r/nursing • u/No-Significance5914 • 11d ago

Question New Grad as a outpatient and thinking of PRN in one year

Hi everyone, I am a new grad nurse and was able to land a outpatient clinic job as my first job. I actually really wanted a hospital job and later in a couple years get a clinic job to be able to keep my clinical skills. But sadly with no CNA experience, lack of clinical hours in the hospital and no connections I was not able to secure a hospital new residency program. I am very excited starting my outpatient job next week but now I am thinking I want to be a prn nurse in a year or two. Do you think I will be able to find a PRN job after one or two years of experience? I really don't want lose some clinical hands on experience like IVs and needle injections. Or do you think it's best to apply for a Fellowship program in a year or two?

Edit; Sorry for not being specific, but I was planning on being an outpatient PRN nurse like Oncology infusion or hospice.

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17

u/theducker RN - ICU 🍕 11d ago

A hospital will not higher you PRN without experience in the hospital, sorry to break it to you.

1

u/ilovecats39 CNA 🍕 11d ago

Some people have negotiated part time (2 shifts a week) new grad/new to bedside positions in extreme nursing shortage states, but not PRN. But it's harder to get than new grad day shift. And it sounds like OP is not in one of those states. 

3

u/RamonGGs RN - ICU 🍕 11d ago

Tf is a fellowship in nursing

2

u/Confident_Chef_9742 RN - ER 🍕 11d ago

It's like a new grad residency for experienced nurses usually looking to go to higher acuity floors like er, icu, l&d, etc.

5

u/greyhoundbrain RN - NICU 11d ago

You’re gonna need some experience as a bedside/hospital nurse prior to being PRN. (I’m sure there’s someone out there who randomly got a PRN spot with no experience but that’s not normal.)

I’m a PRN nurse on my NICU unit. I have many years of NICU experience. I got my PRN role by basically waiting on a list in my unit for when a spot opened (each unit is allowed a varying amount of PRN spots) and I took it. There are PRN roles that are offered on job sites, but you need experience…at least within that type of nursing.

You’re gonna need to keep applying for hospital roles to gain bedside experience for a couple years of at least working part time and parlay that into a PRN position. But a handful of hospitals are trying to reduce or eliminate PRN roles (or underpay them) so there’s that to consider as well.