Telemetry nurse transfer to L&D

[momattRN]

Hi!

I've been a nurse for 4 years on a Telemetry Step-down unit. In addition to nursing, I also teach the ECG course for all new hire RNs and PCTs for both my unit and ICU, and I am also the unit representative for the hospital Quality board. With that said, I have considered making a big career change.

Recently, due to low census, our Telemetry unit has merged with our Medical/Surgical unit. Our hospital has recently been bought out by a large local health care system, which has a General Med/Tele unit. I assume that our merge in units was their intention to accommodate the other hospital's policies, and we've recently been told that the move is permanent.

With that said, as a telemetry nurse, we have to care for med/surg patients with cardiac issues, whether new or old. Since being on the merged unit, it's been very difficult to work in the current conditions. We've had numerous people quit, 2 people of which that have been here for 25+ years that said they had "never seen it this bad before". We were used to a "teamwork" care approach, where no one worked alone. We aren't being assigned patients fairly. The medical nurses are refusing to take care of telemetry patients, but we're expected to care for med/surg patients. They won't push cardiac medications and aren't comfortable in intense cardiac situations. They don't have any intention on cross training anyone. It just isn't a good work environment. Telemetry was once a 21-bed, very fast paced, high turnover unit - and I ABSOLUTELY loved it. I never dreamed that I would fall in love with cardiac, but after precepting on the unit, I applied and got the job after being an Extern for 2 years.

With my experience, it saddens me that I've fallen out of love with coming to work each day. I don't think that I should have lost my spark so soon. I got pulled to OB recently and in one 12 hour shift, I fell in love. Growing up and even through nursing school, I had the same aspiration as most, to work with babies.

My purpose in writing my "book" today is that I have applied and accepted a position on Labor and Delivery. I understand that it's a completely different field of nursing that requires an entirely new set of learned skills. I'm prepared to learn and use this opportunity to learn new things and grow as a nurse with hope that my "spark" returns. I an anxiously anticipating my start there in a couple of weeks. I'm nervous because with this being a new area of expertise, I also don't know what to expect.

My question for you all is, did anyone transfer to L&D after being a nurse on an acute care/critical care unit? Are there any resources that I should look into purchasing to help with the transition? Any help is appreciated! Thank you in advance.