New grads - med surg a rite of passage?

I am a former BSN student, got a BS in general studies, and considering going back for the accelerated BSN program. I did a quarter of LPN and decided if I were going to go for it, I would go all the way so as many opportunities were open as possible.

Anyway, I know that medsurg is an excellent area to get basic skills down pat. You learn how to organize, delegate, work under time pressure, deal with a variety of pts.....I completely understand. Not a perfect analogy, but I waited tables to get through college and while I don't want to go back to it, I learned a lot from it and feel it was a great learning experience as far as organizational skills, working under pressure, etc....So I can understand the concept of new grads needing to work in med surg.

I dropped the LPN prog the day before we were to start medsurg clinicals, so I have no clue what it is like. The first day our instructors had us looking over old charts to see what kind of pts the floor had, and the nursing care and dr orders we were going to follow, then we went around taking vitals. I totally froze up and couldn't event take a simple BP. My partner, a phlebotomist, had to do the rest of the pts while I watched. The previous term we were in LTC learning basic care skills and I was in there, bathing, turning, changing diapers, checking feeding tubes, etc.... Something about being on a med surg floor did something to me I guess.

OK, so what is it like? I tell myself, I don't want to work in med surg, too many patients, too many different things to deal with at once, blah blah blah....When given the opportunity to hear opinions about their work, I always hear nurses outside of med surg say how rewarding (home health, school nursing, PICU...insert field) is ....and usually med surg nurses say how the nurse pt ratios are too high, they are very stressed out.....This whole impression is kind of driving my opinion on whether to go back for a BSN or to more strongly consider the other two fields I have interest in (Resp Therapy or Xray tech). I will probably be working only PRN or part time once I do go back to work, so I might be limited in my choices of nursing fields.

edited to add: What areas fall under the med/surg umbrella? Do they usually organize pts into different units based on their probs (eg - renal, oncology, etc...)?

Is it as terrifying as it all sounds?

Med-Surg can be and probably is, one of the hardest areas to work these days. However, with that said, it can also be a very rewarding place to be. On a typical M/S floor, a nurse will see almost any type of diagnosis. On my floor, we deal with patients having surgery and coming back to the floor as a post-operative patient with ortho, GI, GU, GYN, sometimes neuro ..... you name it and we get it. Of course, there are other floors that take the cardiac patients and OB patients and the ICU takes the patients that are too critical to be on a M/S floor, but yes, it is challenging.

I have heard many nurses say that M/S is to stressful for them. Yet, I have worked with nurses that have been M/S nurses for years and continue to thrive on the energy it takes to work on a unit like that.

As far as experience is conerned, I think that a new grad nurse should make up her/his own mind about where they want their career to go. I would personally not want to enter an ICU type environment as a new grad without a decent M/S background. Yes, working M/S makes you a better, well rounded nurse. M/S sets the foundation for learning more in the future.

Good luck when you start back at school and the next time you are on a M/S unit .... don't be afraid, embrace being there as a wonderful opportunity to learn many things about how to be a great nurse.

Thanks so much for your response. I went back and read my post and it is a wonder anyone could understand it. I was going to edit it down to make it more concise and coherent if no one had posted to it.

This is what I would have asked:

Do all new grads have to do med/surg or is it a myth?

What kinds of pts do you get on the med/surg floors and is it organized or is there a lot of variety between types of problems?

And I guess my bonus question would be....if it is so stressful and busy, is it really the best place for a new grad? Baptism by fire I guess. I would think it would be hard for experienced nurses on the floor to have a lot of new grads around trying very hard to get it all together. But it is also the best place to experience the biggest variety of patients and to hone skills, from what I understand.

I am strongly considering doing a CNA course and trying to get some time in as a CNA/nurse tech at a hospital just to really get a feel for whether or not to return to school. I hear its good training for nursing school anyway to work as a CNA for a while.

Thanks again.

Patrick,

Your post came just in time. I graduated this month and have accepted a position at a local hospital (the only trauma hospital in the southeast) in their med surg unit and everyone is telling me I'm nuts and that Im going to burn out. I am not new to the medical field (surg tech for 10 years) I realize Im going to sink or swim but all these naysayers are making me regret my decision. I accepted this postion over the OR because I do feel like I need a better foundation.

Am I just kidding myself ? Should I turn tail and run back to the OR (my comfort zone) or do you think I can make it? My eyes are wide open but am getting more and more nervous as my start date looms ahead. Please let me know what you think and how you think new grads do in MS. :uhoh21:

Very scared in Jacksonville

Edit, Just read sticky @ advice for new grads, all good stuff ,I made a copy for myself. Thank you Thank you all experienced nurses.

I have been working a busy Med-surg floor for 6 months now. I never intended to stay permanently here and at the moment I'm looking to transfer to Hospice, a unit I've always wanted to work in. However, I have learned invaluable skills, time management, organization, delegation, all the things the previous poster mentioned. I would suggest it to any new grad. It isn't necessarily somewhere you need to remain, but to get your solid ground, and believe me you learn fast, is very useful anywhere you plan to go. I would not trade my experiences here for anything and I know it has been worth it.

For you both, learn what you can because we all learn from our mistakes more than our successes. In working hard to attain our goals, we see what we hope to do someday and work that much harder to reach it.

Good luck and I hope your decision is a smooth one.

JacelRN

Patrick,

Your post came just in time. I graduated this month and have accepted a position at a local hospital (the only trauma hospital in the southeast) in their med surg unit and everyone is telling me I'm nuts and that Im going to burn out. I am not new to the medical field (surg tech for 10 years) I realize Im going to sink or swim but all these naysayers are making me regret my decision. I accepted this postion over the OR because I do feel like I need a better foundation.

Am I just kidding myself ? Should I turn tail and run back to the OR (my comfort zone) or do you think I can make it? My eyes are wide open but am getting more and more nervous as my start date looms ahead. Please let me know what you think and how you think new grads do in MS. :uhoh21:

Very scared in Jacksonville

Edit, Just read sticky @ advice for new grads, all good stuff ,I made a copy for myself. Thank you Thank you all experienced nurses.

Sorry for the delay in my response. I think you have made a great decision. Like several posters have said, you may not want to stay on med-surg for a long time, but stay long enough to learn skills and get your nursing knowledge stronger before you move off. The OR is a great place to be, but in my opinion, you will make a much better OR nurse if you have a strong clinical foundation ... and you will get this working med-surg. Glad you found the sticky ... I think it provides great information for new nurses entering practice in med-surg.

Whatever the case, be true to yourself and your calling in nursing. Most of all, good luck!

I have been working a busy Med-surg floor for 6 months now. I never intended to stay permanently here and at the moment I'm looking to transfer to Hospice, a unit I've always wanted to work in. However, I have learned invaluable skills, time management, organization, delegation, all the things the previous poster mentioned. I would suggest it to any new grad. It isn't necessarily somewhere you need to remain, but to get your solid ground, and believe me you learn fast, is very useful anywhere you plan to go. I would not trade my experiences here for anything and I know it has been worth it.

For you both, learn what you can because we all learn from our mistakes more than our successes. In working hard to attain our goals, we see what we hope to do someday and work that much harder to reach it.

Good luck and I hope your decision is a smooth one.

JacelRN

Excellent advice, I coluld not have said it any better.

I am a new grad working on a surgical/ ortho floor and I so agree. I chose to do med/surg first because I believe it will make me a more well rounded nurse. I have only been working for 8 weeks and have learned more from my wonderful preceptors that I ever did in school. Although while in school, I always had my heart set on L&D or NICU, I am grateful to start in an enviornment with such a broad range of problems. I think it will make me a better nurse when I do decide to branch out.

I'm a new gfrad myself, been working on a med-surg floor for 8 months now. I worked the same floor as a CNA for 4 years before I passed boards, so I was used to it, or so I thought!

On the med surg floor at my hospital we get every kind of patient, not just post-ops. We get everything from non-surgical fracture patients, ortho, GYN, GI, GU, Neuro and then we get the abdominal pain, or the intractable vomiting, back pain, GI bleeds, ETOH withdrawal. We get it all. For instance my patient load this weekend consisted of 2 total knees, 2 laminectomies, 2 patient's with fractures that no surgery was required (Sacral and pelvic rami) 1 kyphoplasty and a patient from the ER who feel and broke his hip and was going to surgery the next day. Of course that includes my whole 3 days I worked. I had 5 patients at any given time. One of those days was without a CNA and one of my patients decided to have chest pain accompanied by v-tach on his tele monitor, another was up in a chair and passed out (Same day!) Both were ok!

M/S is TOUGH, but so far I LOVE it and I have not been scared off by it. I feel like this floor and it;s heavy/fast paced workload will make me a better nurse in the long run.