going from a hospital to a nursing home

I am an RN and started my career in hospitals. I worked in a couple hospitals for about 7 years before I got injured. I have been out of the nursing field for about 3-4 years. I am ready to return to the nursing workforce now and I am considering starting back at a nursing home to ease my way back into the field. All my prospective employers have told me that this is very difficult to go from working in a hospital to a nursing home and they have known nurses not to last. Have I made the wrong choice to start back into my career this way? Any comments would be helpful. Thanks.
Why would it be difficult to do? I went from a hospital to a SNF and did just fine. The only overwhelming thing about it was a 30 person med pass.Just be careful starting back into a SNF, if you want hospital later on. It might be a difficult to transition back in again because as we know, many hospitals can be picky about hiring SNF nurses.

I went to a nursing home after a 4 yr maternity leave (!) and then after 2-3 years went back to the hospital. It took some orientation, but it was fine. They are two different kinds of nursing, but the body is still the body and for me it just took some time to pop back open the "acute nursing" pathways in my brain. I did spend my time in the Nursing Home looking up drugs, which also helped with the transition later.

Why not just start back at the hospital? Take a refresher course if you need it. Then again, SNF is not for me, so I would never encourage someone to go to SNF.

Just for the record, I was out almost 5 yrs and did just fine going back. It's amazing what really sticks with you. The only difficult part was learning some new meds that were now on the market and some new labs.

Personally I would try to go back to a hospital if at all possible. Going to a nursing home is not easing back into nursing. There was many times that I had multiple full code residents that were nearly as sick as the pts that I have at the hospital. With a pt to nurse ratio of 30+ residents you are just asking for trouble because you are not able to monitor those very sick resident nearly as close as you do in the hospital. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Yes why even bother going to a LTC facility? You're going to have an outrageous patient load, asked to do the impossible ... have you not read some of the threads on nursing homes. If you want to run around like the mad hatter and doll out 800 pills every morning than I say go for it. LTC is not for the faint at heart. It's a whole other ball game that involves the impossible in most cases.I'm not knocking LTC but even if you were to get in a skilled area the patient load is a joke. Yes, there may be one or two places that actually adhere to the rules and care about staff but I haven't seen any (only worked in 2 though). I'm only saying this because it sounds like you think it's going to be less stress and the acuity will be low ... guess again. What ever you decide to do good luck to you.

I have people telling me that because I have been out of it for awhile I would be risking my license going back. I have some interviews at some hospitals now which is what I really love but these negative poopoos are really throwing me for a loop. I know I can do it but this recent event is casting doubt for me. I am really in quite a quandary now...maybe i should just not go back to work at all! Any words of wisdom out there for me??