Torn about applying for NICU

I have worked with hundreds of nurses in my career.

You are an experienced nurse. You know that this is staff nursing. Nothing makes it better. In many aspects, it has never been a better time to be a staff nurse. Great money etc.

I have friends who work at nationally renowned peds hospitals and despise it. If you want a low stress job, you will have to leave the bedside. End of Story.

Although I've never done adult nursing, I can say just from my conversations with nurse friends who work with adults and children that bedside nursing is pretty much the same across the board..It's demanding. period.

It totally makes a difference depending on acuity of your patients, staffing of the unit, the ability of your co-workers to work as a team, the leadership of the unit, the collaboration of other disciplines etc etc...Speaking from a NICU perspective, it's definitely not just sitting and rocking babies all day (which is still believed by some circles*smiles*) and you definitely have to embrace the families of those babies, because although they may not be likeable at times (considering that they are going through one of the biggest crises of their lives-having their "healthy baby" born so sick to require intensive care) they are the ones taking that beautiful baby home at the end of the NICU stay, so it benefits you to work with them.

I absolutely love working in the NICU and definitely believe it's incredibly challenging at times, but also very rewarding especially with the continuity of care provided- however it is not for every nurse. I think it would be wise to just stop and consider really what makes you want to change positions before changing to the NICU. It sounds like you are feeling burnout from the length of the shifts and the day/night rotation, not necessarily from the patients? Is it possible to work less often or space your days apart so that you can rest?

The unit I work on requires rotating shifts and we have set weekends. This makes it difficult for me sometimes to make my schedule trying to fit in my days and nights and still allowing adequate time off to recover. I don't do well flipping from days one week to nights the next. I think that's a major contributor to the way that I'm feeling but also I just don't enjoy working the bedside. I thought changing units and specialties would be all the difference but it's really just the same crap, different place. I get very stressed and have bad anxiety at times. I feel claustrophobic knowing I'm going to be stuck at work for the next 12+ hours. I find it very hard to get into a routine on my days off. I think that you're both right. I'm definitely feeling burnt out from the bedside and shift work and that's not going to get better if I continue to work in a hospital setting. I'm going to start looking into non-hospital jobs. Maybe same day surgery centers. I think I would do well working a set schedule every week and also no weekends or holidays would be a huge bonus.