What was your first Nursing job?

Nurses General Nursing

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What was your first nursing job and where are you now? Pros and Cons of each job? Were you picky about what kind of job you had right off the bat or did you narrow your focus later on?

I was a LPN charge nurse for 60 bed assisted living. This was as a new grad.

Specializes in Registered Nurse.

A hospital unit as a LVN/LPN for years. Worked hard and loved it, even though it was not easy and very stressful.

You learn a LOT in a hospital. Pros- learning. Cons- stress and workload.

I am once again working in a hospital! My first love...

Specializes in CMSRN, hospice.

ADN, graduated in 2014.

First job was at a state psych hospital. Enjoyed the patients well enough, but most of the staff was burnt out and my main preceptor was such a bully. Also, I didn't get paid for the first eight weeks, so there's that.

I quit that and returned to the place where I worked as a CNA. I've been an inpatient hospice nurse for a little over a year more. I like this a lot more and feel like I do more for my patients here. I'm getting a little burnt out on the constant death, and I feel like I'm not stretching my skills and critical thinking as much as I could be, so I'm interviewing now for other possibilities. One is with Integrative Care (med-surg for psych patients, is what I understand) and medical ICU. Both scare me and intrigue me for different reasons.

Eventually I'd like to do a lot more with forensic nursing since I'm finishing up my SAFE certification, and become an educator.

Specializes in RETIRED Cath Lab/Cardiology/Radiology.

ICU float X3yr in hospital in which I did clinicals.

Also floated NBN, NICU, Ortho, DOU (step-down), Post-partum.

Great experience.

Moved on to Cath Lab then to Radiology and Interventional Radiology (21yr).

Currently 12yr in Cardiology/Cath Lab.

:)

Specializes in ICU, trauma.

I started out as a float tech while I was in nursing school. It was interesting and I enjoyed the variety, but because I was a float I wasn't able to make many connections with my coworkers and I'm a very social person.... Kinda lonely if anything :shy:

Also hard to keep track of so many codes, names, routines and responsibilities of each floor.

Specializes in Peds, psych.

Started out in a nursing home for about 2 weeks. Had already been working there as a CNA while I waited to take boards. LOATHED it. Not my clientele and absolutely NOT the company to work for by any means. Fortunately, the pediatric position I interviewed for while waiting to take boards called me two days after my license posted and offered me the position. I have been there ever since. LOVE it.

Specializes in ICU, Postpartum, Onc, PACU.

I started on a MedSurg/Onc/tele floor and loved it, even though I thought I didn't want to start there. Then mostly ICU, but kept my finger in postpartum, Onc, and did some PACU recently. That initial job was about 9 years ago, though, and I've been a travel nurse now for a couple years and I'm SO over it. :wacky: I'm taking the stipend money the agency would be putting towards my housing if they provided it so I can pay of my student loans, taxes I messed up on a few years ago, etc or else I'd be in Hawaii or Boston right now (haha).

It's obnoxious because I hate not having good insurance. They provide "insurance", but you may as well not have any. An ER trip for me if I have a migraine (usually 2 bags of saline, 2mg Ativan, some Magnesium, and sometimes 1mg of dilaudid) costs about $3500-$4000. It cost me $95 when I worked for Sutter those 6 years because of the insurance.

I also don't like the instability of working. Since I can't have them pay for my housing financially (the hourly wage sucks monkey b*lls), I also have to be somewhere where I can stay with someone else, or close enough to drive to. That's had me staying with my family if I work a contract where they live or staying at my home and commuting, sometimes, 2.5 hours one way. When you drive that long, work 12 hours, then drive at least that amount of time on the way home, it just drains you. I also can't just hit the hay when I get home and have sleeping issues so I have to wind down and/or medicate to get to sleep so I can get up and do it all over again.

There are also times the contracts don't match up so there's down time between them; maybe a couple weeks, maybe a month.

I also dislike that they can cancel a contract for no reason (it's only happened twice, but one time it was because someone told a manager that I'd said something-something so unbelievably stupid-that I would never say). When that happens you also, if, like me, you'd already worked your hours for the week, don't get paid for that whole week because they have to put it towards "the cost of having [me] at the hospital". Maybe they mean training or whatever, but I find it awful that I was out $1800 because of something I didn't say.

On the other hand, with traveling, you get to see other hospitals and how they do things (I'm still friends with one of the nursing supervisors from a recent assignment) and since I'd only been at the one hospital for 6 years, that was really eye-opening. I also learned exactly how good I had it there, since when I was there, I didn't know anything else as I'd gone straight there after graduation.

xo

Specializes in Behavioral Health.

I graduated in Aug. 2015. I began working as a Charge Nurse at a UHS mental health hospital in Sept. 2015. I'm already looking at other jobs. The pay is not worth the stress of staffing and administration.

I worked on the subacute rehab floor at a SNF. I now work at a local community hospital on a medical-surgical/telemetry floor. At first I was not really picky, I took what I could get. I did not get treated well at the subacute rehab and left for a long term acute care facility that was further away from home. That experience helped me get into one of the hospitals I've wanted to work at in the future. I wouldn't change anything!

Specializes in MICU/CCU, SD, home health, neo, travel.

First job was on a surg/oncology floor in a regional peds hospital. Loved the kids, hated the parents, and DESPISED my preceptor who constantly belittled me and made things unnecessarily difficult, also one of my fellow orientees who had been a volunteer there for years, was very superior-acting and went out of her way to make things hard for me and the other newbie. I lasted 4.5 months before I left in tears one morning, handing in my resignation. After that I didn't work for another 4 months. Then I got a job on peds in a small county hospital but that didn't work out either when I made a med error (which could and probably should have been caught by the supervisor since she had to go and get the drug from the pharmacy and she looked at the order with me, but never mind) and I got taken off that unit and sent to med-surg. After 3 weeks I was placed on geriatrics. A few months later I was asked to come into ICU and I positively flourished in there. It was a small (7 bed) unit but the manager was amazing and very supportive, and I learned so much from her. I think I probably judged every other manager I ever had by her...which isn't fair to them, because they broke the mold after they made her!

Specializes in Hospice, Geriatrics.

Yay for Diploma graduates!!!!! Spent my first year in psych, then went to Med-Surg Charge Nurse second year. Had 4 year grads working for me!

Specializes in Hospice, Geriatrics.

I love Geriatrics, especially working with memory impaired. They are not predictable and there are always seminars, CEUs, in-services that are teaching new and updated information. Neuro will always be on the cutting edge of finding out new things. I think working with geriatrics and memory impaired not only tests your nursing skills, it challenges you to be creative and think outside the box. Never a dull moment!

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