Med-surg, tele or rehab for 1st job?

[NightBloomCereus]

Hi, everyone. I worked in a hospital throughout nursing school and can now choose to intern on either the med-surg, telemetry or rehab floor and will most likely be hired on the same floor. Which do you think would lead to the best job prospects in the future? I don't have any preferences because I was working in a different area of the hospital, not on a unit. Thanks!

[DisneyNurseGal, BSN, RN]

I would say go Tele or Med-Surg. I choose med-surg for my first job because I thought it would give me the most experience and expose me to the greatest variety of patient types. Tele is a good choice too because critical care skills you will learn. Rehab, in my opinion, seems like too narrow of a first job experience. IMO, pick one of the other two so you get a good nursing foundation to build your career upon.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

Don't count out Rehab...

You will be surprised how many post-OPs and traumatic injuries that a Rehab unit gets; it not just the stroke pt; Rehab is a vast amount of pts with various system issues where there is complex treatments, as well as educating pts, and seeing the nursing process unfold; people improve or find a way to become functional amongst their condition.

The best thing I can suggest is ask questions or try to shadow each unit and find out which would be of interest to you and then make a decision.

Best wishes!

[Lev, MSN, RN, NP]

I think you should do your research about the floors before you make your decision. Find out which floors are new grad friendly. Find out about nurse to patient ratios. Find out which floors have a lot of openings (short staffed, can't retain staff, etc). Find out how long the manager has been in the position and if it's a manager new to the hospital does he/she have previous management experience. Finally, find out about unit culture (friendly or catty) and skill mix (are there still a couple older, more experienced nurses, or is it full of young nurses a year or two out of school). Once you have the answers to these questions, you can make your decision. Like LadyFree said, don't count out rehab. I spent 8 months on rehab, and I learned great time management skills and IV insertion skills. Those patients were sick. I transferred more patients out from rehab than I do on med-surg. Still, med-surg and telemetry will teach you tons.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

What are your ultimate goals?

[NightBloomCereus]

Thank you so much for your replies! I'm not sure what area of nursing I want to go into, so I would like a first job that will give me the widest variety of opportunities. That may be in med-surg or tele, but as some of you mentioned I will not count out rehab. Great suggestion to find out what I can about the floors. I definitely want to start somewhere that will be supportive and conducive to learning. I will start asking around. Thanks :)