Psych to medical d/t lay off

[Allie_G]

Hi everyone!

I'm sort of a newbie here, looking for some advice. I graduated from nursing school last May and immediately started at a larger city hospital in a new graduate program orienting on an inpatient psychiatric unit (which was my dream job). I started on my own December 4, 2016 and was notified that same week that our unit was closing half our beds and I would be laid off beginning of August 2017. There was so much emotional baggage that came with this because I loved my unit, the people I worked with as well as the patient population.

My hospital has a union which helped me bump into a new position in the clinical observation unit (part of the emergency department where patients sit waiting to either be discharged or admitted depending on labs, etc) and it has been SO different. I started orientation 2.5 weeks ago and I know that this type of fast paced, medical based nursing is not right for me. I went from focusing on mental health to putting in IV's and drawing labs and assessing post-MI or post-stroke patients and now I'm wondering if I even want to do bedside nursing. I don't want to leave the hospital I'm in because of the union benefits, pension and the pay is the best around my area but I know that is a small cost for my happiness and my own personal mental health.

I'm basically reaching out to see if anyone has been in this same position or can offer some type of support during this time. I've been looking into trying to become a case manager to get out of bedside nursing but I'm not sure how to go about starting that.

Thanks for reading :)