How To Get Ready For Your New Nursing Job

April 24th, 2009  |  The Blog

You interviewed for your new nursing job. It was a nerve-racking experience, but before you knew it, the nurse recruiter was calling you up and offering you a job that you couldn’t refuse. Now what do you do? There are some things that you can do that will help you make a smooth transition into your new nursing job.

Learn Everything You Can About Your New Employer

Going into a new work environment is always a challenge, so learn as much as you can about your new employer. Not all health care facilities are created equal. Learn about the health care services that they provide, their philosophies, and learn about their corporate culture. Call around to your friends before you go into work. Nursing is a small world. Maybe one of your friends knows someone that you’re going to be working with at your new nursing job. It’s always nice to see a familiar face when you walk into work.

Know The Lay of the Land

This is going to sound so simple, but a lot of people don’t think about this until it’s too late. Or should I say, until they are late. Here’s an example of what I mean.

It’s Nurse Jones’ first day of work. She’s really excited, and she’s looking forward to her first day of hospital orientation. She hops into her car after a quick breakfast and hits the freeway. Nurse Jones thinks she knows the route she is going to take to the hospital because she looked it up on Map Quest, but she really doesn’t have a clue. She is running into detours and roadblocks, and now she’s running late at the peak of rush hour traffic. Nurse Jones finally makes it to the hospital, but she can’t find a place to park. Parking is at a premium at most hospitals, and she drives around in circles for a long time before she finally finds the employee parking lot. Poor Nurse Jones arrives late for her first day of hospital orientation and doesn’t make a good first impression with her new boss.

Nurse Jones could have avoided a lot of her problems if she had taken a practice run to the hospital before her first day at work. A practice run is a simple thing that you can do that will help you make a good first impression on your first day on the job.

Know What You’re Going to Wear On Your First Day At Work

Again, this sounds simple, but knowing your unit’s dress code with save you from feeling like odd man out while saving you a lot of money at the same time.

Nurses use to have a universal dress code. We wore white dresses or pantsuits to work. Period! Now nurses wear all types of color combinations to work while other nurses no longer wear uniforms. They wear street clothes to work. Some employers have strict dress codes. They require nurses to wear specific colored uniforms that indicate which unit they work on within the hospital. Learn your institution’s dress code before you report to work. Uniforms are expensive, and you want to make sure you are buying the right outfits before you report for your first day at work.

Terri Polick
About Terri Polick
Terri Polick has been a nurse for thirty years, and is a published author living in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. She is currently working as a freelance writer, and is a frequent contributor to Nursing Spectrum Magazine. Terri works at a local community hospital as a psychiatric nurse.

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