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Discussion

What to do..

im 24 years old, fairly young, my first job was in a psych hops. worked there for 3 years and i loved it. after a little while i decided to take the med surg route, got hired in a hospital kinda quick actually.. (what a blessing) anyways, after 3 months of working here i think i became strangely weird.. i hated my job.. resented it. i feel guilty because i prayed for it then now that i have it i hated it.. my anxiety level is so high it's insane, i can't concentrate, I'm so nervous all the time, i miss psych really bad. I'm good with therapeutic communication and taking care of the mentally ill.

now I'm doubting my decision leaving psych for med surg.. is this even normal?? people would always tell me don't stay as a psych nurse.. you're young do med surg, er, tele or icu.. psych not so much.. you will not learn that much from that area.. and you call yourself an rn.. to be honest i got offended with that statement..

i wanted to go back..i loved psych, i was not all jittery, tensed, anxious.. i looked forward to going to work. unlike here at med surg, i feel dumb, doubt my self all the time i hate it with a passion =(

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    I might try and stick out the med-sug unit for a while longer, 3 months and you are just getting your feet wet.

    But go back to psych if that is what you love! You have to make you happy.

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    yeah thats what I'm planning to do.. stick it out for a year then leave

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    hope i make it though.. med surg is killing me..

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    • Experts

    If you were happiest in psych, then by all means go back to psych! That may sound like I'm biased, being in psych myself...but in all truth I'd tell you the same thing if you were in psych and pining for med/surg: go to wherever you are happiest. If it's psych, go there. If it's med/surg, go there. If it's informatics in states that begin with M and where they focus solely on EMRs for Apple operating systems, go there. Life's too short to be miserable if you can help it.

    Mind you, the experience you are getting in med/surg will be valuable to you in psych...actually any experience you get in any nursing specialty will be valuable to you in psych. So don't feel like your time in med/surg is wasted because it is not.

    And there's always going to be those who look down on psych, same as there will always be those who look down on LTC, or rehab, or L&D, or geriatrics, or even med/surg...in fact, every specialty has critics who look down their noses at that specialty. Don't let their attitudes get to you. As long as you are happy with whatever specialty you land in, then it doesn't matter what anyone else in the world thinks.

    And it's not where you work or in what specialty you work that makes you a nurse...it's those two or three little letters on the license you receive after taking the NCLEX that makes you a nurse. NEVER forget that.

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    Do not feel like you have to 'stick it out'. Do what makes you happy! Go back to psych. I couldn't work psych, and I am glad you can!

    Best wishes!

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    Do what makes you happy. But I wouldn't give up after just three months. Especially in a new specialty. (If you tried a different psych job, then three months may be enough to give you a realistic picture.) Three months, you'll barely have a routine yet, not really know you're coworkers. And psych skills are great to have in med/surg. Wish I had better psych skills myself!

    I wouldn't necessarily say you have to stick it out a year, but give yourself enough time to know you don't like this, rather than you just haven't yet become accustomed to it. :)

    Good luck!

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    • Author

    the one who trained me after 6 weeks of orientation she's expecting me to work at her level.. she's been working for 5 years.. mine will take a while because I don't have any med surg experience.. I just feel so disheartened and I have no one to talk to that's why I'm venting here.. My husband doesn't care what's going on with me.. he's in business and for him nursing is easy.. I told him u don't undertand what I'm goig through

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    I wouldnt give up yet. Keep plugging away and try not to internalize so much. do you best. I always think its good to keep your options open and med surg is good for that. You never know what the job market could be in the future and having that experience will help you. Try to give it the year. Can you talk to your charge nurse, manager or educator about your concerns? Maybe working with a different preceptor?

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    I had no idea what I wanted to do in nursing when I started, and I still don't. Before I started, I figured I'd do psych. Then I did my psych rotation in school. Not a hospital psych unit, either. It was a decertified ward of the local state mental hospital. I spent 6 weeks there, 5 days a week. After six weeks, I knew that psych was not for me. Scratch that, after the first week, I knew. I went home crying every night during that rotation. Now I'm happily working in rehab/LTC...and I told myself I would never work in a nursing home (I was too good for that, lol). I love my job, and it's the one I figured I'd hate. And I would hate the job I thought I wanted. The moral of this story is you don't know what you want to do until you try it out. Give it a little longer, because in psych you were comfortable in your skills and it became easy for you. Now you have to learn new skills (and dust off some old ones), and it's challenging. Make sure you're not wanting to go back because it's comfortable and easy, make sure it's because you truly believe med/surg is not for you.

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