Suggestions for rounding out my skillset?

Nurses Career Support

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Hello. I'm a relatively new nurse, I've been active for 7 months now. I work in an involuntary lockdown psych unit.

What I'm looking for in the future is to round out my skills and keep things I learned in school. I -do- get to deal with some medical things in my work setting, but they're relatively simple and few/far between (feeding tubes [ng and PEGs], wound care). The things I get almost no exposure to are IV's (both starting and caring for), central lines, foley and straight caths (I've had patients with foleys, but I never put them in), or any kind of airway mgmt.

What I'm asking for is advice on where I could work as a 2nd job for being able to do these things? I was figuring that after I had a year of experience at my current job, a little more would open up for me. I was suggested by a co-worker to try rehab. The only thing that doesn't sit well with me about that is that I'm not sure how big they are on training people, generally. I would not be ready to handle a rehab assignment by myself right away--many of the skills I will have not used in quite awhile. I suppose this is a facility-to-facility difference, but I don't even know the general climate of those places for that sort of thing.

Does anyone have some thoughts or additional advice? My current work schedule is 5 8's, which leaves me available to work pretty much any day... I've tested my endurance with doubles a few times.

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