nurse_kv

Hello, I'm currently a dialysis nurse (over 2 years experience) and have for the past year or so been thinking about my niche/calling/dream job. I learned about health coach nurses in my area (Silicon Valley) and was very drawn to the idea of coaching your clients to set health goals for themselves and helping them in their journey to find wellness. I've been browsing on indeed.com for these positions but they are not so common at this time. Case management is a bit different and it requires acute experience. I do not have any acute care experience myself because during the time that I graduated, there were no jobs for new nurses. I looked at some online programs and plan on enrolling next year. I admit that I am reluctant to invest in the certification and have nothing come out of it as the health coach jobs aren't as plentiful as the hospital based jobs. What I do have is a lot of passion for helping others reach their health goals. It would be such a fulfilling job to know that I helped to improve someone's quality of life.

I started as a new grad rn in an outpatient chronic dialysis unit 2 years ago. I was also trained as a patient care tech for the first couple months and then became charge nurse after my first year. For me the first 3 months were the most trying as dialysis is a specialty, there was a whole lot to learn from the water, machines, patient complications, and work flow. It was at about 6 months that I began to become more comfortable with the job. I have to say that the support of the other nurse you're working with is critical, they can either make it or break it for you. As far as energy is concerned, I do get pretty tired by the end of the day and sometimes just want to pass out and go to bed when I get home. Nowadays, I am still tired but it's manageable. Invest in some great shoes, the lightest weight stethoscope available, eat healthy, drink plenty of water, and pressure stockings have helped tremendously.

So if a new grad, such as myself, has been applying and searching for a new grad acute care program for the past 17 months with no luck, should I choose another route such as dialysis for the mean time? I've read through the threads that talk about how a new grad should do med/surg or critical care before dialysis but in this job market, I don't have the luxury to choose one or the other. It's either go with an non-traditional new grad nursing job or keep waiting until who knows when I'll finally begin in acute care. I've been doing work at a primary care clinic per-diem, flu shots seasonally, as well as wellness clinics sporadically. An possible opportunity just came to start as an RN trainee for dialysis, and I'm just wondering what I should do.. Thanks for any advice in the advance!

Good luck on your NCLEX! Be sure to relax the night before:)

Thanks for the update mjm24! I was really hopeful and had a great interview experience but as time goes by, I'm starting to face the sad truth.

Congrats on that big accomplishment (2 to be exact!)! You must be pretty marketable Good luck to ya.

Did anyone get anymore offers this week? Just wondering if offers were still on-going. Thanks.

Hey sunshine star, I haven't been accepted or anything, but when I asked the Nurse Educator about the structure of the program, he said that you have a classroom day (about 8 hour day) once a month throughout the 10-week program. Hope that helps :)

Congratulations to you all for your perseverance that has gotten you this far. Big pat on the back :)

I truly congratulate you all on your accomplishments and perseverance that got you this far! Best of luck to you all.

You must have your license by July 5, the program starts on July 12.

I heard having the 2nd interview is a good sign..and that we will hear back in 2-3 weeks! Good luck everyone http://img.an-file.info/smilies/wink.gif

I'm from SF Bay Area, so I had a phone interview and will need to submit one the day of the interview. I'm out of luck for the community service portion because all my signatures have been archived at school and therefore unaccessible, I definitely should have kept an original copy, lesson learned! The only thing that I can do now is just list my activities with contacts on them.

Haha funny you posted this right when I just completed mine! I doubt they're going to have a measuring ruler out during the interview? At least for me, I plan on doing double-spaced, size-10 font.

med/surg :)