I'm the Narrator and This Is Just the Prologue

As I am nearing the end of my grad school career (thank goodness), I am having to come to some serious life altering decisions, mainly where to next? I feel as though it is only recently that I have become comfortable in my practice as a nurse just as I am about to wipe out face first into the sand so to speak. I have been riding that comfortable wave of balancing school and work and not really focusing outside of the two for so long that once I graduate I fear that I may not be overwhelmed, but feel a loss. However, the positives in this are that I can revisit some of the activities that I have enjoyed in the past: volunteering for Habitat, playing softball, golf, going to the beach more often, church, etc. Things that I have put off to the side that I once brought me joy.

Well this all sounds well and good, but at present it is not. Currently I am having a bit of a dilemma during my quest for an advanced pratice position. I thought I had found the perfect job, well actually it had come to me.Things were going smoothly: I had shadowed in clinic, had a few heart to hearts with the NP and MDs, talked with administration, etc. Well, during all of this and being the well-rounded person I like to think I am, I decided that it would be to my benefit to interview for other positions to get the experience. Well, this has backfired big time. I know find myself in the middle of two phenomenal positions with amazing attendings. The dilemma: the second position offers more intellectual stimulation in my research interest and passion, enables me to work side by side with an amazing attending who is also head of the program, and exposes me to a world in oncology that I have always wondered about. Both sounds fantastic, right? Wrong. One of these would result in me leaving my place of comfort, my home, Duke. It also leaves me with the chance of losing some of my most prized friends, colleagues, and mentors. However, it also entitles me to going to a place where there are no predetermined expectations of me, except those of any advanced practice nurse. However, should I stay at Duke, there is a plethora of people with expectations of what I am to become as an advanced practice nurse, i.e. my fate at Duke is already predetermined by the powers that be and I'm not talking about spirituality here, I am talking about my superiors in the health system.

Now these expectations have their own set of pros and cons. See, I have spent the last 2.5, almost three, years working my butt off and networking to secure my place in my specialty and opportunity for advancement within it. Now I have connections throughout the oncology system at Duke, have met some amazing people who have helped me grow as a person, nurse, student, etc, and know how the system works. Makes sense, right? It's great...sometimes. Enter the flip side of these expectations: I am viewed as "the baby" of the oncology NP program at present, many people want to have an impact on my growth and development as an advanced practice nurse (not always a bad thing), and they expect me to be at a higher level than other new graduate advance practice nurses because of the experiences I have had at Duke.

My dilemma in short form: my heart and my brain cannot come to a concensus on my next step in life. So, "if all of the strength and all of the courage" were mine during this time.

"Heaven bend to take my hand and lead me through the fire. Be the long awaited answer."