Moving to Another Department
Perhaps when considering moving on to the next level, you will find that you would like to explore another area as well. This is part of fine-tuning your career. Keep it interesting and never let it get boring and old.
Making a move will be an exciting challenge as well as a bittersweet one. You will have developed friendships and professional relationships with your coworkers that will be difficult to change and disrupt. However, growth always involves some degree of change. If your career isn't growing, it's most likely stagnating. This can lead to job dissatisfaction and burnout. Stay in touch and ask your colleagues to be happy for you.
You don't want to make too many changes at any one time unless you thrive on stress. If you're continuing your education, you may want to stay put. However, if a change will provide you with better access to the patients or experiences to enhance your chosen area of study, you may need to consider making a move.
If your facility is offering training for the ICU, and that's where you think you'd like to work someday, then perhaps you should jump at the opportunity. Or perhaps the pediatric ward has an opening, and the unit manager is willing to give you a chance.
Don't make changes just because another unit has an opening on the day shift; however, if changing is necessary for your personal life, you might need to consider it. Nurses often make the jump to home care just because they can work 8:00
Identify the aspects of your job that you really enjoy and those which you find to be most rewarding. Further identify the skills and talents that you possess and note your strongest and your weakest. From all this data, formulate options to enhance these opportunities and to improve the skills you want to work on.
There are more than enough negative things about nursing; be happy in what you do, and you will be much better at it. If you don't like patients, consider roles where you don't have patient contact. And, of course, if you want more hands-on care, you certainly wouldn't look at positions that take you away from direct interaction with patients.
Re-evaluate your situation periodically, and always stay abreast of new trends in health care and how it will affect your role and the things you enjoy doing most as a nurse. Be open to change and embrace it. Set goals for yourself and specific timelines for achieving them. Be flexible, but don't compromise your needs and success.
