Nurse Mentor

A random encounter with a student on the street outside my office inspired this one. After usual greetings, the conversation went something like this: Student: I have a job offer on a med-surg floor at the hospital where I've been voluteering. Me: Great!  That's fantastic. Student: Yeah, but I'm not sure I want to take it. [Inside my head, there are two scenarios going on: Scene 1 - Twenty something me who had a job offer in a market similar to this one yet turned it down, went elsewhere, then spent 8 months looking for a staff nursing job wants to say: "Dude, don't do it.  TAKE the JOB!"  Now, I have no regrets about my past choice but it would have made some things easier in the long run, like my student loans would be closer to being paid off... Scene 2 - Echoing in my ears are howls of dozens of other students who graduated in December and have spent months looking for work.  They'd love to be in the same position.] [Back to the stre...

My RA, Andi, recently decided to take a job in a rural part of the US.  It was not an easy decision. She currently lives in New York City, where so many want to live and work.  It is the place where most of my students want to stay working, but it is among one of the 4 hardest markets to try and find a job in the US.  The others include anywhere in California, Denver, Boston, and Philadelphia.  Aside from the excellent nursing schools in those places, they are also top choices for living.  Andi even wanted to work in a public hospital where she could work with under-served populations and practice her Spanish.  With the economic crisis and healthcare reform on hold, however, public hospitals have a hard time hiring. Andi is a great example of taking an unconventional chance when it comes to the new graduate nurse job search.  By choosing to go to a rural area, she's getting to work in her first choice area: step-down ICU.  She found a wonderful ...

Welcome!  Here's a site that might prove useful to you as the nursing student, practicing bedside nurse, and nurse seeking a career transition. My students were the inspiration for this blog as I discovered I was having the same conversation over and over: Nurses need mentors and there are too few out there.  Hopefully, this site will lead you to some helpful insights, essential humor, and support for those challenges and high moments that involve being a nurse.  I will try to post regularly (I think weekly might be feasible) with exceptions made at the end of the semester when grading for large classes takes a lot of time. You can email me with questions about (también en español y mais u menos em portugués): Surviving nursing school, the job search (AD, BSN, MSN, PhD, Post-Doc), career progression (to grad school, or not to grad school, that is the question!), and working in global health.  Am sure other topics might come up and I hope I can help there too. ...