Adult or mental health Nursing

[azalight90]

Hi

I do not know if I want to do adult or mental health nursing. My problem is this:

I am on a HNC care and admin. I have placement in a Adult urology ward. My mentor and the staff are great. I just do not know if that is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I just do not know.

I like the idea of mental health nursing- Especially child mental health. I like the idea of being an advocate.

My Mum is concerned it is a sad job as she said "No one gets better" (family experience) and because no one is expected to get better it is a "lazy job" .

I can get experience in mental health if I wanted. However that would mean I only applied for uni next year. I want to know which I want to do.

If I applied for adult I could apply this year or mental health next year. I tried to get mental health experience and hated it and applied for adult I would still need to apply next year.

I do not know what to do.

If I applied next year I would be 19 years old. I would not know what to do for the year between. As I am Scottish if I did another HNC or HND SAAS would not pay my uni first year.

Thanks

I do not know what to do. Any tips? Ideas?

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

Contact your local hospital or uni.

Ask to speak to some nurses in the areas your interested in.

I'm an Irish trained general nurse (so equal to adults). I have been a nurse 7 1/2 years.

I spent 2 years in a general surgery ward urology colorectal hepatobillary breast surgery.

I emigrated to Australia spent 6 months doing agency 3 of those months in a rural hospital getting experience had exposure that I wouldn't get at home because no matter how rural someone is in Ireland or Scotland they are not as rural as Australia.

I moved to Melbourne where I have worked at the same hospital for 5 years. However while here I have worked in a MAU (hated it - but I think a lot of that was the boss) went back to general surgery for a year on an elective ward. The hospital opened up a new emergency general surgery ward (my elective pts were getting cancelled for emergencies all the time). I was successful in getting an assistant manager post on that ward. Worked there for 2 years.

Applied for a secondment to bed management. Got it did that for 4 months returned to the ward continued to cover bed mgt as they needed help. My manager left. I applied for her job got it. I ha e been a nurse unit manager for a few months now.

So my career progression has been pretty fast but you can do it. Put in your dues and you will move on from holding bottles of urine and showering wrinkly people. Mind you I came out of the office the other day just to do that as I was up to date and still like get my hands dirty, plus I don't have to send 7 emails to discuss the shower. I asked the pt she said yes off we went.

Anyway my advice is don't think that doing an adults program means you will be working on a ward forever. Some will, be it lack of desire to progress, lack of skill, want to stay on the ward, have kids and work part time. However you don't have be that person.

Put a year in on the ward, maybe look into post grad courses be proactive ask and apply for secondments.

This could all be done do doing mental health as well. If you do go that route you are an amazing person as it is an area I cannot see myself working in.

So go and talk to nurses in the 2 fields, talk to students get a feel for the roles.