Transitioning from corrections to hospital nursing

[Maygone]

Hello! I have been working in corrections for about a year and a half as a full time RN and it was my first and only nursing job out of school. I am starting a PRN float position at the hospital and am wondering if anyone has advice about the transition. I'm not worried about the actual amount of work or how demanding the hospital will be as my position at the jail is extremely demanding. At my current job, I care for up to 1000 inmates with just myself and two LPN's. About 300 get daily meds and I have a clinic with six more critical patients I am responsible for daily. The job is also very heavy on IVs, wound care, and detox monitoring. As well as a heavy emphasis on monitoring cardiac, pulmonary and endocrine disorders. I am extremely good at critical thinking, as correctional nursing is very autonomous, and I rarely work with a physician. However, I have some basic skills that I haven't used since nursing school. I've never even done a foley. Also, when patients become critical, we have to send them out to the hospital due to the lack of equipment available for testing, etc in the jail. So, often times I start out like an ER nurse, but send the patient to the hospital and never see the tail end of their nursing care.

Since I am not a new grad, my training at the hospital will be limited. The manager I interviewed with discussed with me, in detail, some of my experiences and seemed confident I would do great at the hospital. I will be doing mostly med/surg.

Has as anyone else made a similar transition? And how was your experience? Worried I will not live up to the demand of skills in the hospital.

[middleagednurse]

One biggie is customer service. I worked in a prison and there, you don't have Press Ganey surveys. So smile and be nice! Your skills will probably be the least of your concerns.

[lunchboxRN]

I recently went from a very independent position to med surg as well. The easy part is learning foleys and the like. The hard part is critical thinking and time management, which it sounds like you already have. I wouldn't worry about it, I did and I found the transition easier than expected. One issue that you might share with me is delegating. I was so used to doing things on my own, it was difficult to remember to ask for help. I am still working on it, but it makes life and time management so much easier.

I second the customer service part. Some patients should be in prison for their treatment of fellow humans... but we still have to smile and kiss butt like they are the special snowflakes they believe they are We get prisoners often on my unit, but we treat them with kindness. Kinda funny, some of my best patients have been the people I would avoid like the plague outside of work.