Being Exposed to All Types of Patients During Clinicals Leaves a Bad Taste in My Mouth

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

Dear Feeling Lost,

You say "my specialty" but you do not have a specialty at this point. You are an undergrad.

Once you get your RN, you can specialize.

Every state requires nursing students to train a certain number of hours in each area- behavioral health, pediatrics, intensive care, Med-Surg, and so on. Trust the process.  Education, by design, and for good reason, goes from broad to narrow.

If the thought of seeing non-women's health patients is distasteful to you, see if you can job shadow a hospital nurse to get a more realistic idea of what nursing entails.

Best wishes,

Nurse Beth

[Hannahbanana, BSN, MSN]

Every nursing faculty has experienced a certain number of students coming into their offices at about three weeks into the first semester upset because their dreams of being a _________________ nurse didn't include caring for other kinds of patients, such as, well, you know. They all thought they could specialize from the git-go. Several people have explained to you that the boards of registration in nursing require every candidate for licensure to graduate from an accredited school, and those schools must include content and clinical hours for nursing people across the life span. There are no shortcuts.

We also know that fads and fancies come into school along with the students. For several years, everyone wanted to be a "mother-baby nurse,” because it sounded sweet and clean and happy. The next big plan was when everyone wanted to work ICU or ER for a year and then go to nurse anesthetist school, or nurse practitioner school.

The thing is, there aren't jobs for 95% of new grads in peripartum, very few critical care areas will even consider hiring even one new grad at a time, CNM programs have wait lists full of experienced L&D nurses, and CRNA programs have wait lists filled with seasoned nurses who already have years of good critical care experience. You see where I'm going with this?

 My point is that pretty much all new grad nurses find themselves in something they never considered while they were in school, or even knew about. Just for fun, Google "nursing specialty certifications" to get an idea of the very broad range out there.

You might end up as a CNM (certified nurse midwife) or NP in women's health. You might. And you might fall in love with something else entirely, or just end up doing something else because life happens.  Nursing has so very many options.

So, go to school, go to college for nursing (go direct to the BSN if you want maximal options open to you soonest), and keep your eyes and mind open. Too soon to tell right now. Best of luck to you.

[heron, ASN, RN]

Your only option is lay midwifery. It has a VERY different scope of practice from an NP and may not even be legal in your state.

There are no shortcuts.

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

In the U.S, nursing is taught as generalist role with exposure to basic nursing roles: medical surgical, geriatric, pediatrics, maternal -child, community health rather than specialist education with all states requiring education in these subjects to sit for the NCLEX licensing exam.  

It's best to job shadow an RN so you can understand the RN profession along with talking to various schools to choose the best nursing program  to fit you if you desire to persue nursing.

[Jeff Keeth, BSN, MSN, RN]

Cannot for the life of me understand why you would think you could go through Nursing School & not work in ALL Nursing areas; or somehow get exempt. I'm baffled.Am I hearing you correctly? 

[Tired nurse]

This is the trouble with so many new grad RNs I meet they have no idea what a nurse really does or they donnot even want to touch a pt. they are shocked when they get disrespect and given a unmanageable pt load! Just like all other nurses.