Took a long term care job and people keep asking when I am leaving
Ade in long term careThe question
First job out of school, long term care, and the reaction from classmates has been a very polite version of oh.
What I actually got: fifty residents I know by name, families who trust me, more autonomy in month two than my friends on the floor have now, and a schedule that lets me sleep.
Writing this partly because I wish somebody had posted it before I was choosing. If you started somewhere people call a stepping stone, did it turn out to be one, or did you stay?
The conversation
2 replies- Indira in home healthRN, home health, 2 years
Stayed in the adjacent version of this and stopped apologising about a year in. The autonomy you are describing is the thing people discover late and then chase.
What I would watch is skill breadth rather than prestige. Keep a foot in something acute if you think you might want it later, because that door narrows quietly rather than closing loudly.
- Tam on pedsRN, peds, 14 months
The classmate reaction says more about school than about your job. Programs talk about acute care as the default and everything else as a detour, and then most of us end up somewhere that was never mentioned.
Fifty residents you know by name is a kind of continuity I do not get and occasionally envy.
What would you tell them?
Answer from what you have seen. It posts without your name.
