What can I do?

NAA MOMO · Jul 6, 2012

Get a CNA license. Good luck

cjcsoon2bnp, MSN, RN, NP · Jul 6, 2012

As NAA MOMO suggested you could go and get your CNA license and be a CNA at a local hospital. If you can't get your CNA license at this time then I would look into finding a Student Nurse position (usually they require that you have completed a certain number of clinical rotations) or you could look for a position as a unit assistant or unit secretary (or something with a similar title). Usually unit assistant or secretary positions do not require a lot of previous experience and the fact that your a nursing student might make the hospital overlook whatever experience requirements that they may have in the hope that you will stay with the hospital and become a nurse there after graduation. I would suggest though that you do whatever you can to get a position in a hospital before your graduate because the job market is very tough right now and in many cases the only way a new grad. can get a position is by continuing to work for the hospital that hired them as a CNA/unit assistant/secretary while they were in nursing school. Best of luck!

!Chris :specs:

missnurse01, MSN, RN · Jul 7, 2012

if you have time also think about emt-it is around 6-9 months and you can either work in EMS or some ERs allow you to work as a tech with emt cert.

good luck!

CuteNurseUnl · Jul 13, 2012

I think all the above suggestions are great - especially the emt one. I wish I had gone that route because I want to specialize in emergency nursing.

The route I took was by taking an externship, which is when a hospital (often ones where you have your clinicals) hires you while still a student nurse starting the summer before your second year of nursing school. You learn a lot, get to network and are often hired right after graduation.

First of all, get really good grades and get a high GPA (a major criteria for being chosen). Applications usually get filed around the beginning of the second semester of the first year of nursing school. If all goes well with that, then you'll be called for an interview with the nurse recruiter and maybe nurse manager. They basically want to get to know you and what unit(s) you're interested in (I said ED as first choice, and then med-surg). You'll find out sometime during the course of that second semester whether you got hired or not. The hospital I applied to took so long that I was pretty sure I didn't get it. I didn't find out until the day of my last major final just before I walked out the door!

Then you pretty much go through the same process as actually being hired: physical, background checks, getting your ID. There's also an orientation. I can't remember exactly how long it was - maybe two or three weeks? And then you go to your assigned unit(s). I ended up getting to work in both ED and med-surg during that summer.

The hospital also decided to let all the externs work there for the entire second year of nursing school. I didn't stay in the ED or general med-surg - I ended up in telemetry. It was nice, but I really wanted med-surg where I would be able to work on a wider variety of patients - but hey, I wasn't going to complain!

In the end after graduating and getting my license, I didn't want to work in that particular hospital for various reasons, but I did remain with that hospital system working for another one of their medical centers in another state and I really enjoy the busy general med-surg & telemetry unit that I currently work in (SO many types of patients! It's like my med-surg text book has come to life!).

So an externship is something you might like to consider! I've had a good number of interviews because of that experience (I actually got a phone call from a nurse recruiter who wanted to consider me for their hospital's ED but by that time, I felt that I wanted to get more experience in med-surg first). Good luck!

Murse270 · Jul 20, 2012

Thanks for all the suggestions and opinions guys!