Adult Cardiac or Children's Cardiac

[jsy16]

So I graduated this May and I wanted to go into the cardiac specialty. I don't know if I should start out with adult cardiac on a stepdown unit or if I should accept the CICU job that my local children's hospital offered me.

They are both really, really good hospitals but I'm not too sure where I should begin my nursing career. My senior year at nursing school I precepted with adults and on the cardiac floor and I'm unsure if I will like children's. (I actually ended up working at a NICU floor at a different hospital but the management was terrible, my preceptor was the worst person and made me feel stupid every shift for 6 weeks until I resigned.)

I shadowed a day at the children's CICU and I loved it and the environment was totally different from the NICU and the hospital was cleaner, had better educated and FRIENDLY nurses and I even spoke to the doctors who were all friendly. So I think it might be different from the NICU environment.

If I start at the adult stepdown unit, I hope to work there for a year then move up to the cardiac ICU for adults. But I don't know if I should give pediatrics another try. I don't want to end up quitting or realizing I belong do adults after a year. (Also I don't think I'm a quitter at all and I put in time and energy and study outside of work!)

What do you guys think??? I'm totally stuck and I don't know what I should do!

Please send help!

[offlabel]

The intensity of your learning environment will be higher in the peds cardiac ICU. You'll learn a lot in a relatively short period of time. But...there will be very little cross over to adult cardiac CC.

I've done both, both are very rewarding, but they are very different physiologies, pathologies and therapies.

At the end of the day you will be very well rounded if you end up having done both. My opinion is that it's easier to go from peds to adult cardiac rather than the other way around.