masscane

Imposter syndrome is real. I'm in my first year and it took me a few weeks to start to feel comfortable treating patients. What I believe really matters is ensuring appropriate mentorship is available at your first job. My mentor sat in with me on visits for the first few weeks and began to let me practice independently after that. The imposter syndrome eventually begins to shed with time. I agree with the poster's above, RN experience is great, but your role as an NP is drastically different from that of an RN. You could get those 10 years experience as an RN and still feel like an imposter when you make the role switch to NP. My advice is to choose your first job carefully, ensure that mentorship will be available, and then jump through the fire.

New grad PMHNP in Utah making $110,000/year. Great benefits and awesome mentorship. I know it's a low starting, but the experience makes it worth it to me. No CME credit though. 4 weeks PTO, 40/hrs a week, on call 1-2 times/month. Definitely not a long term gig, but it's great for getting my feet wet.

I don't work in school nursing, but I work with adolescents in psych. I'm lucky to work in a program where if the parents are verbally abusive then their kid can be removed from our program. I can feel for you because I haven't always had the kind of support that I get now. It is shameful when administrators allow for that kind of bullying and abuse to go on. It shows just how little we are valued. With those kinds of organizations, sometimes the best we can do is vote with our feet. Staff abuse by parents should be taken much more seriously and have consequences attached. We matter!!

Try watching videos from RegisteredNurseRN on Youtube. She has a great Anatomy & Physiology playlist. I even used her for my NP classes in advanced patho.

Truer words were never said. I went from ER to oncology/hospice, exact opposite of you, and can tell you that it is a HUGE transition. Floor nursing could not be more different from what you do in the ER. You already have a big head start because you'll be needing all the skills you've mastered. My best advice for you is to try and stick it out for a few months. Starting out can be miserable in the ER, but once you get over the learning curve ER nursing can be enjoyable. Just remember that if you help someone out when they're drowning, they're more likely to be there for you when it's your turn to drown. The teamwork and camaraderie are what I miss the most. Good luck to you!

I used to get stressed out by all the group texts I would get from management begging for people to come in. Now I just tell myself "Staffing is not MY emergency". Staffing only screws me over on shifts where I'm already working. And when you complain about being understaffed, you'd better believe there's a pizza party in the making. Pizza doesn't cut it for you? Try yoga on a mountaintop.

Agreed. Give your dog a friend and access to the backdoor and they won't be miserable the entire time that you're gone. I'd also try going to the dog parks and making friends. A lot of people share similar problems with dogs and you can find a lot of solutions by networking. Just be willing to return the favor.

I don't believe in the nursing shortage. There are plenty of nurses out there. In fact, nurses make up about 1% of the entire US population. We're just running out of nurses who are willing to tolerate chronic understaffing, corporate mismanagement, and the churn-and-burn hiring practices many hospitals refuse to stray from.

My nurse residency was silly. I enjoyed meeting with my newly graduated peers each week, but I never left residency feeling more prepared for my job. I only ever learned how to really be a nurse on the floor. I feel that nursing education would improve significantly if our profession stopped placing such a large emphasis on doctorates and finally admitted that graduate degrees offer little value to a newly minted floor nurse. My best preceptor had an ADN.