Unsure About What to Do

[AlanaWCU]

Hi everyone,

I just graduated as an Adult Nurse Practitioner this past May. I passed my certification exams (both ANCC & AANP) and am waiting for my license to arrive in the mail. I have been an RN on a med/surg floor for the last five years. Here is my dilemma in regards to looking for a job:

-There is a year-long NP fellowship that I am planning on applying for this winter. The application process is in January/February and if I am accepted into the program (they only accept one person), I would be starting that in July (of 2010).

-In regards to looking for a job I don't know what to do. There is a GI group at my hospital that is trying to get their practice together (4 of them broke off from the 5th partner and are trying to establish themselves as an independent group...looking for a bigger office, trying to raise their census in the hospital we work at, etc). They have each seperately told me they would love for me to come work with them as an NP yet they are still very unorganized within themselves at this point and are unsure of when they would actually be able to hire me.

-I don't know if anyone else would want to hire me knowing that I am applying for this coveted fellowship position and if I were to get it, I would leave next June.

My question is...do I just continue working as a nurse on my unit until at least February when I would find out if I am accepted or not? Or do I see if a practice will take the risk of hiring me knowing there is a tiny possibility I would move to Maryland next June?

I am so lost and everyone has been giving me different opinions.

Thanks!

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I would take an NP position now because if you don't get the residenct, it will ne even harder to get a position in a year. Good luck.

[AlanaWCU]

I would not be waiting a year to look for a job. I would find out if I get the fellowship at the end of Februrary and if not, I'd go hunting for a job then. So it's really only about 5 1/2 months. I really don't want to wait and do want to get the ball rolling...but I do not want to keep the truth from any prospective jobs.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Oh okay - what's the odds you will get the residency? How many applicants per year?

[AlanaWCU]

That's the problem. I don't know. When I emailed the woman in charge last spring about how many people applied she said, "Not that many because not that many people knew about it." I don't know if that means 5 people or 50 people. It's a gastroenterology/hepatology fellowship at Johns Hopkins.

[jer_sd]

I say go for the job specialy since it is in your area of interest. You will have access to the frustrating but educatonal process of developing a practice. I have helped open offices twice and hope to never do it again but it is a great learning experience.

In addition you might be able to take a leave of absense and come back to your GI job when done with your post graduate training. If not you will have work experience in the area asa NP and contacts that might help land other positions. If they ask about it you can hnestly say you dd not think you would get in and you knew this was the area you wanted to enter. Also in the frst 6 months the job may not be at full speed yet so it might be financialy in their best interest to let you step away for a year with teh possibility of comming back with more training and skills.

Jeremy