RNest2019

Hello fellow nurses, I am looking for some guidance and advice. I am a new RN (graduated in December, 2019). I got my first nursing job on a neuro med-surg floor that specializes in stroke care. For the first 3 months my unit was a full COVID unit. Since July my unit has transitioned back to their normal patient population (although we seem to be moving back to COVID as of now..) While I absolutely love the staff I work with, I find myself to be so unhappy on my unit. My long term goal is to work in the women's health sphere - specifically surrounding prenatal, & post-birth care/education. I am now about 6.5 months into my position and I am miserable. My unit has become consistently short the past month and I go into work expecting to be asked to stay late. I have a rotating day to evening schedule and my manager constantly gives me more evening shifts when compared to my coworkers. I feel that I am never able to have a good work-life balance and it is affecting my mental health. I also get calls on my off weekends to come in, and I have started to just ignore these calls for some peace of mind. I do good work on my unit, and have received recognitions, but I just do not feel happy here. I knew that I would not want to stay on this neuro med-surg unit long term, but I am struggling with the idea of staying. I kept telling myself that I just needed to get over the hump of being a new RN and then I would be able to tough out a few years on my unit. I do recognize that I am learning so much on my unit and that I am lucky to have staff RN's that are so supportive of me, but I'm at the point where I force myself to go into work everyday. I love the parts of my day that are spent educating my patients and speaking with them. Unfortunately, since my unit has been consistently short as of recently, I feel that I cannot spend a thorough amount of time educating or building relationships with my patients. It feels like I constantly moving from task to task. I have begun to very strongly consider office nursing. The ability to have the time to focus on educating my patients and more consistent scheduling options is appealing to me. I am unsure of how to best go about that process as I moved to a new state where I do not readily have personal connections. If anyone has words of encouragement or advice, I would be grateful to hear it.