Re: New Nurses in OB

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/29/00 11:45:49 AM Eastern Standard Time,

OBnursesegroups writes:

<< What can you tell me about getting into an internship at a hospital?

>>

Hi, and welcome to our group!

At our hospital, we rarely hire new grads.....don't let that discourage you

though! The rationale for this is that we like new nurses to have a good

solid year of med surg prior to coming to our area. We learned through our

mistakes. We used to hire new grads with strong desire to work LD, and the

orientation was very intense! It not only is difficult for the new nurse

but it is difficult for the preceptor as she is teaching basic nursing skills

along with the LD portion. In other words, learning how to call a doctor in

the middle of the night with a gut hunch on something, or having to stick

your neck out for your patient, when you are not feeling secure in your

abilities is tough, but tougher when you are new at everything.

There are hospitals that offer new grads orientations, I know there are some

group members here that are working at places that do.

My suggestion is to take a med/surg job for a year, maybe see if you can pick

up some on-call or temp time working postpartum on the OB unit where you are

working. We offer a brief orientation to postpartum well mother baby for

temp oncall staff. Personally I find that this gives us an opportunity to

" check out " some staff before they really come and work with us. We have

been known to hire these people over others simply because we have gotten to

know them and they have been exposed to more OB this way.

Best of luck to you in your journey....we need OB nurses who love what they

do, after all it is a honor to be present during the most important times of

peoples lives!

Jan