Choosing a Floor

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 2, 2009

i am currently in training to be a pca at a hospital i would like to work for once i get my rn, i hope to continue until i am a family nurse practioner, anyway. iw as told we could give suggestions on what floor we would like to work on. i shadowed on the med/surg floor and the pca i shadowed was amazing and i really enjoyed the patients, but i would like to have a floor where patients are not so elderly, and more independent and i can get a variety of patients, i was told this would be the general medicine floor? is this so? would would be a great floor to start out with? :typing...

med/surg and general medicine (along with general surgery) are great places to start. you get a variety of patients and have a great opportunity to practice the various skills you will need down the road. in general, i've found surgery patients to be less elderly and more able to toilet themselves (depending upon the surgery of course) than medical patients, who tend to be older and with more co-morbidities. but that can vary.

just a word of caution: if you loved the med/surg floor, the pca you shadowed and the patients, that may be the place for you. it's possible that a different floor with different management may not be as happy a place. make sure you shadow there, too, before asking for placment there.

mama_d, BSN, RN · Mar 3, 2009

Honestly, I think that unless you do straight peds, you're going to run across your fair share of elderly/debilitated patients. Oh, or unless you do post-partum...I started out as a PCT at St. Luke's on their post-partum/gyn surg floor and loved the pace. It was great for just starting out in health care. We get brand new techs on the floor I work on now and some of them are great, but some are completely overwhelmed.

If you do find yourself on a floor you don't like, smile and bide your time, learn all you can, and cultivate relationships with staff on other floors and perhaps even volunteer to be pulled to other floors to test the waters (but don't let anyone know you have that in mind). Then when it comes time when you can transfer, you'll know right where you want to go to.

WDWpixieRN, RN · Mar 4, 2009

Medicine with have as many or more elderly. If they weren't there that day, stick around for a few; been there, done that.

I'd suggest peds, L&D, postpartum, or Women's Health as possible alternatives for what you prefer. Medicine and Med/Surg are great places to get a good foundation, but if you hate it you won't stick around long enough to get the experience anyway...