First job & LTAC is not for me.

Specialties LTAC

Published

I am in a part of the country where there are a TON of new grad BSNs looking for work. After many months, I was hired as an inexperienced new grad at an LTAC hospital. I am VERY grateful for the training and the opportunity. I work hard and am doing my best to be an asset and it is going well. I am about to finish orienting/probation but I am very much part of the team and have been working with very little supervision for awhile now.

LTAC is not for me. I want to explore other areas of practice, like cardio or oncology and work with a more diverse patient population. Also, this employer does not offer any retirement benefits, which is something that really bothers me.

I feel VERY guilty about this, but my plan is to jump ship to one of the local short-stay hospitals as soon as they will have me.

Am I being disloyal and ungrateful? Is there a minimum amount of time I should stay to repay the time and effort to train me? Should I tell my manager when I start looking again?

Any advice on how to avoid any burnt bridges will be very appreciated.

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.

1). Stop playing guilty games. Every single thing in this world is good for someone, and bad for someone else. LTACH happens to be not your cup of tea... so what?

2). As now you kinda know what you DO NOT like, your next job is to make sure you know what you WOULD like. (P.S. speaking about diversity, there are not that many places where th there is more of it than in LTAC).

3). It was said many times that one has to stick with the first workplace for "at least" one year for multitude of reasons, like "employers do not like job hoppers" and such. There very well might be some truth in all that, especially in SoCal with paucity of jobs and plenty of candidates. What you can do is to try to find temporary agency supplying nurses in different facilities which happen to be short-staffed, or just per diem job in Acute care hospital. This way, you may figure out what you really like/dislike, what place is the best fit for you and eventually find your niche, while making some additional monly in the process. Also, get friendly with folks like acute dialysis RNs you work with. They might be your resource if you happen to observe, learn and like what they are doing.

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Specializes in Oncology, Rehab, Public Health, Med Surg.

If you take nothing else from this thread, take this to heart-- do not, do not tell your manager you're looking!! Or anyone else no matter how nice, how supportive. Just don't 🔴

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Won't my next employer want a reference from my current employer? How does that work? I've never changed jobs covertly before.

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.
Won't my next employer want a reference from my current employer? How does that work? I've never changed jobs covertly before.

You can use the letters which brought you the job you currently have. You have professors from your school and preceptors from your last clinicals, as you are fresh from school. People from other departments and providers (nurse practitioners are the best) can be asked for references. Do not ask your co-workers unless one of them is openly leaving (and if it happens, keep the contact).

Nursing is a small world and NMs know rules of the game. If they want to speak with your current NM, they will, with letter or not.

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Specializes in Oncology, Rehab, Public Health, Med Surg.

Just now returning to this thread. Katie above is correct about creditionals

You do yourself NO favors by telling anyone. If you get the job, they still wont like it. If you dont get the job, you'll have a target on your back. Trust me on this one

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Six months in and I will have a clear conscience when I jump ship. We work hard here. One of the toughest problems is the constant staffing shortage, even registry doesn't want to work here. We are short staff because this is hard work and the salary and benefits are below average. I have seen some very talented co-workers jump ship when they near their 1 year mark.

Contributing to the short-staffing is that no one takes extra shifts. I used to but was getting burned out, then I saw that very few regular employees work extra. I feel sorry for the scheduler but I did not create this problem and certainly cannot solve it.

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