u/Thin-Difficulty-5092

Graduated in August 2025, can't afford to just sit around hoping to get a residency position and cue the typical "darn I can't get into a residency ANYWHERE" (in the dfw area) and yes, I've applied to all floors and positions.

Presently working as a pediatric home health nurse and to be honest the pay is fine but I want to work bedside on the floor.

My question is: is it possible to use home health as my one year of nursing experience under my license (I work with acute kids, vent/trach/gb/etc) or will they scoff and laugh at my application since it isn't hospital experience aka is my career over before it even began? I ask this because here the hospitals will ask for either one year of residency or other experience before you just go straight to applying for positions outside of the residency spots they have every so often. I fear the gap between when I graduated and me continuing to apply also makes them see me as 'not being fresh on nursing skills' or whatever.

Just honestly losing my last shreds of hope. I do NOT want to do home health all my professional life. No offense to home health nurses you guys are awesome but it just has never been my personal goal.

Please be gentle. I truly am just so defeated. Also sorry for the yapathon.

Genuinely need help from seasoned people in the field. I am trying really hard to work on my anxiety and such but I get frazzled and REALLY show it easily like a shaken bird since I'm still new to nursing (new grad with less than 1yr experience).

I don't want to be easy pickings for people or make people think I am incompetent because I just get a bit worried for a second before getting back my bearings.

What are tips and tricks other than ye olde 'take a deep breath and take a break', etc?

Hello guys, please be kind because this has been weighing on me a lot. Cross-posting here because I really really need insight. (For reference, I am a new grad who is working HH until I get a floor job).

I had a patient with a long seizure history (cerebral palsy, really bad epilepsy, etc) who I was seeing for the first time. Parent stated the patient had been doing relatively well recently and last seizure was about a month ago.

Near the end of my shift, the patient had a tonic seizure lasting around 90 seconds. Patient returned to baseline afterward and parent/patient were relatively calm since this is not unusual for them, but it honestly scared me badly because I don't have much real-world seizure experience outside of school/simulations.

I adhered to the medication regimen carefully --- triple checked meds/times and even had the parent verify everything. The only thing different from baseline was that the patient was more awake during the day than usual since the parent said they normally sleep a lot during daytime hours.

What’s getting stuck in my head is the parent commenting that the patient had 'never had one sitting up before' / 'hasn't had a seizure in a long time' and now I keep wondering if I somehow caused this despite following orders correctly or at least according to the chart I was provided. They also invalidated my feelings as a nurse because I was recording the time of the seizure and it was exactly 90s (for charting) but they said 'no, it was definitely less than a minute' when they weren't even there when it started. I actually double-guessed myself because I feel so culpable for the whole situation.

For those with more neuro/seizure experience: how often do breakthrough seizures happen even with proper med adherence? And can seizure presentation/positioning vary from episode to episode?

Anyone have similar experiences/any ideas?

Hello guys, please be kind because this has been weighing on me a lot.

I had a patient with a long seizure history (cerebral palsy, really bad epilepsy, etc) who I was seeing for the first time. Parent stated the patient had been doing relatively well recently and last seizure was about a month ago.

Near the end of my shift, the patient had a tonic seizure lasting around 90 seconds. Patient returned to baseline afterward and parent/patient were relatively calm since this is not unusual for them, but it honestly scared me badly because I don't have much real-world seizure experience outside of school/simulations.

I adhered to the medication regimen carefully --- triple checked meds/times and even had the parent verify everything. The only thing different from baseline was that the patient was more awake during the day than usual since the parent said they normally sleep a lot during daytime hours.

What’s getting stuck in my head is the parent commenting that the patient had 'never had one sitting up before' / 'hasn't had a seizure in a long time' and now I keep wondering if I somehow caused this despite following orders correctly or at least according to the chart I was provided. They also invalidated my feelings as a nurse because I was recording the time of the seizure and it was exactly 90s (for charting) but they said 'no, it was definitely less than a minute' when they weren't even there when it started. I actually double-guessed myself because I feel so culpable for the whole situation.

For those with more neuro/seizure experience: how often do breakthrough seizures happen even with proper med adherence? And can seizure presentation/positioning vary from episode to episode?

Anyone have similar experiences/any ideas?

As the title says. Been struggling to find employment and the fall cohort applications have opened up this week so I submitted my application again to a hospital that already shunned me last season's cycle. As opposed to having to wait months to get that dreaded 'all the spots are full' for when I went for critical care, putting medsurg as my top pick got me a text for a screening call within the same day. Not sure if having a present job in home health has boosted my odds or not.

I know medsurg is dreaded and all but I just want a floor position ASAP and understood it's the least applied for position so this was my 'hell, I'll work anywhere' hail Mary and I suppose it's working? Just shocked because I'm in an area that has a HUUUUUGE surplus of new grads. I know critical care is one of those 'everyone is applying, lmao you're not gonna get in' positions but I just ... am shocked to the max at the quickness by which this hospital shot back at me because it's also fought to get into in general.

Wanted to know if anyone else had similar experiences.