Who feels new grads should definately start on med/surg unit?

Who feels that new grads should definately start their nursing career in on a hospital med/surg unit?

I'm about to start my last semester of nursing school and already realize the hospital med/surg route is going to be very tough for me. I'm in my late thirties, have a toddler and another child on the way. I'm feeling that community nursing (i.e. clinic, county health department, women's health, instacare, doctors office, etc.) with nice regular hours (or better yet, part-time hours), may be more my speed. What sort of opportunites do new grads have for such jobs?


Any and all advise/insight will be greatly appreciated!

jenalv

Who feels that new grads should definately start their nursing career in on a hospital med/surg unit?

I'm about to start my last semester of nursing school and already realize the hospital med/surg route is going to be very tough for me. I'm in my late thirties, have a toddler and another child on the way. I'm feeling that community nursing (i.e. clinic, county health department, women's health, instacare, doctors office, etc.) with nice regular hours (or better yet, part-time hours), may be more my speed. What sort of opportunites do new grads have for such jobs?


Any and all advise/insight will be greatly appreciated!

jenalv

I used to feel very strongly about new grads doing a year or so of Med/Surg right out of the starting gate, to learn how to prioritize and gain a working knowledge of the many different disease processes, psychosocial aspects of illness, etc., etc.

Now I'm not so sure that a one-size-fits-all approach is the right one, especially if you know from the get-go that acute care is not where your interest lies. Med/Surg nursing is hard even if you love it, and if you don't, it's impossible.

I don't regret a minute of my five years in acute care, as it prepared me to face almost any situation with at least some degree of competence. However, knowing what I know now of the physical and mental demands, the politics, the workloads, and the ever-present fear of making even minor mistakes lest they result in legal action, I wouldn't recommend it to a new grad just for the sake of getting experience, if they really wanted to be someplace else.

My first 2 semesters of nursing school they pushed into our heads over and over again that we should do 6-12 months of med-surg under our belt. However in our last year of nursing we found that many hospitals are willing to hire new grads into specialities including ICU and ER. I got into Maternity. They're finding that it's easy to really 'program' a fresh new-grad into their specialty rather than have them do something else for a year, get into a routine and then have to retrain them all over again. Sort of the 'do it right the first time' theory. I've got a daughter who is starting kindergarten and is doing cheerleading. We've got the option of 8 hour days or 12 hour days, so I'll probably opt into 8 hour days - even if it does mean working 2 more days a week.