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I am currently working in a rehab floor. I enjoy talking to my residents and taking care of them, I enjoy working there but I feel like I am missing something. I graduated in 2022. How can I venture out for either geriatric or psych nurse?


May 3rd, 2024

What state do you reside in? It never hurts to apply for the position at a teaching hospital that’s understaffed. Do your research and apply.

March 11th, 2024

I'm not sure what you feel you are missing, but it is not unusual to want to try something different. In my case, nursing is my second career, so I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do, even though it ended up not involving my new grad year in medsurge (I did my orientation on a rehab floor). Neither geriatric nor psych nursing involve the same degree of acute bedside nursing you find on a medsurge floor, so I don't think they will be significantly different than what you are doing now in terms of what we think of as typical nursing tasks. Psych nursing is going to be passing meds, running groups - depending on what kind of facility will determine how much behavioral intervention you would be doing. However, it is not going to involve trachs, tube feedings, three way bladder irrigation, heparin drips, hanging blood, codes, and the like.

If you read around on this forum, there are many nurses who are doing everything they can to get away from the bedside doing those sorts of tasks and moving into something nonpatient care. So I think it's fine to look for a different experience, but you are not "missing out" on anything.