Nursing shortage HA HA HA

My fiance is an ER doc in a hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. They are always, always, always, hiring per diem and travel nurses in the ER and in the rest of the hospital, too. I am pretty sure that the same is true for just about any other hospital in Alaska. They are sometimes desperate enough to hire people straight out of school...the ER job listings up at the Mat-Su Valley hospital even specify that they will consider new grads. Pay is good and Anchorage is *almost* a real city. Just a thought, if you could handle a (really, really big) move. Me-mail me and I'll send you links to job listings in the area if you're entertaining the idea.

blaneyphoto: Being a paramedic is not a step down in skills. It's a step sideways in a Venn diagram of skills, and it's a change of focus of medicine. Paramedics can intubate and defibrillate; the vast majority of RNs cannot. Nurses get to see a patient on a much longer timescale than a matter of minutes or a few hours in an ambulance transport. However, nurses are much more focused on the general health aspects of their patient. Paramedics are good at stabilizing and moving patients on to the best kind of definitive care for that patient. Paramedics also do not get paid nearly as well as RNs. The awesome RNs who challenge their paramedic exam or prehospital RN tests are wonderful people and I love to work with them. However, they are all also very experienced nurses, because people won't hire you to work prehospital unless you've spent time (typically 3-5 years) on a busy critical care floor. They still defer some things to the medics who did their internship. latkes: Hospitals like to hire internally. Can you physically bring your resume to floor managers who are hiring techs? Once you're on the payroll for some specified number of weeks, then you can start applying for internal job postings. This may help you circumvent the whole acute care experience thing. And what people said about the whole networking thing is how I've gotten my last three jobs. So start meeting more nurses.

Don't forget VNA/Hospice please. You put the "N" in VNA, you know, and they are always looking for nurses, both in critical care and visiting programs.

When I became a new RN in the 90s and moved to San Francisco and started looking, no shit they told me to move to Fresno and work for at least a year. I was like, no way. So I worked for a staffing agency as a nurse's aide (they will often hire nursing graduates to work as non-certified aides, you are not a CNA so you can't work skilled nursing, but you can work med-surg). I worked whatever hours were available and kept getting placed at one of the hospitals in the city (because I did well there and the hospital started requesting me). I got to know the scheduler, who appreciated that I was available and hardworking, and eventually she helped me meet the house supervisors and then people knew I was looking. Eventually, I got hired on one of the units I had worked on as a nurse's aide. Truthfully, the process took almost 9 months, but it did happen and I was getting experience and a paycheck in the meantime. It's easier to find a job if you have a job. The cycle thing is true, but the boom-bust cycles can be long. Also, if any of your classmates have found jobs, stay friendly with them and maybe they can get you an intro to their nurse manager. If you want to be an NP, then go for it, but I would be cautious about pushing ahead just because jobs are tight. I know plenty of NPs who went direct RN to NP who couldn't find NP jobs because they never had any nursing experience. Caveat emptor. If you want to know the specific agency I worked for me-mail me, but if you google nursing staffing agencies and the city, you will find plenty. As an aside, I was a young graduate and had worked as a nurse's aide in nursing school, but not on a med-surg floor. Being an aide in a busy hospital actually gave me totally awesome experience that made me a much more confident nurse when I did finally start. And it helped with my organization skills as well. Good luck

Have you looked into working at the VA or other government programs? Check out the https://www.usajobs.gov/. There appear to be a https://www.usajobs.gov/JobSearch/Search/GetResults?Keyword=Nurse&Location=San+Francisco%2C+CA&search.x=34&search.y=15, the benefits are outrageous. There are tricks to getting hired into the government, including a comprehensive resume. Also check out county health, or city health departments.

Everyone says it's cyclical in nursing, but I fear our economy just getting worse and worse and no one ever finding work again!

Some ideas: How about places that do clinical testing and trials? Sometimes they need nurses, especially if you have your phlebotomy certification. What about city and county health departments? http://agency.governmentjobs.com/contracosta/default.cfm?action=viewjob&JobID=51783&headerfooter=1&promo=0&transfer=0&WDDXJobSearchParams=%3CwddxPacket%20version%3D%271%2E0%27%3E%3Cheader%2F%3E%3Cdata%3E%3Cstruct%3E%3Cvar%20name%3D%27CATEGORYID%27%3E%3Cstring%3E-1%3C%2Fstring%3E%3C%2Fvar%3E%3Cvar%20name%3D%27PROMOTIONALJOBS%27%3E%3Cstring%3E0%3C%2Fstring%3E%3C%2Fvar%3E%3Cvar%20name%3D%27TRANSFER%27%3E%3Cstring%3E0%3C%2Fstring%3E%3C%2Fvar%3E%3Cvar%20name%3D%27FIND_KEYWORD%27%3E%3Cstring%3E%3C%2Fstring%3E%3C%2Fvar%3E%3C%2Fstruct%3E%3C%2Fdata%3E%3C%2FwddxPacket%3E, just as an example. Have you tried specialty clinics like dialysis centers?

What Pocahontas says about NPs is probably a realllly good point. I'm a doctor, not a nurse, but from what I can see there are jobs in other areas, just not in yours. I know about 3 other nurses who just got new jobs in the past few months, but not in my home area which is also a desirable place to live. I moved away from the midwest this summer and they were definitely hiring there. Just FYI if you are looking to work in the ER, you really need some experience there. It's kind of difficult because no job = no experience = no job. So what I've heard is that people need to do other work, like work as a tech or as an EMT, and then they get some experience in the ED that way and that gives them an 'in' to get hired at the location where they work if they do a good job, too. Or maybe try urgent cares, there a tons of freestanding urgent cares springing up (i.e. Minute Clinic, the ones in the big grocery stores, and others affiliated with big healthcare systems) that would probably be a stepping stone as well.

My friend's mom is a nurse and when she graduated with her DNP, she had to work at a free clinic in Philly for a couple of years on an hourly basis. She said the economy was terrible when she graduated from nursing school in the 70s.