RN switching specialties....indecisive, unmotivated?

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in Operating room.

Hi AN!

I have been an OR nurse for 1.5 years. I really enjoy my job and am very good at it, however, I feel like it’s time for a change. I went to the OR straight out of nursing school because I have always loved working with surgical patients. After 1.5 years, I still find the OR interesting and challenging, but often find myself thinking about other areas of nursing like PACU, ICU, med-surg. I want to try other areas of nursing in order to figure out if the OR is where I want to be. When I express this desire to my coworkers and nurse friends, the reaction is pretty much negative. They tell me things like “the grass isn’t greener” or I’ll come across as “indecisive and unmotivated” if I change specialties. Despite all the negative reactions, a month ago, I applied to a few non-OR jobs. Well, I have never received job rejections so fast (they were ICUs and PCUs). I was invited to interview for the PACU but it was an awful experience. The minute the interview started, they told me that I was not qualified for the job and spent the rest of the interview essentially insulting me. Needless to say, I left the interview feeling frustrated and discouraged. So now I’m beginning to think that recruiters and hiring managers might actually view my desire to change specialties as “indecisive and unmotivated”. That is why I am turning to all of you for advice, any sort of helpful feedback.

I am feeling extremely disheartened so I could use some inspiration.

Thanks in advance for reading and responding.

Specializes in school nurse.

I originally misread your post, thinking you had worked OR for 15 years right out of school and were "very good at your job". I found it curious that other departments would - as you suggest- essentially insult a veteran with so much experience.

Then I noticed it was 1.5 years- right out of school.

Perhaps you're a bit overconfident and being rejected felt like being insulted...?

You have answered your questions already. The speed to which the rejections came should be taken as a sign that your current level of experience is not enough for those positions and or that leaving a position after a year and a half might indeed be taken as job hopping. That having been said my advice is to stay in your current position for awhile longer until you can fulfill the experience requirements and not look indecisive and unmotivated when you do apply for other positions.

1 Votes
Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Hmmm..not being an OR nurse myself, how much experience would be considered "enough?" 2 years, 5, 10?

For me, if I was "done" with the job and needed a change, I would keep applying for other jobs. Don't give up

3 Votes
Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.

It could be that the managers are looking at how your experience in the OR will translate to nursing at the bedside which let's face it, is an entirely different ballgame than what you currently do in the OR. Since you've only done nursing for 1.5 years, you may be better off looking for more structured training positions such as "transitions" programs for nurses wanting to work in the ICU for example. However, related procedural RN positions such as IR, endoscopy should be a breeze for you.

3 Votes
Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.

What else do you want to do? OR and ER are pretty specialized and places where time management flows differently. Come up with an answer to the question about why you're changing specialties before you're asked the reason. "I want to try out other areas to see if OR is really where I belong" is an unusual reason.

1 Votes

I used to dream about OR. No call bells, one patient at a time, no room full of demanding family members stirring up drama, no having to call security when visitors get out of hand.

Maybe you should do some shadowing for a shift in the areas you find interesting.

6 Votes
Specializes in Critical care.
30 minutes ago, juan de la cruz said:

It could be that the managers are looking at how your experience in the OR will translate to nursing at the bedside which let's face it, is an entirely different ballgame than what you currently do in the OR. Since you've only done nursing for 1.5 years, you may be better off looking for more structured training positions such as "transitions" programs for nurses wanting to work in the ICU for example. However, related procedural RN positions such as IR, endoscopy should be a breeze for you.

IR, cath lab, PACU, etc. are all coveted jobs in my area and all require critical care experience- meaning ER or ICU. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the OR RNs are not managing the patient hemodynamically- that is anesthesia’s job.

The OP has no real bedside experience managing multiple patients and that might be the issue. Also, it takes quite a long orientation to train a nurse in the OR. That might make managers hesitant to invest in another lengthy orientation period (such as in the icu)- they might wonder if the OP will just jump ship again in 18 months.

I’d stay in the OR longer if possible or focus on applying to tele and Med-surg jobs (then once established and time spend there look into transferring to another area like ICU).

2 Votes
Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.
1 minute ago, AceOfHearts<3 said:

IR, cath lab, PACU, etc. are all coveted jobs in my area and all require critical care experience- meaning ER or ICU. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the OR RNs are not managing the patient hemodynamically- that is anesthesia’s job.

The OP has no real bedside experience managing multiple patients and that might be the issue. Also, it takes quite a long orientation to train a nurse in the OR. That might make managers hesitant to invest in another lengthy orientation period (such as in the icu)- they might wonder if the OP will just jump ship again in 18 months.

I’d stay in the OR longer if possible or focus on applying to tele and Med-surg jobs (then once established and time spend there look into transferring to another area like ICU).

I'm basing my response on my interaction with current IR, endoscopy, and PACU nurses vs the ICU nurses I work with on a constant basis as the ICU NP. These procedural nurses may have been Critical Care nurses at one point but they sure don't act it anymore...but that's just my perception. Though you're right, those are units seem like prized and coveted positions for some nurses prior to retirement.

Im sorry about your situation. I am in a similar boat but with psych as my specialty right after nursing school. At an interview for an OR new grad job I was asked "what's wrong with psych" and apparently "it's not for everyone" wasn't a good answer. I did well overall for the interview and didn't get the position. It totally sucks that you had an interview that basically insulted you, but I believe certain organizations require the managers to conduct interviews if the applications get past the screening process of HR. During my unfruitful job search, I had either nurse managers rejecting me upfront while the HR department really thought I was a good candidate, and vice versa in other cases. I am still working in psych part time but have began to expand and explore my options outside of nursing for a while. Hope you have better luck that I do. It seems that nursing isn't the same profession as it was when I chose to into it, but if keeping everyone stuck in their specialties makes hiring managers happy then there is nothing people like us can do.

Specializes in anesthesiology.

I don't think you're indecisive or unmotivated, but you're not qualified for ICU. I would think you would be able to find med/surg, tele jobs as that is considered an entry level nursing job, and the turnover is so high. PACU won't give you a real bedside nursing experience either. You give pain meds and move on to the next patient. Your OR experience is valuable as a PACU nurse, but to really get a feel as a bedside nurse you should move away from the OR entirely. I would say try to get on as at least a tele nurse where you are monitoring an EKG. then you could move onto ICU if you really want to do hands-on in depth nursing. If you could do a an ICU step-down unit that would give you some solid bedside skills and position you better for more critical care nursing jobs, but maybe harder to land one. I don't see why 1.5 years isn't enough to get a good grasp on the job. I started in the ICU out of school and by the time I was 2 years in I was charge, code team, rapid response relief and IV team relief in a good sized hospital. If you want it you can do it, it just takes a little more effort.

3 Votes
Specializes in Primary Care, LTC, Private Duty.

To address the "indecisive and unmotivated" critique, have a feasible "5 year plan" in place to discuss at the interview. I'm not saying you have to be entirely committed to that plan, mentally, for the entire 5 years, but try to let it come across that you are totally committed to and enthusiastic the new specialty you're interviewing for. That way, you are decisively choosing this new specialty because this is where you want your career to go; it's not just a desire to skip around---it's part of your overall "career plan".

Look at what hard skills you possess and try to figure out how you could apply/adapt them to the new specialty. For skills you don't have, show that you're motivated toward learning and that you have a plan to hone those skills quickly. Try to figure out how you can apply soft skills, too: in the interview, highlight if you're a quick learner, attentive to detail, a team player, quick at de-escalating tense situations, resourceful, etc., and try to come up with scenarios from your past where these strengths proved to be particularly useful to your job, to your coworkers, to the company.

Best of luck!

2 Votes
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