Switch jobs after 6 months or wait?

[andsoitis]

There is an opening at a INR clinic that sounds ideal and my friend works there and said she could help get me the job. It's close to home, no holidays/nights/weekends, ideal hours, good pay/benefits and it sounds like less stress than the med/surg floor I am on while still challenging and interesting. However, I've only been at my current job for 6 months. I'm a new grad.

For awhile I hated my job because almost everytime I was working with at least one confused pt that would yell out in the hallway or try to get up in the mist of a busy day trying to do a blood transfusion, trying to get a pt to the bathroom before they had diarrhea, or getting another pt ready for surgery while passing all their meds. And of course pretty much all pts are tired/angry because they are so sick. I would miss lunch over half the time so I wouldn't have to stay late and even then I would stay late once a week or feel like I didn't give the best care. I'm finally starting to get used to it and there are days my pts are grateful and I feel good about what I do but those are still few and far between.

I someday want to work this INR clinic either way but I feel guilty quitting after 6 months. I feel like I should try and do the year so it looks better on my resume.

My friend said there would likely be another opening in 4 months which would put me at 10 months at my job. I don't know if that's any better.....what do you all think? The thing is I want to start trying for a baby this summer and I can't imagine being on the med/surg floor while pregnant. But I don't know if the INR place will hire me 1 month pregnant if all goes planned. Thoughts?

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

I don't know if an anticoagulation clinic would hire a new grad with less than a year of med-surg experience at all. Where's the track record of nursing judgment and patient teaching you need so much in a position like that? All the nurses I know that do that are quite experienced and seasoned.

That aside, job-hopping is a bad idea anyway. You want to be able to demonstrate to future employers that you are capable of keeping a job long enough to learn something from it. Trust me, six months is not it. And there are plenty of people who work med/surg while pregnant. I did CPR in the ICU at 8 months-- it was crowded up there on the bed, but hey. If you think you'll be quitting when you get pregnant or when you have the baby, you might as well stay where you are, build that resume, and learn more about what you're doing.