Not All Who Wander are Lost | Confessions of a Wandering Nurse
Written by Amy Filleman - Obstetrics & Gyn BSN, RN
Hi there! 👋🏼 We share stories from nurses like you about nursing in Arizona. We are out to build a better now and better next for RN and NPs in AZ 🤩
What do you want to be when you grow up? In my baby book, it says “petinarian.” Read 🦮🐱🩺🦸🏻♀️
For a girl who did not yet have crippling dog and cat allergies, being with animals all day sounded amazing.
At 18, I wanted to be a doctor. I went off to college with friends with a plan to graduate in 3 years, get into med school, fly through it, and be a Neonatologist by 2007. Bless her heart. Freshman year found me having way too much time with the football team, skipping class to eat McDonald’s 🍟 (hello 40 pounds), and literally a 1.8 GPA at the end of that year. Getting kicked out of school and moving back home, with a large slice of humble pie, blasted that off the table. Finishing college in another 3.5 years, much more focused, and actually going to class, I had a BS in Justice Studies and a minor in Psychology. What now?
A little time in retail, a short stint in Denver where I learned that I wanted to be a nurse, and then back to school. Nursing school felt like I was finally on a stable path! I had a career! But what to do with it? Like so many nurses, I wanted the adrenaline, the excitement, the TV show. When I got a spot in the PICU, after 400 (seriously) job applications and very few responses, I felt like I had made it.
Guys, the PICU ate my soul😞. I am not cut out to be a nurse who cares for sick and injured children. I am not cut out to be a night nurse😪. I know now that that is ok, then I felt like a colossal failure as a person and as a nurse.
Settling into a non-bedside nursing role was so not what I pictured. It was okay, it was a paycheck. But my internal dialog was vicious. You are not good enough to work in the hospital! You are a terrible nurse! You are less than. You are such a failure. See? Vicious.
A few more years pass, and I found myself in the arena of midwifery. Working with local midwives, I felt fully alive using the skills I learned at my job. I got to attend prenatal visits, home births, and postpartum visits. I would chart and listen, do vitals and exams. For a nurse who had not been physically with patients for some time, putting my hands-on bellies and feeling babies kick, cutting umbilical cords, and catching a baby at birth was a dream. Finally! I had my place, my spot, my path - I was going to be a midwife!
You might notice from my credentials that that did not happen either. I applied for school and found out my RN program did not meet credential requirements. So, I went back to school to get my BSN. I took a program that I would allow me to get done in 6 months. Like the path to the NICU at 18, I had it all mapped out in my head. BSN in November, CNM in 2 years, DNP a year later. I would be a doctor, after all! And then October 1, 2017.
Readers caution - My story changed forever at Route 91.
Stay tuned to the EARN blog for my story of nursing through this trauma in my life.
Standing in a crowd of 22,000 people, a gunman opened fire on us from the Las Vegas hotel across the street. Trauma, PTSD, learning to live again saw the death of my midwifery journey. An insult to injury, I felt lost career-wise amid great personal trauma. I felt like I was stuck like I would never find “my place” in the nursing world.
As I healed, I realized how different my perspective was on trauma and pain. I approached and listened to patients differently, I had a whole new perspective on people suffering. I understood and saw things I could never have seen without my own path.
Through these tumbles and detours, once again, I see a road ahead of me, this one leading to a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Will it work? I hope so, but who knows? I have been to this place before.
So what is the point of all this? As nurses, we have so many options on how to practice and what to do with our nursing careers. We can change and move and try new things. Not all of us are at the bedside, not all of us are critical care nurses, not all of us like birth, not all of us like psych AND THAT IS ok!!
It is ok not to have the nursing job someone else prescribed for you.
The beauty of nursing is that it can ebb and flow with us as we grow and change. We get to learn in every position, and when an intersection comes, and we take a turn, we take those gifts with us. We might wander, but we are not lost. We are nurses, and we are surrounded by people who are always willing to help us find our way.
If my story encouraged you, keep up with the EARN blog for more. EARN has a vision to precisely match RNs and NPs with the positions and organizations that fit your skills and personality in the right timing. The right fit at the right time means everything.
👩🏻⚕️I’m Amy! An Arizona native🌵 and private practice triage nurse and an adjunct nursing professor for the local community college. I have spent my career in Women’s Health and am passionate about birth, trauma recovery, and helping other nurses find their dream job. Working with EARN helps to reduce some of the endless job applications and waiting that nurses face daily. I’m an enneagram 6W5 and love Diet Coke🥤