RNnicu4

Congrats on the job offer and the interview offer! I agree with seeing if you can interview in Boston earlier. From personal experience it took 50+ days to get my DC Nursing license by endorsement. I started the process in early February and had to show up in person twice to the DC Board of Nursing to get my license just in time to start my job the beginning of April! I hope their process is more efficient now. If if you have questions about NICU nursing in DC let me know :)

Try not to be so discouraged so early. I work with a lot of nurses who have varied backgrounds and have transitioned into the NICU just fine. I think diversity in experience is a good thing - not something that will hinder your future. I started as a new grad and some of us had NICU placements in school and others had not. I also work with experienced nurses who transitioned from other areas (be it adults, other peds, etc.) and bring a lot of knowledge that you don't get if you work one specialty for your entire career. I was a little apprehensive about adult med/surg in nursing school but ended up enjoying it a lot! If nothing else you will get good practice interacting with and caring for adults and families in stressful situations (just being hospitalized is stressful). All of your future NICU patients will come with adults who are experiencing some of the greatest stress of their lives! :)

I was able to respond to your message :) If anyone else is interested I'll answer some here too.

Do you live near a Children's Hospital? Some have different types of programs - one for new grads and another (abbreviated timewise) for experienced nurses who are new to NICU. The idea is to capitalize on the many many skills you've developed in other areas while also helping translate those to peds/neonates. Maybe search for "fellowships"?

Sounds good! I don't think I have enough posts to initiate a PM, but if you can send me one please do!

What a coincidence - I work in the DC area! I know of job postings for experienced NICU nurses at multiple level 3/4 units in the area. I would say the job market here is healthy. Happy searching. Let me know if you have questions :)

Hello! I think the job market varies greatly based on location. Are you open to any part of the states or are you focusing on a particular area? :)

Thank you both for your replies! BabyNP - you bring up a good point about this possibly being something that is state driven. We see babies from multiple states - so perhaps the follow up logistics are easier after patients get settled in their home state. I will ask around a bit more because I truly am curious :) That sounds like a nice program NicuGal. It really does seem to vary in what hospitals offer post discharge.

Hello everyone. I've been lurking around these forums for a while and am now finally making my first post! I currently work in a Level IV NICU that is part of a Children's Hospital. Our unit is fairly large and the types of patients we see varies greatly (preemies, ECMO, Hypothermia/Cooling, surgery patients, etc). Patients get appointments to follow up with their respective services post discharge (neurology, surgery, GI...). We don't seem to have much of a cohesive 'developmental' follow up where someone touches base with how the child is doing overall. When I was in nursing school one of my practicum days was shadowing an RN who was the "NICU developmental follow up nurse". This was at a small community hospital that had Level II/III NICU support. It was a separate facility from the hospital that provided a play based program to screen former NICU patients up to preschool age and pair them with any needed interventions or services. My overall question for the forum is - is this type of developmental follow up resource commonly associated with your NICUs? Is it beneficial? It seemed like such a nice resource at the time (through inexperienced student eyes) and still seems so now (through mild-moderately experienced RN eyes).