Need Advice for New Grad Job

I'm graduating from nursing school in August. The two clinicals that really piqued my interest were psych and peds, and I feel I have a natural knack for psych, and have been told by many credible people I'd make a great psych nurse.

Most nurses are telling me to do two years of MedSurge before going into psych; however, some nurses; more specifically, psych nurses are telling me it doesn't matter that much and that they have no regrets starting out in psych.

That said, beyond psych and peds, I do have an interest in pretty much all fields (even OB and nursery), and am wondering how much I might be hindering my career as a nurse by going directly into psych. At the local hospital, I can apply to any unit and get a new grad job, so my opportunities are abundant.

I think the one thing seemingly solidifying going into psych too is none of the psych places require a two year contract, whereas all the non-psych units usu. require two years.

Thoughts?

Thanks : )

I loved psych as a new grad, but the only psych job I applied for wanted med/surg experience (one year). And while I would rather have started in psych, I'm so glad that I got six years of medical, first. I am easily able to float to medical units and feel much more capable when it comes to assessing my psych patients' medical needs. Being able to float back and forth makes me more valuable, too ...at least in my own mind. I also got PLENTY of psych experience in med/surg. PLENTY.

No experience is bad. Wherever you end up in your first position, you will find a useful skill to take with you to psych.

That said, it probably depends on how the unit is run. Some units utilize nurses in more of a psychotherpeutic way than others (if that makes sense haha). For example, in one psych floor, the nurses lead a lot of the groups, so the nurses need to be competent in how to therapeutically communicate with different kinds of patients. Other psych floors maintain a robust staff of psychologists and OTs to run the daytime groups. Nurses on these floors are more utilized in medication management and monitoring.

The manager on my old floor described her staff as "medical nurses who specialize in psych" so you can imagine how we were utilized. And we did have patients who needed close medical monitoring as well (ivs, nebs, fetal monitoring).

So anyway, how useful a medsurg background will depend on how the floor is run.

I worked on a neuro floor and we would receive a lot of psych over flow. Just a thought.. good luck :)

I'm graduating from nursing school in August. The two clinicals that really piqued my interest were psych and peds, and I feel I have a natural knack for psych, and have been told by many credible people I'd make a great psych nurse.

Most nurses are telling me to do two years of MedSurge before going into psych; however, some nurses; more specifically, psych nurses are telling me it doesn't matter that much and that they have no regrets starting out in psych.

That said, beyond psych and peds, I do have an interest in pretty much all fields (even OB and nursery), and am wondering how much I might be hindering my career as a nurse by going directly into psych. At the local hospital, I can apply to any unit and get a new grad job, so my opportunities are abundant.

I think the one thing seemingly solidifying going into psych too is none of the psych places require a two year contract, whereas all the non-psych units usu. require two years.

Thoughts?

Thanks : )

You had me at the proper spelling of piqued. You can be anything you want to be!!

Seriously though, a little med-surg (not two years) is a good place to get a basic working knowledge of hospital nursey things because you have more opportunities to learn about them.

But I have known plenty of Psych nurses who are all psych all the time and have never looked back.

Best to you.

If you work in the pediatric ER you'll get both peds and psych patients (usually adolescent), though ER nurses don't have too much contact with them- we just draw their labs and get them a sitter.

You never have to work in med/surg first for any job. That's a myth!! That being said if you go straight into psych it's gonna be hard to go back to anything medical one day because you won't remember much or have any skills, you'd be lucky if they even let you start somewhere as a "new grad."

If you like peds (I'm a peds nurse) then start there (on whatever speciality interests you).

If youre sure you you only want to do psych then the benefit of that is there are tons of jobs and it's the highest paying nursing job out there! And if you become a psych NP someday you'll make great money!