Want to leave Psych for Med Surg or something else...

[Dulari94]

I did Outpatient Psych for 7+ years and currently 6th month of Inpatient Geri Psych as an RN-BSN. I feel I need to expand my skillset and do something different. I am bored and feel a burnout. Maybe it's the workplace or just me, I want to transition. Any suggestions on how to go about it? Right now, when I look around for jobs, I shudder at the thought of initiating IV meds or ventilator care, as I have never done it outside of supervised Clinicals. Is there any hope for me? I can't do nights. I am in SoCal btw. Good market for job seekers but I feel kinda stuck in psych. Any ideas?

[Davey Do]

I'm experiencing a little difficulty wrapping my head around your situation, Dulari. As I understand, you spent 7 years in outpatient psych, are bored with geriatric psych, want to expand your skill set in the medical area, yet are afraid of some invasive medical procedures.

Outpatient psych is limited in the area of invasive medical procedures, geriatric psych has its fair share of them, and the medical arenas are focused on them.

One reason I enjoy geriatric psych is because I get to regularly dip my toe in medical situations and deal with intensive cases now & again. Generally speaking, I feel confident in dealing with medical situations in geriatric psych, but would most likely be a little lost kitten if I went back to straight med-surg nursing.

I wonder if blooming where you're planted and/or getting more into the medical end of geriatric psych wouldn't be an option?

Good luck and the best to you, Dulari!

[Dulari94]

Thanks Davey. I want to do invasive procedures. It's just that i am nervous about making the switch. And also how to go about this? Could i go in the new grad programs that provide training or just a regular med surg position...?

[Davey Do]

I was hired at the hospital where I did my clinicals as an LPN student for the new psych unit in 1984. I wanted to get into a medical area of nursing so I bid on and got a position as a scrub nurse in 1986.

As you can see from my "specializes in", I've worked several areas of nursing, getting positions that were open and interested me. I've been very lucky, in that I nearly always got a good orientation in every position and felt relatively comfortable transitioning to different areas of nursing.

Both from experience and reading what others have said on these forums, things have changed dramatically over the years. For example, new employees at Wrongway Regional Medical Center, where I am employed, get six weeks of orientation. When I started there back in '03, I got four shifts of orientation.

But then again, psych nursing isn't rocket science brain surgery.

I celebrated my 16th anniversary at Wrongway last March:

It seems to be a matter of the facility, Dulari. All I can suggest is to put out feelers, ask questions, and gain empirical data.

Good luck!

[Nimrodel, BSN, RN]

You could look into doing a refresher course. The BRN has a list of them (not approved or anything, but just as a resource). The content varies, but I imagine some of them review some clinical skills and the like.

https://www.rn.ca.gov/education/courses.shtml

[16BitSalt, BSN, RN]

I'll be coming up on a similar situation when I graduate from my ASN program in May. I've been working in psych in some capacity ever since I joined the full-time workforce at 19. It's all I really know, and it's what I'm good at. Because of the scholarship program I'm in, the VA can place me wherever they need me after I graduate, and that's probably med surg. Outside of my clinicals and labs my newly learned nursing skills aren't really used, so I'll be a little nervous to branch out, but I'm ready to go elsewhere as well.

Does your workplace offer any sort of skills refresher classes? Some larger hospitals have onsite nursing educators that may be able to help you out.

[Dulari94]

That's a good idea! I am going to check out if within my current workplace there's an option to train and transfer to med surg or some other dept. Thank you:-)