Nurse work dillema-Advice needed

Hello Im quiet in a dillema here..Ok heres the story..I am a new grad 1st year RN, I got my first job in an acute care hospital on a med/surg floor and so far I have 6 months experience working there. I have wanted to be an ICU nurse from the beginning but I took the med/surg job because that was the only job job i was offered at that time, so i took it.I tried to get an icu job from the beginning, but of course no one hardly ever hires any new grads into the icu. Its not bad, its good experience, but its not what I want to do. Im currently in school for my BSN at the same time. I have kinda of a strict timeline to follow, I want to go travel nursing as soon as I can but with Icu experience, not med/surg. And then later i plan on going back to school to become a CRNA. So my dillema is, would it be wrong to leave my current job at six months? Or should I try to stick it out for at least a year? Was thinking of transfering at my hospital or getting a new job altogether. Would it make me look bad and unstable to other prospective employers that I only worked there for 6 months? Honestly, I dont even know if I can get a job in the icu with the little expericience i got, and plus it being med/surg. What the best way to go about this? Dont know what to really do..any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, in advace!
Many travel agencies require 2 yrs of experience in a specialty, even med-surg. Research the online travel agencies sites, they usually post the minimum requirements

I would stay where you are and try and get into the ICU. Changing jobs after 6 months does not look good to future employers. You are going to need 1-2 years in the ICU before you consider travel positions.

Med/ Surg is a one year requirement for travel, ICU some places will hire with 1 year, but you really need 2 to be competent on a travel assignement. If you transfer within your system to ICU assuming you can get in somewhere, then I don't really think it's that bad. You're really trading up, so as long as you put it that you wanted more of a challenge, and all that you should be fine.

Stay at least within the facility that you are in for a little while, and get your feet wet. And please, don't take this the wrong way--but make sure you are very confident in your skills before you start to travel. You never know what type of assignment you may end up with. My floor was famous for using travelers and if you weren't on top of your game, which they rarely were, the travelers got eaten alive and many of them got sent back with their contracts cut short. It's a lucrative business, but at our hospital at least, they only got 1-2 days of orientation, 1 day to learn the computer charting system and 1 day to shadow a nurse to learn the ropes of the floor and then you were on your own. Even the new hires that were experienced got more orientation than that. We had some amazing travelers that we begged to stay on staff, but we also had our fair share of not so amazing ones, and they didn't last very long...I highly encourage you to stay where you are for just a little while longer, even if you can't get into ICU in your hospital, try doing the float pool, that way you get more exposure to med/surg, but it's in different areas, it will make you more marketable when you are trying to get a traveler position. They used to be hard to come by a year or 2 ago, I'm not sure about now...good luck =)

Stick it out for at least a year before you leave for other opportunities. There are new grads in my area that would positively kill to get their foot in the door at ANY hospital, and ICU will look upon a year's work in medsurg more favorably than if you jump ship after 6 months. It's a good learning experience, and it pays the bills while you get your BSN. Keep truckin'!

[font="comic sans ms"]six months is just a tiny speck of time. there is no way you could have learned enough in six months to be bored or really ready to move on. more than that, you owe at least a year if not two to the employer who took a chance on you, trained you and taught you to be a nurse. if icu is your dream, it will still be there in a year or two.. and don't be in too much of a hurry to travel. learn all you can first, because when you travel, you'll be expected to already know it. hospitals are willing to train permanent staff, but travelers are supposed to come trained.

There's some great advice here. I wanted to add that you should check your hospital's policy for how long after hire you can apply for another position. I would assume from your original post that the timeline is 6 months. So put in your time and start looking for a transfer to ICU. But if an internal transfer is not in the cards for you, it is really in your best interest to stay at that facility at least a year. No, it doesn't look good to potential employers to leave after 6 months. I would think if it was in the same hospital it would be ok.

Speeding up the timeline may only be a bad thing.I highly suggest looking for a transfer into the ICU and getting at least 2 years. It can only help you, not hurt you...I know sometimes it feels like things aren't fast enough, but you don't want to get a reputation as someone who is just there to accrue the experience and leave. Trust me, people will sense it, and not be as supportive.Take a deep breath and slow down...just a little...

Hi,Just a little advice from someone who has worked med-surg and ICU. You need to get some more experience. I worked med-surg for 4 years before switching to ICU and the experience was a humbling one. There is a lot of information that you have to learn and the ICU is a very different environment from med-surg. You have to re-organize your line of thinking as a nurse. It took me about a year to feel really comfortable in my new job. First decide if you want to travel more or work in ICU. If you go to ICU stay with your med-surg job at least a year so you can build up your time management skills and get some routine procedures down pat. It may not be your dream job but the Med-Surg experience will teach you a lot. When you are use to discharging 3-4 pts in a shift, admitting 1-2 is not a big deal ; )

Well, I love your planning and your ambition. I worked for a couple of years in the ICU as a tech partner/CNA, and built strong rapport with nurses and doctors. I knew the nurses and their backgrounds, I felt comfortable working with them because they knew how to handle things there. In the ICU, things happen really quick. If you don't have that much experience, then for the sake of the patients, wait till you do. Rapid response teams that go to med surge, as you might know, are ICU nurses, in many cases. As far as I am concerned ICU nurses are the cream of the crop. So you don't go from new grad to cream of the crop. Best of luck.

Thanks so much for the advice! That was very helpful!

What about the new grads that go straight into the ICU with no experience?