Changes

Next week I start a new job.  In the past I have been an inpatient nurse in medical-surgical units, critical care units and primarily in the emergency department.  I have been an educator and then a manager for a medical-surgical unit.  This new job I am starting next week is in a clinic.  I am making a complete change in what I will be doing in nursing.
Next week I will be in orientation.  I haven’t been in a real orientation in many years.  Whenever I would change jobs in the past, I would move from one ED to another ED.  I would get a week or less of orientation to learn their paperwork and policies, otherwise, ED nursing is ED nursing.  Now I have to completely learn a new way to practice nursing.

I just got off the phone with my new manager.  I am going from being the manager to back to staffing; I kind of like the idea of that.  I am going to be orienting for about two months.  I will be going from seeing 20 to 30 patients per day, to seeing a handful per day.  I will be going from being on my feet all day and running my tail off to talking to patients on the phone and triaging patients over the phone.

I actually loved working in triage as an ED nurse.  Meeting with a patient for just a few minutes, getting their history and really trying to determine what is happening with them.  Being able to look at a patient and determining how sick they are and using my nursing judgment to help them.  Now I will be doing the same thing, but over the phone.  How am supposed to determine how they look…all those things I could assess on a patient as soon as they walked through those doors?  Now I have to figure out those things on the phone.

It’s scary but exciting.  I am looking forward to all the changes I am making in my life and the challenges that come along with it.