Choosing the right department

[briyerg]

Hi all!

I am on track to graduate as an RN in December. I'm trying to narrow down where I'd like to apply. So I'm looking for pros and cons on starting in Medical/Surgical vs starting out in a department like L&D or OR. Any feedback is appreciated!

[Sour Lemon]

As a new graduate, you may not have much of a choice. Apply for everything and see who calls back.

If you're lucky enough to get multiple offers in multiple specialties, you should keep your long term goals in mind when choosing. Med/surg was a great choice for me for several reasons.

1. It's relatively easy to find med/surg work, as it's most plentiful. Since I planed to move out of my home state at some point, I wanted to stack the odds of easily landing a job in my favor.

2. Med/surg experience is considered somewhat valuable for a lot of other specialties. I felt that I could move on to something different without too much difficulty if something different happened to catch my attention.

3. My only strong interest right out of school was in behavioral health, and I felt that would be too confining. I wasn't ready to commit.

Your circumstances will be entirely different from mine, of course. Pros and cons are somewhat personal.