Torn between specialties

zzbxdo · Mar 14, 2015

I'd be more torn that I can't get a job initially. You'll take what you can get.

PacoUSA, BSN, RN · Mar 14, 2015

My advice for your first job out of nursing school is to choose a unit that is not very specialized. By that I mean avoid ones like L&D, NICU or home health. These specialties are worlds into their own and mostly teach you skills to become an expert within them and are hard to transfer into other units. I'm not saying by any means that it is impossible to transfer to another specialty when starting out in these, but it is harder. Someone I know started out in NICU and discovered that she did not like it, so she left after a year. She is now having a difficult time seeking jobs with adult populations despite now technically being an experienced nurse.

First, decide whether you want to work with adults or children primarily, then choose an area that will provide you with the most skills that employers will want you to have when you are looking to move on.

If I were graduating this year and doing the job search all over again, I would probably choose a stepdown or an ICU with adults. Most employers seem to value the critical care experience, and I think that alone is a feather in your cap for future opportunities. The days of starting out in med-surg as a foundation I believe is no longer something positive, because you're essentially working with a patient population that can be just as sick as stepdown patients and you are working with sometimes twice as many patients and not trained in critical care on the unit or in the classroom. That's no good in my book.

I only recommend entering a specialty out of school in which you have a deep-seated desire to remain in it for the rest of your nursing career. If you have any doubt about that, you really should try something more generalized or at least something that exposes you to many different cases and I emphasize critical care as well.

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