Back to the work-a-day world

I finished nursing school on June 13th, took my NCLEX in July, then commenced to try to get on at my hospital of choice, Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Pasco. That is where I did my preceptorship. I really enjoyed it, and the people, and thought I would be able to get on there.

But they had a residency program. New graduates have to be part of that to work at Lourdes. I had been into Lourdes HR department three times over the last year, to get an application in. They wouldn't give me one, and said that I had to wait until my last quarter to get into the residency program.

So I went into HR again, the first week of the last quarter, and was told, "Oh, that closed yesterday." After talking to various people in my class, I found out that the only people from our school that got into the residency program, or even knew that the program was open, were people who already worked at Lourdes as secretaries, nurse assistants, etc.

But I continued to try to lobby to get in. Between July and this month, October, I had worked different angles. I had talked to different doctors and nurses who worked there, and in the end three different doctors had either talk to HR or written letters, I later came to learn.

It wasn't until the CEO of Lourdes walked in and talked to HR directly, that I got a phonecall from them. In a nutshell, they said that they have their system, and I didn't get my paperwork into it, and they weren't going to make me any offers.

So, I put my application in to Kadlec Medical Center, got an interview there and I start on Monday, October 20th. It will be good experience, as they handle more complicated cases than Lourdes does, anyway.

Working at Kadlec will be a solid foundation for my nursing career--a foundation that I would have gotten at Lourdes as well, but not to the extent that I will at Kadlec. It's a solid career move. It just doesn't have the strong faith based component that I liked.

I will have a week of hospital training and orientation, then another week of floor orientation to the unit I'll be working in, then I'll get a work schedule. Like most new grads, I'll get all of the shifts that nobody wants. In the beginning I'll be working the same schedule as whoever is my preceptor. But eventually I'll be working mostly night shift, which has it's plusses and minuses. I've always been kind of a night person, but don't know how this night shift work will go over, trying to sleep in the day with four kids under age seven.

But we're excited to move forward in this adventure. Will keep you posted!