Tips for a soon to be new graduate nurse! No negativity please… I know what career I’ve chosen and I’m passionate about it! Also, if anyone has job recommendations in Houston it would be greatly appreciated.
See what hospitals offer residency programs as it is an easier way to obtain experience and get paid to perfect known skills and apply learned knowledge. My recommendation is apply to all and weigh your options on those that accept you! Good luck and welcome to the most giving profession ever!
Congratulations! I’ve got no leads in Houston but just wanted to say, explore the many areas of nursing. Try not to get stuck in one area like I did. Now at 60+ I want to try something new but they are reluctant to hire me; especially without experience in the speciality I’m applying to. Also if you don’t have your BSN, get it and keep growing there too. Again, congratulations and welcome to the wonderful world of nursing!!
I understand that you do not want any negativity but as a 40 year veteran nurse in various areas of the field. Negativity is going to be one of your greatest adversaries. I will tell you straight upfront Nurses are not respected in anyway shape form or fashion. You need to understand that right from the jump, nurses are overworked, underpaid, and treated like dirt because everyone is under the assumption that nursing is an obligation but rather it is a choice. You need to float to different floors and areas gaining as much knowledge and experience from old grumpy nurses you can get. If you cannot handle constructive criticism then you need to stop right now and choose a different profession. That right there will determine if you keep your license or lose it in today's society. Best of luck on your future endeavors.
Look at the areas immediately surrounding Houston like Cypress, Spring, Kingwood, etc. Houston Methodist Cypress is NEW and opening very soon. Most of them have upcoming new grad residency programs...Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann, Baylor St.Luke's....they all have multiple locations in addition to free standing clinics. If you want to travel a little bit there are many more options outside of Houston. Congratulations!!!!
I know little about Houston, but I was a new grad nurse in 2022. My best advice is to tell you resident programs do not teach you much of anything. All of your learning will be on your chosen unit and hopefully with a great preceptor. Since my I had one main preceptor and 11 others because of a shortage of staffing due to COVID, I learned many different ways of doing the same task and nobody ever told me how I was doing even when I asked. Whenever I thought I needed improvement on a task, I often was not told how to improve but that it would get better as my nursing practice advanced. My main preceptor watched Bridgerton and rarely helped me. I later learned, after I resigned from my job in telemetry, that she was known for being a poor preceptor who liked to ruin the careers of her preceptees. None of the nurses she precepted made it past their residency. I should have been more assertive about her and her laziness. The only reason I was not more assertive is that, upon accepting the job, I had to sign a contract saying that if I did not make it through my residency that I would have to pay the hospital $10,000 back to cover my training costs. Thankfully, after my residency, such contracts were deemed illegal and you should not have to deal with them.
Furthermore, my manager was fired two days after I resigned for taking drugs off the floor and selling them on the black market (not made up . . . I am not that creative 😂).
I spent 9.5 months on this extremely toxic telemetry floor as a night shift nurse. It was such a horrendously stressful experience that I officially know what I don’t want to do. I did not have to pay the hospital back for my training costs, but please be careful with what you sign.
If I were to do it over again, I would do more research into the resident programs I was interested in, ask about patient ratios, preceptors, how long the preceptorship is, can the preceptorship be extended if needed, what happens if the preceptorship doesn’t work out, how many nurse residents are retained as staff after the residency ends, do as much job shadowing as needed, and make sure you have shadowed on all the units available to you before making a decision on which unit you will work on.
Additional things to note, do not work overtime because it is never appreciated, trust no one because the hospital setting is a gossip mill / your supposed best friend would write you up in a heart beat, be assertive about your preceptorship because it is your turn to learn . . . seek out a new preceptor if needed, and above all else please realize that, like Rome, your nursing practice will take time.
Furthermore , always ask for help and remember that the first few years of nursing practice are hard. Remember, you do not have to like your colleagues but you will have to work with them to possibly help save someone’s life. Finally, imposter syndrome is real and it got me very bad so do whatever you can to prevent it. Remind yourself that you deserve to be there and that you are still learning.
Although a tad on the negative, I wish you the best of luck and I hope you find your nursing niche!
I loved Houston Methodist. They are amazing and great pay. Good benefits and they pay out bonuses. Like, "thanks for working for us. Here's some money". I quit because I moved to Kentucky. Only reason I'd move back is bc of that hospital.