I just graduated the RPN program at Centennial College in April 2019, began registered with the CNO in July 2019, and landed a RPN job as a clinical research assistant in October 2019. Unfortunately, the clinical research job is only temporary, and I'll have to find a permanent nursing job when the contract ends this year (2020).
I would love to be able to find a nursing job in the hospital, but it has been difficult because most of the areas I want to get into require more training (such as OR, ER, ambulatory care). I realize that I would have to bare the task of being a floor nurse first, to gain the experience that these specialties require, and to save up enough money to pursue higher education for their areas of nursing. During my clinical experience in school on a med/surg/general floor, and I found that nurses were more focused on completing tasks, with little time to actually build a connect with the patient (due to lack of time). Most of the patient weren't ambulatory, there was a high patient to nurse ratio, and nurses struggled to/didn't complete personal care (bathing, feeding, clothing, etc) in addition to their nursing procedures (medications, IV, wound care, etc).I want to find a floor in the hospital that will still allow me to preform a variety of nursing skills (medications, IV, wound care, etc), but where the patients are independent (so I can focus on building a nurse-patient relationship).
P.S. I don't mind providing personal care, but I found it unrealistic to expect a complete bed bath/showers, brief change, medications, feeding and charting to all be done for 5+ total care (non-ambulatory) patients before units huddles during a day shift.
What floors in the hospital have the most amount of ambulatory (independent) patients/less focus on nurses preforming personal care?
I heard the cardiac unit was a good floor- but that was from someone I spoke to in the U.S. (where they have PSW to do all the personal care if needed, and the patients the majority of the patient are independent anyways).
