Am I pigeon-holing myself? Need advice please

[avery]

I am graduating in May with my bsn and I was planning all along to stay where I currently work, in a pediatric hospital in the cvicu. But today, I got to experience an adult icu in my same speciality area and I LOVE IT! I am beginning to wonder if I start off as a Pediatric ICU nurse, it is going to be hard for me to transition to an adult ICU position later on? Also, I really feel like the amount of information and experience I will gain will be so much greater in the adult ICU. I really need your thoughts and opinions! Thanks!

Avery

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

The beauty of nursing is that you can change fields if you want down the road.

But it's no secret that starting out in any type of pediatrics can be a bit of a trap. You get so used to the field, that it's hard to change later. Possible, of course. Just harder. Right out of nursing school, you've got a good adult knowledge base, so working with adults would be best right out of school if that intersts you. Of course, moving from adults to peds later on will have lots of challenges, too. But there are so many more adult specialties that it's easier to move between them if you want a change later on.

Basically, you're going to have to re-learn a lot of stuff if you drastically change fields at some point, whether it's peds-to-adults or vice versa. So do what your heart tells you.