I have been blessed with an offer to work on a rehab floor in a large hospital in a couple of months. However, I do not really see myself as a hospital nurse ever. I love working with people with developmental disabilities and would love to be a nurse working at group homes or that type of setting. However, I've been told that we should all have at least a year of hospital experience. I agree that it would enhance my learning, but spending a year in a hospital sounds almost torturous. Would you say its necessary or can I pursue my desired field of nursing instead?

Miss Dean,

I would strongly advise you to take the rehab job.

You did not state, but I am assuming that you are a fairly recent grad. If so, additional "learning" is not really not what you need right now - your brain is already chock-full of knowledge. What you need is to begin to apply all that knowledge. To actually touch, feel, and experience all that stuff you learned about in case studies, simulations and lectures. For instance, there's a big difference between identifying S&S of CHF in multiple choice questions and actually picking up in a real life patient assessment. If you don't apply it, knowledge eventually just dwindles away. Heck, how many of us remember the leading exports of Bolivia -- but all of us learned it somewhere in school... LOL.

Rehab units are generally not like typical hospital (acute care) departments. They are slower paced, and you do get a chance to interact with and get to know you patients much more than in other areas because they have a longer length of stay. You may even discover that you like it after all.

Lastly, I have friends in the field of nursing you aspire to - group homes, MHMR, etc. Things are really tough out there... I'm talking salary cuts, staffing cuts, etc. Salaries are pretty low for everyone in MHMR. Those settings are also extremely vulnerable to budget fluctuations because they are public health facilties or because they are very dependent on public funds (tax dollars). If you need a steady and reliable income, this is not a good time to move into this setting.

Best of Luck, no matter what you choose. Keep us posted.

You can't go wrong starting out your career with some good, solid basic med-surg experience. Also, in the current economic climate, it's very hard to make the argument that you should pass up a solid job offer and hold out for what you really want (and, as rbezemek commented, things are really tough in community-based mental health/DD these days. Everyone is cutting costs and skimping on staff.)

With a background of experience in general med-surg, you can always move on into any specialty you want later. If you start out in a setting like a group home and decide later on that you want to move into a hospital position or some other specialty, you may find that no one wants to hire you into those positions because of your v. limited experience. IMHO, it's a big mistake to close off any future career directions that you don't have to this early in your career.

Best wishes!