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Discussion

Which would you choose?

During my last semester of school, a friend of mine turned down an opportunity to be a psych nurse on our local ACT team. As a nurse there, you would visit patients in their homes with severe mental disorders and help them with medication compliance among other things like case management. I told her to give me the manager's number because I was interested. I've always liked psych and was never turned off by it like a lot of people are. The pay is salary and days are mainly M-F 8-4:30. Prior to contacting the manager, I had applied to several hospital RN jobs and never heard anything. So I moved forward with seeking employment with this psych team. Did an interview, a ride a long, and submitted references. After submitting my references I took my NCLEX and passed! The next day my local hospital hit me up for an interview for a medsurg position. It was so random because I applied with that hospital a while ago for several positions and never heard anything. I went ahead and agreed to the interview but I am conflicted! My interview is tomorrow and the psych place called me today clarifying something about my references saying they would be in contact very soon! I know I don't have an official job offer from either yet but I'd feel so guilty if I chose medsurg over the psych because I would feel like I led them on. Also I'm not even crazy about medsurg but I know it will open more doors for me down the road! Ugh! I don't know what to do!!!!

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    Just wait and see what happens. I would go with med/surg for a year or two. There will always be psych and home health jobs but getting into the hospital is tough.

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    Just wait and see what happens. I would go with med/surg for a year or two. There will always be psych and home health jobs but getting into the hospital is tough.

    Agreed. A psych position like that will be very limiting, in terms of how much it will help you moving forward in your career, unless you want to be a psych nurse. I also turned down a psych position (though it is potentially available now that I am licensed). If I had an offer in med/surg I would definitely take it, and run with it for 2+ years to get that experience. Do you know what specialty you'd like to get into at some point?

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    • Author

    Before nursing school I really wanted to go into L&D, but I've gotten to experience a lot in my clinicals that I really am interested in a lot of things. I like psych, ER, L&D, oncology, dialysis, etc...so I'm not too picky lol. I just don't want to make the wrong choice and as much as I value career growth, I also want to be happy. I went on my interview today and the recruiter said she had like 4 medsurg positions open and 1 psych. She was like "let's start with the two floors you'd be interested in first" so I have two interviews next week with two different nurse managers both medsurg though. Meanwhile, I'm not sure if I should just go ahead and turn down the psych home health and not waste their time even though nothing is set in stone at the hospital.

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    • Author

    Update: i was called for an official job offer from the psych place and I turned it down! I feel so bad! I'm not use to rejecting other people and you could tell they were extremely upset. :( oh well, hopefully it's for the best.

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    Did you get a med surg offer? Make you have an offer before turning down a job.

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    • Author

    I did but I don't know if I want to take it. I should've taken the first job when I had the chance because this other position doesn't seem appealing at all!

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    • Experts

    IMO, it was foolish to turn down an offer without having accepted the other offer. What if the med-surg hospital suddenly had to rescind your offer for whatever reason? Then you'd go from 2 offers to no job at all. And new grad opporunties are very hard to come by as it is.

    If you really want the psych job, call them back ASAP and ask if the offer still stands. Otherwise, take the med-surg job, slog through the year, and then reevalute what you want to do then.

    Best of luck whatever happens.

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    • Author

    I definitely agree with you it was foolish. Fortunately in my area it isn't as hard to find something since I live in a rural southern state. I actually did call back and let them know I was still interested. They said they'd let me know. Is there a time frame I should give them before moving on?

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    • Experts
    I definitely agree with you it was foolish. Fortunately in my area it isn't as hard to find something since I live in a rural southern state. I actually did call back and let them know I was still interested. They said they'd let me know. Is there a time frame I should give them before moving on?

    You should NOT stop the job hunt until you have an official job offer in hand. So while you are waiting for them to get back to you, I would keep looking and applying.

    And to be honest, if they haven't gotten back to you in a couple of weeks, consider that as Probably Not and let it go.

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