What would you recommend

[MexicanFNP]

First of all I want to thank you all for the numerous times you guys have offered insight and advice to my questions; thank you for that.

I am asking the following question for a friend whom is feeling pretty “shi**y” to say it in an honest way.

He completed a Nurse Practitioner program back in 2016 and started working right after as a hospice NP with no other forms of experience.  Because of all these pandemic he has been dealing with a lot of end of life issues and it’s gotten to a point where he says it’s affecting him emotionally.  

He wants to start looking for new opportunities doing “real medicine/management” like he said but feels that because his only experience has been in hospice he will have a difficult time being considered for family practice, internal medicine, ER/UC, or hospital medicine.  His second concern is that he feels “everything” that he learned he forgot because he has just been focusing on hospice care.  This situation has him all bummed out and feeling hopeless and asked me for advice.  I honestly felt that I had no good advice/guidance and asked him if he was OK exposing his situation here and go from here.

 

what do you guys he should do to regain some Confidence in his knowledge given his background? Should he study any specific books, online review?  What would be the best approach from your experience and perspective?

Thanks in advance and wishing you all a good year!

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

I'm sure your friend is having a tough time, I wish I had words of advice, but I'm not yet practicing myself and have had similar thoughts related to initial jobs after licensure. I think the good thing about the medical community is that you can always find an opportunity if you're willing to work for it. Your friend might have to consider relocating to areas of higher need for nurse practitioners, but there are certainly threads on here about where job opportunities are most plentiful. As for refreshing skills and knowledge, I would think once an opportunity has been identified, reading up on some basic knowledge in that area will help and mostly on the job training will cover it. I think your friend will find that information comes back with some time. Good luck to your friend.