what is the most adrenaline pumping job

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ello all,

I am a 20 y/o pn nursing student, I will graduate in december. In your opinion what is the best area for me, I am interested in high octane, adrenaline pumping work, an area that when i leave work that morning/night i feel like i really made a difference in that pts life, during that critical moment. Granted i know that i will have to continue on to become an RN to do probably most of what im mentioning but what areas give you that adrenaline?, nursing homes are such a bore to me. -_- any help would be appreciated.........

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I am about to graduate from nursing school and I am a tech in the ER. I love it. Although I am sure some flight nurses might disagree with me it can be pretty adrenaline pumping sometimes.

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After awhile though...you begin to realize, the more octane, adrenaline pumping the scenario is...the more the charting will be. Sometimes it's nice to have a few days in and between without all the excitement.

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Ah, youth. That'll pass. I don't really see the ER as an adrenaline rush. The positive I see about it is that the patient isn't usually there for long thus much of the usual nursing care never manifests, and that's a good thing. Treat 'em and street 'em.

Why limit yourself to nursing? If you want a dynamic work environment then join the military. They're looking for some guys out in the desert.

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Or combine both, military nursing is intense and adrenaline pumping. ER can be exciting (I'm a tech who has worked in ER) but most of it is boring stuff that doesn't even need treatment or can be dealt with by a family doc.

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Specializes in RN.

Hmmm...tell me more about why one would go to the military to practice nursing? Sounds interesting...

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With more deployments than ever to third world countries you will get to see conditions that do not exist in civilian USA. You will do your job under extremely challenging conditions. You will also have a lot of dull boring routine down time so unless you went special forces or managed to get assigned to infantry support I think ER would probably be more reliably high paced. I fixed helicopter radios in army but sister is currently nursing in Afghanistan.

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Specializes in ER, Prehospital, Flight.

Flight..hands down. Its pretty surreal to land a helicopter on a highway in the middle of carnage to get to your critical pt. The ER has its moments for sure, but bottom line, in the ER you always have some kind of back up. In the field its just you and your (very experienced) medic.

That being said, I think I have had many more adrenaline pumping scenes as a firefighter than a flight nurse. Its alot different when its your life on the line rather than a pt. For background...I used ER experience to get PHRN license so I could function as a paramedic and then tested for the local department. That is actually my fulltime job. It pays better than nursing eventually with much better benefits(did I mention you get to fight fires, ALOT of ambulance experience, rescues, drive fire trucks, etc...)

I second the military nurse. If I hadn't waited so long to get back in I would be doing that also. I think the Army would provide lots of opportunity for those looking for it. I dont have experience with the nurse side of the Army but it looks like it could be fun. Now..if they would just change the acceptance criteria back to allowing ADNs to commission in the reserve....not feeling the BSN\back to school thing quite yet.

Good luck finding a job you like. Start with the ER. Get all the certifications you can. It all started there for me.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Or combine both, military nursing is intense and adrenaline pumping.

*** Maybe, eventually, occasionally. Keep in mind that the military has this very old fashioned idea that all new RNs should spend several years doing med-surg before going into ER or ICU. Sure deployments can be exciting but they are pretty few and far between.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
ello all,

I am a 20 y/o pn nursing student, I will graduate in december. In your opinion what is the best area for me, I am interested in high octane, adrenaline pumping work, an area that when i leave work that morning/night i feel like i really made a difference in that pts life, during that critical moment. Granted i know that i will have to continue on to become an RN to do probably most of what im mentioning but what areas give you that adrenaline?, nursing homes are such a bore to me. -_- any help would be appreciated.........

*** You need to get your RN and get a job in an ICU. The bigger the better. SICU & CVICU is better than MICU. The path to all the best jobs in nursing leads right through the ICU. Trauma ER is plenty exciting. However in between traumas you gotta take care of the old lady with abdominal pain and the 5 year old with an ear ache, and the drug seekers. ER can be very busy and yet very boring at the same time.

Transport is much the same. It can be very exciting, but is more often routine. Packing up those patients for transport, changing all the line sometimes, converting all the gtts to our transport pump, untangling all the lines and the endless tasks needed to get a (often times very stable) patient ready for transport can be very tedious. Every once in a while you get to arrive in a small hospital ER where the physician has panicked and as soon as you show up they turn everything over to you. You make the decision whether to intubate, what fluids or drips need to be started and any other decisions that need to be made on what can be very unstable patients.

The most important thing for you is to get high quality ICU experience, learn as much as you can, be humble, ask questions and treat the more experienced ICU nurses with respect. Be a team player ready to help with whatever job needs doing. Don't talk about your desire to do transport or other exciting types of nursing to your ICU peers all the time. If possible when you are a new grad RN get into a nurse residency program for new grads going into the ICU.

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Yes, do consider all branches of the Armed Forces. You could even do it part time and the reserves. Besides getting the field training, experience and lots of adrenline you could also pay for an advanced degree--courtesy of your Uncle Sam.

They have flight medics, combat medics, RNs, LVNs. You could do AF Para Rescue, Navy Corpsman or become a PA in Army Special Forces. Do it while your still young!

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thanks everyone im going to consider some things.....although idk if i would want to join the forces, I am a single father and his mother is COMPLETELY incapable so if something were to happen to me the little guy would have no one....Im really going to look into the ICU and ER its just i have to mull around with my lpn until i bridge....-_-

thanks for all who responded

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