maridee

Is there a maternal-child float pool at your local hospital? It may be your foot in the door. Is there a major medical center in another town close to you? or a Children's Hospital? I used to drive an hour to work. Yes, that is far; but, the experience was invaluable. I worked in NICU and had a neonatalogist; whereas, our local hospital always shipped the sick kids out. Is there a hospital that has weekend options? You may find that once you are employed there that there are other nurses from your area you could carpool with. When I was working on my Masters in Nursing, I had to travel to get to class. One of my classmates was the Nurse Manager of homecare at a Children's Hospital which was located 100 miles away from me. She tried to recruit me to do home care with children in my area that had been hospitalized there. Children's Hospitals are teaching hospitals and are more than happy to teach you the skills you need to work in this capacity. It made sense. It was cheaper to have a nurse in my area make visits versus pay a nurse who has to drive 200 plus miles round trip to make visits. Are there any home health agencies that have a lot of pediatric cases? This job loss doesn't define you. YOUR ATTRIBUTES define you. You are compassionate or you would never have chosen to work in the CVICU. In the CVICU, there are joyous times and there are sad times. As a nurse in the CVICU, there are times you offer support to parents struggling to work. Parents who are trying to deal with their child being in the hospital and parents who are dealing with the economic hardship placed on them. There are times, you see infants that never have a chance to live their lives. Trust me, there are hospitals looking for your experience and expertise. Thank your husband for his service and thank you for the all the sacrifices that you have made being a military wife. May God Bless both of you for all you do! I believe things happen for a reason and there is someone upstairs in control. Things will work out for you. Your family is in my prayers. Sorry, for the long sermon. You get 10 CEU's for reading this post. I want to close by saying the picture on my profile is NOT ME......it is a picture of MY HUSBAND.

leelee, I think you were given some great advice from Cook, canoehead and Ruby. I would NOT list the job on your resume. I would chaulk this job up as a learning experience....even if you only learned how NOT to treat a new nurse when they are orienting to your unit. What did you learn from this experience? I think you knew 8 days of orientation was NOT enough. I think the nurse manager did make a mistake if he expected you to perform as a "competent" nurse on his unit. If that is what he wanted, he should have posted the job requiring 2-3 years experience in Adult ICU. As you told him, you were a CVICU nurse and therefore were a "novice" when working in Adult ICU. He would be a "novice" if he tried to work in CVICU. HE would not feel competent working in CVIUC coming from an Adult ICU background after an 8 day orientation and a couple of weeks on the job. Nowadays, that is almost laughable; because. I can't even imagine any facility allowing that due to patient safety. Nevertheless, pick yourself up and dust yourself off. Finish your ACLS certification, because you have already paid for it. Think of it as one more certification you can put on your resume to make yourself more marketable. I realize being in the military that money is tight. I have a daughter in the military and I well know that our military are not paid enough for their service and for all the hours they spend on the job. Get a game plan. Don't let this incident get you down. So what this didn't work out ...maybe they DID you a favor.