Two job offers...which one to choose?

[britpanda]

Let me preface this post by saying that I know I am EXTREMELY lucky to be in the position that I am, having two employers who are interested in hiring me - especially since I'm a new grad with "only" an ADN.

That being said, I am in a predicament...I have two jobs to choose from and need some opinions from people outside of my inner circle.

Job 1

In a large private practice (specialist, not PCP) which is rapidly growing and expanding. The hours are "normal" M-F 8-5 with no weekends, holidays, etc. The position will be hands-on patient care, assisting a physician with his daily clinic schedule and doing follow-ups as needed when he is rounding in the hospital. The upside of this is obviously that you build a rapport with your patients and have a longstanding nurse-patient relationship with them. The practice is notorious for taking care of their employees (including providing no cost health insurance) and has an excellent reputation. The head physician who interviewed me made a point of saying that there would be plenty of opportunity to grow with the practice into either a management or mid-level provide role (I told him I was undecided which track I would be pursuing in my MSN education since it's a few years off).

Job 2

In a hospital on the telemetry / observation floor. They called me an hour after the interview to offer me the job. The DON, Nurse Manager, and Nurse Educator who interviewed me seemed very nice. The hospital has a good reputation, although they have just brought on a new Chief Medical Officer so who knows if that may shake things up. It would be 7a-7p, the upside being it's only a 3 day work week. The downside to me is that with it being an observation unit their goal is to d/c patients within 24 hours. The DON even made a point during the interview to say that it's not uncommon for a nurse to have a complete turnover of patients during a shift. So, a lot of admissions and discharges and not a lot of time to get to know patients, etc.

A little about me: I've never had an "Ah-Ha" moment where the lightbulb went off and I realized I found my calling on a particular unit, etc. I suppose I was somewhat naive when I started nursing school that I thought I could really make a difference to the lives of my patients through bedside nursing in the hospital. However, during my clinical rotations I came to realize that hospital based nursing has much less patient interaction (and much more computer work - charting) than I ever imagined. This disillusioned me somewhat, but not to the point where I've completely ruled out hospital based nursing. The parts of my clinicals I enjoyed the most were the times I got to really talk to my patients, educate them, and feel like I impacted them and their families in a positive way. The other aspect I enjoyed was the procedure based nursing, like the operating room however it is extremely difficult to break into that field due to the limited access nature of preoperative nursing programs here.

My longterm goal is to get a MSN and either combine it with an MBA to go into nursing administration or go the more clinical route to ARNP. Since I haven't done any true "nursing" yet, I want to leave my options open at this point.

Sorry for rambling and thank you in advance for your opinions.