RN?

After May 3, 2011, I will have completed my so-called graduate program. I was under the impression that a graduate program was supposed to ease the transition from student RN to RN, and to consolidate skills learnt in university.

That's not happening. First rotation was so jarring because of several bad experiences. The most significant one being having to care for fifteen acute care patients. Don't mind the nurse who's running around, trying to make sure all her patients' needs are met. Never mind that it's unsafe. It costs money to call a second nurse in! I want to believe money was the reason, and not that the senior nurses didn't think or care about it.

Second rotation was a smaller hospital. There was a regular stream of outpatients, so that's was still reasonable. Now, this rotation, in a town of less than 900, I'm not encountering any acute patients. The only outpatient I've seen? Woman with a skin tear.

Icing on the cake? I have slim to no chance of getting a position in a tertiary hospital, or to get a job as an agency RN. Two options at the moment: Look interstate, or walk out of nursing. If I had braved it out and faced unemployment, I would've been starting my graduate program at a tiertary hospital next year. Frankly, I'd rather change vocation, than location.