Oncology vs med-surg experience

[Student J]

I am a 4 month new RN, I have had my LPN for about 4 years. I am currently working in med-surg floor. I am not satisfied with this position. I have recently been asked if I had thought about oncology nursing. I would like to try oncology but am worried about a lack of med-surg experience. I have had a lot of people tell me that every nurse needs at least a year of med-surg experience before going into any other area of nursing. Is there any input as to whether I need med-surg experience? Anything I need to know about oncology nursing, the good, the bad?

[sunnydaydream]

I've worked the BMT floor for a year+ now and came directly out of nursing school. I can see that med-surg nursing allows a nurse to get the basic feel of everything, but if your in med-surg and are hating it your not doing yourself nor anyone else any good. If you believe that you just want to try it and still enjoy medsurg then maybe you should hang out in med surg and then consider oncology. When I first started I focused mainly on the oncology part (i.e. bone marrow transplant, expected effects, chemo etc) but as my time has continued I'm seen more because really oncology pts have med-surg problems too. On our floor we hardly have any PIV but have central lines and PICCs so I really suck at IVs. We hardly have any surgical pts so I have to really think about drains etc when we do have them. I can drop an NG with the best of them and still have my assessment skills that a med-surg nurse would have (at least I think I do!). So I'm not sure if I've really answered your question but that's my point of view :)