NSUNP

Truly it could be worse. I simply went to work in my first job as a NP in Internal Medicine. Needless to say that is not ideal. I LIVED on up to date and family practice notebook and epocrates and micromedex and curbsided my MDs whenever I needed to in a shameless fashion. I would much rather feel uncomfortable getting the right answer than send a patient out with the wrong treatment plan. Being a novice is just painful. There is no way to get past it except the lived experience of getting more experienced. One day at a time my friend. Rome was not built in a day. Hang in there and before long things will feel much more settled. This is the practice of medicine we are talking about. It will not be easy but it will absolutely be worth it. Sounds like you are also learning how not to treat the person you will train in the future.

It is ENTIRELY state dependent. Only some one licensed in your state or your state board can be a resource for you. For instance, you can't even apply for a license until you have a job (supervising MD) in my state (NC).

Are you doing more than pee? Are you going to learn any interventions/injections or other skills you can take with you? Is the money so awesome you can't leave (this is the case in my area where a friend of mine had an 80K bonus working in pain medicine last year). If not, you now have an excellent foundation for working with a surgeon (inpatient or outpatient). I think board complaints are not uncommon in pain medicine. That population is incredibly challenging because you are going to face addiction, misuse and abuse. You have to have your armor on all day. Granny in the pink turtleneck is selling her Roxy to pay for her diabetes meds kind of stuff. My friend seems to think she has become a police officer and NP. She makes so much money (paid cash for a house and her kid's college) that she is basically stuck. Her supervising physician co-located the new office in the same shopping center with highway patrol as a deterrent. She has to have very difficult confrontations with patients about positive or negative pee tests and missing pills. It is certainly not for every one. You have to weigh the pros and cons and decide if type of stress is something you can deal with.

Only you know your own mind but I think it is critical to seek out a position in which you get the basics of nursing under your belt. I am not sure either of these positions offers you this opportunity. Unless you are in a unique office situation you won't get much experience other than taking VS, handing the provider instruments, and fielding phone calls. In a behavioral health setting your nursing skill set won't be particularly clinical. As a nurse midwife you will need a basic understanding of patient care, recognition and management of a "sick" patient being the most important. I think you should keep looking for at least a surgical floor type of scenario where you are caring for postoperative pain, recognizing and treating common postoperative conditions like hypotension and acute blood loss anemia so that you develop some critical thinking and knowledge to apply to your chosen field and future goal. You could easily use a year of surgical nursing as a foundation for a position in the Labor and Delivery area as well as being much more able to make contacts within the labor and delivery staff. Hope this helps.