study done but it isn't set for another 2 months. My health hasn't been great but I am still working full-time night hours between the two jobs until I figure things out. My health concerns for those who haven't read previous posts include; Heart rate in the 140s while sitting before work, heart palpitations, alternating constipation/diarrhoea ranging up to 7 BMs a day, 20+ pounds weight gain since starting the hospital job Dec 2019 and joint pain/aches. Anxiety definitely plays a role in some of these issues. I talked with my psychologist about the situation and she states that I should stay on my hospital unit at least casually and remain part-time as long as possible. This is so I have a shot at the clinic position that my manager is offering to interview me for when they have an opening apparently in 4-12 months. I have made an agreement with my parents (I live at home) that if I don't find something by December I am switching to casual at the hospital job no matter what. I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket but I'm feeling like I have no choice. Unfortunately, the job search has not been going well. I have heard that once I had a year of med-surg I could find something else but that has absolutely not been my experience. Maybe it is the area I live in (close to a major world city) but I have in December 2 years of experience in med-surg bedside and a year in hospice and I am still getting no offers. I've applied to universities, community clinics, hospital clinics, OR, psych facilities, government positions, etc. Basically, anything that has daytime hours preferably 8-10 hours. I am even willing to take a pay cut of up to $6 an hour but I am getting few interviews even then and the ones I do have go to more senior people. Over and over I have been told by recruiters that nurses are leaving med-surg bedside in droves giving them lots of candidates so not to feel bad, as they "did like me but I just didn't have the experience some other candidates did". I feel like I've tried everything, I even paid $50 for a professional to look over my resume and cover letter for keywords/any mistakes/etc. They sent me some ways to reword my resume and I sent a bunch out again. Still nothing. I don't know if there is anything else anyone can really say to me except for good luck, but I wanted to let people know that I was surviving. For any other nurse in my position, please know that you are not alone. It is super hard to get away from bedside at the moment. ?

I should probably re-frame that. ? I would maybe consider going back to school if I had something else I strongly desired to do. But since I have anxiety and social anxiety I always really struggled in figuring out what to do. I actually took a super-senior year in high school to try and figure things out and I just couldn't decide what to do with my life. I decided to go into nursing since it was stable work (meaning always jobs available, with a decent living wage) and the fact that my family sadly has a strong correlation with bipolar disorder and mental health issues. I really don't want to burden my family while I went back to school anyway with providing housing/etc especially when we have so many other members to help take care of. I don't have a romantic partner either, and probably never will given the extent of my social anxiety, so I need to become self-sufficient. The hospice that I work at is fully staffed right now since a nurse from the ICU picked up a full-time role. So, even if I wanted to I can't pick up any more hours right now at my other job. Plus it is exclusively nights and I don't want to do full-time nights alone. The other hospices in my area are also not hiring sadly, I did look as well.

Believe it or not, my hospital job has a required course for my unit that is not covered by the hospital. So you have to pay for it out of pocket. 0.0 It is actually a source of irritation for many of the people on my unit, they and I feel that if the course is required the hospital should pay for it. If you don't take the recert, you will be forced off the unit/fired within 6 months.

I actually have almost two years of experience. ? But yeah not enough for an educator role, the hospital I am requires at absolute lowest 5 years.

I honestly and truly wish school nursing was more of a thing in my country (I don't live in the States). ? I have looked and apparently, there isn't a school nurse position in over 150km.

Both of the courses I am currently taking are required for each one of my jobs. So I had to take them to stay in my current roles. The one in September is a recommended course for the hospice, and they offered to pay for me to take it provided I stay in that job.

Hello everyone, While I have been venting quite a bit on this forum about my declining health and lack of job offers, I am trying to look at things from a different perspective. Yesterday I was rejected from two more positions in the community(no interviews just based on my resume) and I sort of reached this state of acceptance that I was going to have to stay on my hospital unit for a bit longer. ? I am in my late 20s so going back to school really isn't a smart decision for me financially. I'm going to have to make the best of the degree I chose. Also, as I am not dating and may never wind up finding a romantic partner it is important to me that I am able to provide for myself financially, hence why I am looking into strictly hospital paygrade roles in the future. That being said, I want to be proactive while I am at my current job and want to set myself up for financial and personal success in my life for the long run. I am interested in knowing what positions are available to nurses that are 8-10 hour shifts days or evenings and offer hospital pay. I do understand that there is not a lot, but want to see what is out there so I can make decisions regarding courses/specializations. From what I have seen online there seems to be a few avenues: 1) Clinics linked to the hospital 2) OR/Recovery Room 3) Nurse Practitioner roles 4) Management or Office roles. If there are any other high paying nursing roles that do 8-10 hour shifts I would love to hear about them. From everyone's experience, what courses should I be looking into? I know that OR requires pre-operative courses and the like, should I be looking into that to boost my resume? Or would you suggest I focus my attention more on advanced life-saving courses? While it would be nice to take a lot of courses the issue, of course, boils down to money and time. I am finishing up two courses this month and starting another few months course in September. As always and insight or ideas would be much appreciated.

Thank you very much. I do need a new healthcare provider so I will start to look into that immediately. Work is not going to get any better with being short-staffed, they have been short for the past 2 weeks at least once a shift. So I need to start looking into how to improve my health now and see if something is seriously wrong.

I did start to consider that more strongly but apparently so have some other hospital nurses. They just hired another nurse who got full-time and she is from the ICU! Apparently, she just got so fed up with being forced to stay in the ICU at the hospital (the hospital where I am stating they have the right to keep you on certain units) that she just walked away from the hospital as a whole. Another hospital nurse with years of experience also just joined the group. So at most I'm getting 2-3 shifts a month now. Thank you for letting me know. I honestly need a new medical provider, I will start looking into that asap.

Sorry if this is a dumb question but what does PMP for? I tried looking it up but didn't see much on the web. Is it Primary Physician? If so, my family physician has been a problem to get a hold of recently. My family is actually discussing switching doctors. Last I spoke to my family physician, he had me on some anti-depressants. The ones he recommended were not really effective for me and were causing pretty severe constipation even with laxatives. I was on them for a month, after which I consulted a pharmacist who helped me wean off of them as he stated that after a month I should have seen some improvement, not things getting worse. I haven't been on anything since. I honestly feel okay mood-wise when I'm not at work, just tired. I should probably reach out to him again about my sleep, it's a good thought about a sleep disorder. I am pretty young though (In my 20s) which is why I didn't think it was sleep apnea.

Thank you again for responding to me. Unfortunately, part-time nurses do not have benefits at my hospital and can only book up to three sessions to speak to a counsellor through EAP. I already used mine earlier last year. I do, however, have a psychologist that I have been paying out of pocket for since then. Due to costs, I have to limit seeing them once a month. In March, this psychologist actually told me to quit my job at the hospital. She stated that I had given the job a year and yet I was still just as anxious as ever and getting more and more unhealthy. I explained to her that if I quit the job then, I had absolutely no backup plan and it would be difficult to explain to the current and future employers why I quit. By the end of April, I decided that the 1.5 years was going to have to do as I was pretty miserable and started to job hunt. I told her in May I was job hunting and she was excited for me. May was actually an awesome month for me, I did 44 hours a week on average and was feeling okay. June has been a completely different experience as my hopes have been crushed. Even if the psychologist tells me to quit I know rationally that it is not the right decision for my career. I really need my current hospital job to make money, especially with the hospice reducing hours. And of course, the bigger reason being that my only solid lead for any clinic job has come from this position my manager is offering. I have to stay on his good side no matter what. I'm just honestly not sure how I am going to find the motivation or willpower to get through this now knowing there are months of misery left and I could still not even get the job in the end. I do have my appointment coming up for the month with the psychologist so I will have to talk about it with her then too.

Hi everyone, I am an RN who has been struggling quite a bit recently and thus has made several posts. To give a quick summary for those unfamiliar with my situation, I have been working at a medical unit at a local hospital part-time for close to 2 years and a hospice casually for about a year. I am very unhappy at my hospital job and thus have been looking for a day nursing job for a month and a half now. Unfortunately, things have taken a turn for the worst again, and I would appreciate any honest feedback or responses. This community has been honestly amazing and I have been trying to apply the advice given to me in the past. Apologies for the long length, this will be my final post related to my current situation so I want to cover all bases. Yesterday, I received two e-mails that both of the jobs I would have accepted (clinic positions) had decided to go with other candidates. I was absolutely devastated as I normally get a job offer if I'm interviewed since I actually tend to interview well. I feel like I saw the light at the end of the tunnel only to have it disappear again. It has now been almost 2 months since I started applying elsewhere and I have applied to 22 jobs in that time period. I am absolutely desperate to move away from acute bedside now. I mentioned in earlier posts but I don’t think I have really gone into how sick I am really getting from this line of work to the degree I am literally considering changing fields if I can’t get regular hours soon. I have a history of anxiety and depression and I think that is honestly not helping with any of this but my health feels like it is reaching a breaking point. My sleep schedule is a complete and utter mess. When I sleep now it isn’t unusual for me to wake up 6-10 times over the eight-hour period if I manage to even get that. I often get less sleep, then wake up exhausted and struggle to get anything done on my days off anymore because I am so exhausted. I recently had an episode of sleep paralysis and ended up having a full-blown hallucination regarding the hospital. I also am having frequent nightmares which is part of the reason I am waking up so frequently during my sleep. I have been gaining a lot of weight too, about 30 pounds in the year and a half. None of my clothes fit me anymore but my scrubs and even those are starting to feel increasingly tight. I'm so embarrassed about my weight that I've been staying home a lot too since I have nothing to wear and it's obvious how much weight I have gained. I am experiencing frequent bouts of nausea and constantly needing ginger ale or gravol to stop myself from dry heaving or vomiting. To go along with that, my bowel movements are also all over the place, I tend to have very tiny BMs and sometimes have 5-7 a day ranging between hard pellets to diarrhea over even a few days. I literally feel sick enough that I went to my MD concerned that I had cancer or something near the start of the year. They ran a bunch of blood work on me and I had a colonoscopy but couldn’t find anything. The only thing they found was that I have small fractures on my spine and the cartilage on my hip is beginning to wear away possibly from overuse. I am in my 20s and this just seems crazy to me. I’m starting to really regret the career and think that shift work is a big reason why I am having so many issues. I had a major depressive episode for years in high school and I’m not even lying when I said I was healthier then. This is probably the sickest I have been in my life. My mom, who is very similar to me, is a person of habit and has very set routines. When I have a more structured life, I seem to live healthier. But my current work schedule is all over the places or nights for weeks on end. It’s definitely not helping my mental or physical health especially with the stress from the job in general. I literally feel so sick some days going into work that I have started to slow down and almost envy my patients. They feel awful too but at least they can rest. I’m in a bit of a hard position since my manager at my current unit is the one who runs the clinic I most desire to work at (aside from money the big reason why I haven't quit). He has actually expressed an interest to hire me there when a position opens up but says it could be anywhere from 6 months to a year. He actually knows that I am applying elsewhere part-time and is fine with it provided that I stay on my unit casually and it relates to clinic work. He actually told me it would be ideal even if I got clinic experience before he moves me to the hospital clinic. While the position my manager is offering is super promising (and my current) dream job, I don't want to put all hope into one position. There are rumours that my manager, while an awesome guy, is actually thinking of retiring in 6-12 months. if he leaves before helping me get this position I could be in trouble as it could take even longer for me to get the clinic position if at all. That being said, I have tried to be less picky and apply to a variety of postings that are 8-10 hour day shifts to improve my health. I've applied to clinics, coordinator roles, and vaccine centres all without success. My resume is normally forwarded by the recruiters to the managers according to the applications sites and I have had a few interviews. But time and time again I get told that the manager "has never seen so many strong hospital nurses applying for the clinic position" and that "while I have a strong resume I need more bedside experience." One manager had a conversation with me about it and thinks it could be that nurses are re-evaluating the work-life balance since the pandemic is ending and are all trying to move away from bedside. I now have close to 2 years of med-surg bedside experience which I was told would open many doors so this is extremely frustrating. I absolutely categorically do not and possibly could not do another year of bedside part-time on my current unit. To add even another layer of woe onto everything is that my hospice job recently hired an ICU nurse who was fed up with the hospital system and just wanted out. She accepted a full-time position and my hours have literally gone from working there for a breather once or twice a week to once or twice a month. I'm just so unsure of what to do at this point. I want to keep saving to buy my own property/rent so that I can move out of my parent's house in a year or two and get into a serious relationship. I feel stuck in my current job with no one wanting to hire me for positions that would allow me to grow or to help improve my health. This in turn is making me feel like I am falling behind in all aspects of my life. That being said does anyone have any suggestions for areas I should apply to next? Additional courses? Any advice that could help me land a day job that would allow me to be casual only at my current job? I have seen some people say that OR/PACU can sometimes be Mon-Fri and offers a good hospital wage. I know it requires a lot of extra courses but at this point, I would be willing to do it if it was exclusively days. OR/PACU nurses, what has your experience been? As always thank you in advance for any advice.

Thank you that is good to know! ?

The clinic I am looking into for the long run is one of these clinics that pays hospital rate and is Mon-Fri 8-4 no weekends or holidays. My manager states he will interview me when a position opens up, but since it is a highly coveted job it could take a while. I did just have an interview for a hospital clinic (hospital pay and anywhere from 8-6) and another clinic that pays $2 less but I loved the location. Either of these I will 100% take if I get offered. ? I'm doing my best now to be realistic since you are right that most clinics in the community offer less.

I'm starting to learn I very much thrive in a more structured week. I think I am struggling so much because swapping shifts is really a struggle for me. I honestly don't know if I would have become a nurse if I had known this before. But what's done I done and it is possible to have a more balanced workday as a nurse for certain settings. Since I am living at home, now is sort of my time to explore and see what fits well.

Unfortunately, I have applied to three vaccine centres throughout the year and never got in. I was told they wanted more experience. All my peers with over two years seemed to get offers and under two years didn't at least in my area. I am actually kind of torn between three areas of study. One is to remain in the clinic attached to my hospital if I get in. Mon-Fri 8-4 and hospital pay which would be great. But if I ever moved I'm worried I would limit myself. My second option is to go into the OR/PACU. A job where the patients are under and with regular hours would be helpful for my anxiety and health. Finally, my initial goal all along was to be a nurse practitioner for palliative care. But now I think I want a few more years of experience than I was initially planning. I guess I will see what roles turn up and kind of make a decision from there.