License reinstated, but trouble finding job

[peacefulfran]

My RN license was just reinstated to me, after 4 very long, incredibly stress-filled years. Now I am On Probation for 3 years, and my actual license says on it in big letters "On Probation." My background was 23 years critical care/emergency room/ IV Team-PICC line Nurse. Over the past 4 years, I held 12 office jobs and was fired from about half of them-I just did not have the updated computer skills that I should have had(I ended up going to night school for Computers). Anyway, I KNOW that I am so much better at being a nurse than I am at being an office person, so that it what I would like to do. I am told by the Pa DMU (DIsciplinary Monitoring Unit) that I may work in patient care again- as long as it is not ER, critical care, home care, an agency, doctor's office, or any position in which there is no direct supervision. I asked for suggestions, and was told that I could work in med-surg or telemetry in a hospital, or as a unit manager or staff nurse or RNAC in a nursing home. I have been out of work for 2 months now. I spend at least 8 hours/day job searching-either on-line or by calling nurse friends and asking for suggestions, then following up on those suggestions. At his point, I have filled out on-line applications for every hospital and nursing home within 40 miles of my home (12 miles south of Philadelphia, Pa). Two nurse managers called me and scheduled interviews. The first position was QA nurse at the hospital where I worked most of my career (20+ years-and where I turned myself in for stealing opiates from the ER where I was employed). The interview went very well, & I sent a beautiful thank you note to the person who interviewed me. I never heard anything from her again, and she would not return my calls. The second interview was scheduled at a nursing home, and the recruiter who called me to schedule it said that the Nurse Manager knew me from my old place of employment & was very excited that I was going to come in. I arrived the next day at the appointed time, and was told that the Nurse Manger was unable to interview me, but that another staff person would meet me and take me on a tour of the facility. I did go on a tour with a nurse (but she did not interview me). I waited a couple of days, then left a message on the voice mail of the Nurse Manger who was originally supposed to interview me, expressing my enthusiasm over the unit and my desire to work there. I never heard another thing from her. Other than these 2 interviews, I am not getting any responses.
Since I am baffled that no one seems to want me, I asked a nurse friend who works in management what she thinks (about the chances of me getting a job in Nursing with an On Probation license) Here is what she sai: "No HOSPITAL will hire you as long as you are On Probation. That is because hospitals have to comply with rules & regulations mandated by
JCAHO. When JCAHO inspects a hospital, one thing they do is look at all the nurses' licenses-if any license is On Probation, the hospital gets a HUGE fine. I asked if she thought I would ever be able to return to my hospital "home" (where I worked for 20+ years) and the answer is NO. She told me "that hospital-and ALL hospitals-have a secret 'Do Not Hire' list. Since you were FIRED from there in 2005, you will never work there again (I was fired because I violated the terms of my VRP agreement by supplementing my part-time IV team position with a second job. When my VRP case manager found out, she notified the hospital and informed them that I could not work as a nurse anymore, so the hospital did fire me.....AND my license was suspended)
I certainly do not want to make another mistake. I am a single mother of 3 with a mortgage, lots of bills, no child support or other help. I just want to do the right thing. But how can I do the right thing when my DMH case manager tells me I can work in a hospital or nursing home-but no one will hire me?...IS there any truth to what my "friend" tells me? WHERE can i get a job in nursing-or for that matter, anything that will make sense (that would be a job that pays me enough money so that I can just do normal things like support my own family/pay my own mortgage, etc. 4 years punishment was plenty!!! And yes, I attend NA/AA & professional support meetings, and I have been clean since December 2004. Thanks for any suggestions!

[fatlap]

Have you thought about starting at the beginging to earn trust. I am starting as a CNA to gain trust so I can become a LPN again.I have been a cashie for the last 2 years and it has been very humbling because nobody knows I am a nurse because I dont want them to know why i am not working as a nurse. Here I was incharge of 6 CNAs an I was incharge of upto 54 residents and now I am stcuk on a cashregistrer letting people whon don't know half as much as me be in control of me.I wish you the best of luck

[peacefulfran]

Deat Fatlap,
Thanks so much for your suggestion. I need to find a job that pays enough money to allow my family and I to live in our small house, & to pay the bills. Even if I sold this little house, a 2 bedroom apartment (i have 3 children) in this area of the country would be almost as much as my current mortgage payment. I do not have a husband or partner to help with the bills, and I have been trying alternate "careers" for the past 4 years while I waited out the license suspension.
By the way, the very first job I took once my license was suspended was "Greeter" at a local emergency room...what a miserable experience that was! Despite my best efforts at being humble and quiet, a few members of the nursing staff recognized me from the days when I used to work for a staffing agency, and the gossip positively FLEW! I got this job by calling the DON of the hospital directly, telling her my "story," and begging for a job-yes, starting at the bottom. The pay was $15/hour (my last nursing positions were ER Clinical Coordinator and IV Team/PICC line staff nurse, at $42/hour base pay). I tried to remain calm and not let the talking and stares bother me. Remarkably, the few male nurses and the ER doctors were OK and in fact, offered encouragement and did not attempt to humiliate me. However, some of the nursing staff resented me being there, and so made my life miserable even though I just stuck to my job and avoided conflict. I ended up getting fired because "someone saw me in the break room with a Gap bag, and assumed that I had left the hospital premises in order to go shopping at the mall across the street." (the Gap bag actually contained my dinner, which was in a plastic container). Also, as I was standing at my "station" one day, an extremely SOB, cyanotic elderly man was brought into the ER by a family member=I IMMEDIATELY assisted him onto a stretcher, placed O2 on him, and notified a nurse." The man was gasping for breath & I decided not to ask him a million questions and instead help him asap. That was the end of that "humbling" experience!
Next, I called a nursing home and spoke with another DON, told her my "story," and asked if I could work as a nurse's aide. Her response was "you need to be a CERTIFIED nurses' aide, so you would need to attend Nurses AIde school and take a Nurses Aide certification test first! If I had the money, I would have done it-but I could not take 3 months out of my life and attend school fulltime and still not be working! ANd again, what about my children-how would I have managed working fulltime and school full-time? I also looked into becoming an EMT, but they would not accept a nurse with a suspended license as an EMT student....
Anyway, maybe things will get better soon. The holidays are over and I know that job hunting is absolutely awful between Thanksgiving and New Years. (why? Apparently, people who work in HR are not interviewing/hiring during this time of year).

[fatlap]

In NY we have a program called the professional assistance program (PAP) they helped me get my license back with stipulations and close monitoring including urine screenings. You may have something like this in state. if you have trouble call the PAP in NY and maybe they can help you. Good luck.Boy Do I know humble it really hurt me when 4 of the cashiers I know started school for LPN. none have any common sence and one already dropped out. It just hurts me to see them getting so excited about this and I can not even say anything because I do not want the company to know why I stopped working as a nurse. I applied for a cna job and if I get that I hope I can gain their trust and eventually start to work as a nurse again