Where to work

As a new LVN you will be lucky to find employment at all in a timely manner. My personal initial choice would be the hospital, better education and benefits. I would also pick up a side job at either a LTC or Sub Acute, better pay.

Agency is not somewhere a new grad should be. Dangerous waters.

i think LTC is perfect for a new grad LPN. Wait until you have your RN to pursue acute care, hospitals don't even hire LPNS in my area. :)

As a new LVN you will be lucky to find employment at all in a timely manner. My personal initial choice would be the hospital, better education and benefits. I would also pick up a side job at either a LTC or Sub Acute, better pay.

Agency is not somewhere a new grad should be. Dangerous waters.

Dangerous waters? sounds scary. Can you divulge info on that? At this point. i want anything. I got a family to take care of and no $$. Everywhere i've applied i get turned down because of "no experience"..partly right, i don't have experience..not as a licensed nurse, but i do have 10 years as a medic with hands on experience that go beyond an LVN and in most cases along the lines of an NP or PA, but they seem to over look all that. Yes, i'm desperate!!!

As a new LVN you will be lucky to find employment at all in a timely manner. My personal initial choice would be the hospital, better education and benefits. I would also pick up a side job at either a LTC or Sub Acute, better pay.

Agency is not somewhere a new grad should be. Dangerous waters.

My thoughts exactly,

dangerous waters because with agency you will get no training and just sent to facilities and excepected to hit the floor running, where if you are hired in the facility you will be given some form of orientation so you have an idea of what you are doing.

As a new nurse you need the orientation to get used to the facility and the job of being a nurse.

well..sh**!! guess i've got some thinking to do. i really don't know. Agency seems to be the only way for me to get a pay check at the moment. Even the SNF here turned me down. So i really don't know what to do and staying home is getting really old...

I think your situation is a little different. With the medic background you should have no problems with agency as to the patient care standpoint. However you must have a basic grasp of time management. You should be able to care for 8 patients at a time and not blink an eye. If you can't do this then get experience before you hit the registry. I once got stuck with 13 patients, no orientation, no report at a facility through my agency(that was acute, not long term care). Standard patient ratios are usually 6-8:1 here in the midwest.

keep looking, it took me 8 months after graduation to land a full time job. After applying to everything online, I mapped out all of the LTC/SNFs within an hours drive of my house and went and applied in person to most of them untill one of them called me back. I had to cross state lines to get a job, because in my home state there is nothing available to new grads.

My next step was to start calling doctors offices to see if they were looking for help, I also started back to school to do my RN-BSN, when the student loans were due, to deffer the payment and hope that maybe an employer would look at continued education as a good thing.

If you have the experience, registry would be fine.. but if not and medic is great but still not same as LPN....registry may put you in a bad place... Only you know for sure.. If confident try it to see how you do. Good luck

If you have the experience, registry would be fine.. but if not and medic is great but still not same as LPN....registry may put you in a bad place... Only you know for sure.. If confident try it to see how you do. Good luck

Medic may not be the same as an LVN, however, becoming an LVN is a step down for me from what i was able to do as a medic both in scope and pay, but I'm alright with that. I'm going to give the registry a shot (i need the money, i can barely put food on the table) and if i can't figure it out, then i will start over or see if they can't put me in a place that's manageable.

Go for hospital if you can get it. What you want is a good orientation to a med/surg floor then at least 6-12 months on that floor. After that, you'll be able to go anywhere. The only problem is now hospitals aren't hiring LVNs for the floor. You may get lucky and find one out in a more rural area.

You can go agency if you want, but it's gonna be a completely different environment to being a medic. Also, you may be sent to different facilities, and you will always get the ****** assignments being agency.

Good luck.