puking blood

This is a good news bad news story, and I'm shaking as I write this. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't horrible bad, but it just looks bad more than anything.

Here's a very abbreviated glimpse of what happened. I interviewed at a small community hospital over a month ago. They never called back. They did however, ask me if I wanted to do my preceptor (kind of like an internship) there.

I told the hospital that I already submitted my letter but I would see if it could be changed. The school told me that it might not be possible to change.

Over lunch one day during class, we (my classmates + clinical instructor) were talking about preceptorships and one of the classmates asked if I knew anything about my placement (she knew about my asking to possibly switch preceptorships). I mentioned how it probably wouldn't change because yadayadayada. My current instructor, the one eating lunch with us said, "I'll see what I can do."

During all this time, the small hospital was quite pushy about changing my preceptor assignment, going as far as to call the school, me, etc. The hospital sent me multiple emails. I kept saying, "Thank you, but I'll see what I can do." I really didn't to make waves or force changes....it was no big deal to me where I did my preceptorship.

I eventually found out my preceptorship would be at the small hospital. Still no job offer.

My current clinical instructor and I had our end of clinical evaluations and she ended up questioning me as to why I wanted that position. She made some comments that were totally true and it got me to thinking about that area of medicine.

Still no job offer.

Then, about 2 1/2 weeks ago the small hospital called to say they were offering me a position in a department that I thought I wanted...the one with the preceptorship. I freaked out...asked if it was ok to let them know in 2 weeks. They sounded surprised but were OK with it (they wanted to know right then and there).

Fast forward to two weeks later (which was last week). I had an interview at the big hospital. 2 days following the interview, I called the nurse recruiter. we played a game of serious phone tag.

My friend got a spot for the same position I interviewed.

Next day I still couldn't get in contact with the recruiter from the big hospital. I hastily call small hospital and leave voicemail saying I'll take the job.

4 hours later I get offer from big hospital. Better pay. Better benefits. In state (read: one state income tax, not two).

I play phone tag with nurse recruiter from small hospital. Finally get in touch with her today. Tell her I'm very sorry for not being about to get in touch sooner. Tell her I'm sorry about the offer. I know I verbally accepted over the voicemail, but I am no longer going to be able to work in their state. Repeat I'm sorry. She was silent and then said thank you for letting them know. Then that was all.

I didn't know what to do and I feel sick to my stomach. I'm worried about the preceptorship assignement and am hoping that the school doesn't hate me after this. I honestly don't care if I still do my preceptorship there. I never told my instroctors that I was even offered a job there, because honestly, I just found out a couple of weeks ago, before the preceptor garbage went through.

Seriously. Want to be an ostrich right now and stick my head in the sand. I'm confident that iI'm making the right decision in employment, and I hope that everyone else can come to this realization. I just hate that I made that hasty phone call.