transfer after 1st year of nursing

[kxvc]

I'm coming up on one year of nursing! YAY! Time just flew by. I was hired in August of last year as a new grad in the Emergency Department. I LOVE my job. I love the people I work with. I love everything about my ED.

I have recently been thinking about making a move to another department. When I graduated it was difficult to find a job so I knew I had to take whatever I got offered. Luckily, I landed my dream job. The only reason I would like to work on "the floor" is to gain more experience. I can see now that I lack experience in certain areas such as wounds and miscellaneous tubes. I don't think I will ever get the proper training for these things in the ED, and if I do I won't see enough of it to become competent.

I would love to try out the ICU, but coming from the ED they may expect me to know more than I actually know. I'm afraid I would fail in the ICU as an RN. I would be willing to go to med/surg, but I have never really liked the thought of working there. I would do it for the experience though.

My question is: What would be the best career move at this point? Stay in ED where I am comfortable and I love it. Try to get in to the ICU. Or, try out a med/surg floor and hope I like it. With my experience I am confident I could easily transfer within my company within the next year. I just don't want to do something I may later regret.

[Lunah, MSN, RN]

What about staying in your ED and doing some PRN/per diem time in another unit? If you love everything about your ED, then trading that for the unknown is a gamble! Just my thoughts. :)

[fungez]

If you love your job then that's where I'd stay. Not too many people say they love med surge. Technical knowledge is easy to acquire. There's inservces, textbooks, the internet. But job satisfaction, especially in nursing, is invaluable.

[mamamerlee, LPN]

Stay, stay, stay!!!!

[kxvc]

I never thought about doing prn/per diem work. What a great idea! :) Thanks, I will look into that.

[NYRN05]

i agree with the first poster...stay where you are...then take a long vaca-well enough for training...try to orient to an ICU job if it works out that way. so you can moonlight on the side, and gain the experience you want. if you are happy than stay where you are for now, and hope it all works out !

[LMS,RN]

I definitely would stay... ER experience is great experience when transferring to other departments. Sure you don't have some of the know-how as some Med/Surg Nurses do... so what?? How many of those nurses can claim they can throw in a WORKING IV in 2 seconds flat??? I know from experience.... not many. Doing some PRN is a great idea... They could always use the help. How about getting certified in a specialty area??

Good luck!

[cameron46]

I agree with the other posts (especially Lunah); go with where you are content.

Having a comfortable working environment with staff that support you is a great benefit- in any area of work.

The opportunity to explore med/surg per diem or shadow in the ICU may assist with your decision making.

Close friends who've done ICU said the experience was definitely worth doing but the challenges include a high degree of mechanical support combined with confronting caregivers' stress. They don't call it 'intensive' care for nothing; its far from 'easy' care and the cleaning/turing/monitoring is very labour intensive. ER is more broad; fast paced and of course has the adrenaline component. The competing demands on the floor (I did a lot of agency relief) and issues that you confront there can be very stressful too. Skills are relative to any area of care & certainly there a core group of skills that you have developed competence in. Additional skills that are not common to your area could be explored through in-services or continuing education. Any one can learn basic skills- you've already demonstrated that by passing an accredited nursing program. Remaining in the ER, even long term has the potential for you to be viewed as a highly competent practitioner- with a lot of knowledge AND SKILLS.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

if you have a job that you love, you'd be crazy to give it up in search of something you don't really seem to need right now anyway. (if you needed experience with wounds, drains, tubes, etc., you would have had a chance to get it in the er, right?) later on if you get crispy and need a change, med-surg would be a wonderful way to get different experiences. but one year is just a little bit of time; stay in the er. you still have plenty to learn and er is a great place to learn it!