girl in greenwood

I went to my interview at Big County Hospital yesterday - I met with the HR nurse recruiter and with the nurse manager for the new med-surg unit that is yet to open. The manager from the tele unit cancelled on me, not because she was disinterested, just a scheduling conflict (according to the recruiter). That was fine - tele was my second choice.

So I interviewed with the med-surg nurse manager, and she was very nice, calm & low-key. She was looking at my resume and saw that I went to KSU, and it turned out that she was born half an hour away from where I grew up. Small world. She asked me a bunch of those interview questions ("how do you deal with conflict?" and so on) and then we toured the unit that will be converted into the new med-surg unit. I had clinical on that floor in the past, so it was familiar. I asked the NM lots of questions, too, and I was pretty pleased with her answers.

So. It wasn't True Love at First Sight, but it seemed like a pretty good option. There are several factors in the plus column: a long preceptorship (12 weeks!), day shift hours are available, it's a vibrant academically-oriented environment, the patient population is highly variable, the pay is competitive. There are a few minuses - there's nothing swanky about this hospital including the cafeteria, it's in a kind of crummy part of town that does not make me feel safe, parking in the hospital garage is expensive. Still, it would be a fantastic experience.

Then when I got home I had a request for references in my inbox from the University Teaching Hospital. I applied for three positions there and I'm apparently being considered for two of them. I don't know if anything will come of it, but we'll see.

Oh, and as a special bonus from being in the nursing home full of sick people all week, I seem to have come down with a cold. I'm taking fistfuls of echinacea and other herbals as well as Advil Cold & Sinus, and chugging vast quantities of liquids. I don't have time to be sick!

Labels: job, nursing