Thoughts

I have thought a lot over the last couple of days about my career and where I want it to go over the next year. After being turned down for 3 NICU jobs and 5 Labor and Delivery/Post Partum jobs because I "lack experience in the field" I started to become very frustrated and was thinking that I would just have to wait until a job opened up , which could take AWHILE (like forever awhile)

I talked to my manager at work yesterday about it which is totally cool. (The unit I work on is full of new grads and we have a pretty large turn-around rate. we are constantly bringing in externs and hiring them when they graduate and become RN's and they come and take the place of the older RN's who go to specialty areas in the hospital) Now even I am finding this really hard to believe but since we are anticipating our second round of new grads coming in a couple of months since I started I am working my way into that older group of nurses.

So anyway I talked to my manager (who used to be a NICU manager...I know, complicated) and she gave me some really good point to stew on

**NICU jobs are HARD to get...no matter what the economy is like
**Once people get into an area so specialized they are likely to stay.
**You are a NAVY WIFE (I bolded that not because that's the way she said it, but because that's what I herd in my head) and I'm going to be moving around a lot, so it would be much better for me in the long term to enter into a specialty that is in higher demand.
**All that said I can surely get a NICU job if I want one....but it will definately take TIME.

So after that conversation I went home and lied in bed thinking about it. And I thought about WHY I wanted the NICU in the first place....what was the draw???

I was flash-backed to the night at South County Hospital when I saw the NICU transport team manage newborn twins that I observed through their delivery and until the NICU nurses got there. I was awed by their job....so what about it did I like?

The Speed
The Adrenaline
The Fast Pace

.....would now be a good time to mention that all 4 years of college I wanted to be an ER nurse?

the more I thought...the more I started to like the idea...why did I ever put that on the back burner? isn't that what I WANTED all along??

it looks good for me transferring to the ER in the late summer.