Tell me what you like about your specialty......

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in School Nursing.

I have another school year left and thinking about what type of residency/internship I might like. I have not had enough exposure yet to know. Some of the possible residencies I am looking at are: SICU, NICU, Burn ICU, ER, Medicine ICU, cardiopulmonary ICU, L&D. I am leaning towards one of the ICUs, but have no idea if I would like this. If you work in one of these areas can you tell me what you like and don't like about your job and any helpful info? Thanks!

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Specializes in Hospice, LTC, Rehab, Home Health.

I don't work in any of the ICU's but someday when you are tired of juggling a million and two tasks; having patients, families and doctors screaming at you and treating you like you are one step up from the village idiot-- you might want to try hospice nursing. It is the closest thing to what I thought nursing was going to be. I work in an inpatient hospice unit where the patients are either actively dying or have uncontrolled symptoms (pain, resp distress, terminal agitation, etc.) I have up to 5 patients per shift, do total care and the docs, nurses, social workers and chaplains are truly a team. We treat each other and are treated ourselves as the competent professionals we are. I can't believe I've been here almost 6 years and love it more each day.

Whatever you chose to do, I hope you can say the same after 6 years or more! Best wishes to you as you start your career!

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Specializes in School Nursing.
I don't work in any of the ICU's but someday when you are tired of juggling a million and two tasks; having patients, families and doctors screaming at you and treating you like you are one step up from the village idiot-- you might want to try hospice nursing. It is the closest thing to what I thought nursing was going to be. I work in an inpatient hospice unit where the patients are either actively dying or have uncontrolled symptoms (pain, resp distress, terminal agitation, etc.) I have up to 5 patients per shift, do total care and the docs, nurses, social workers and chaplains are truly a team. We treat each other and are treated ourselves as the competent professionals we are. I can't believe I've been here almost 6 years and love it more each day.

Whatever you chose to do, I hope you can say the same after 6 years or more! Best wishes to you as you start your career!

Thanks for your reply! That is great that you found your niche and love what you do. Sometimes I think I should have gotten into social work because I love helping people find solutions to their problems...I'm a good listener, and very resourceful. I don't exactly want to switch gears and start all over into social work, but hopefully I can find something rewarding within nursing that suits me! Thanks for telling me about hospice!

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Specializes in Med/Surg Cystic Fibrosis Gero/Psych.

I love caring for my elders. I love not being the "typical" man. I love values from 200 years ago. How about a society where health and happiness are more important than greed and how much stuff I can fit in my big garage?

I can't recommend social work. My father majored in liberal arts at first, the only job he could get was "would you like fries with that?"

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Specializes in LTC, Subacute Rehab.

I like seeing most of my patients go home... I love hearing their stories of the "good old days", the war, etc..

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Specializes in ER.

ER is all about the turnover. Get the patient worked up, treat them, send them home or up to the floor. It can be difficult to learn skills as a new nurse with the fast pace but it can be done.

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Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.

Post Anesthesia.

Most patients go home or go to another unit. Drug 'em send them away. LOVE IT.

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SICU. Fresh from surgery so when things go wrong they can happen pretty quickly. Doable, but quite a steep learning curve for a new grad. Lots of things to learn, lots to remember, and be able to do it quickly. Not as much running around as the floors, but sometimes just as stressful when you have a sick one. Remember, the ICU's take those "patients gone bad" that floor nurses hope not to get when they come to work that day (I was a telemetry nurse first).

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Specializes in ED.

I love the turn over in the ER in a way, when you have a rotten patient who is treating you like crap, you know they will eventually either go to a floor or home or morgue (hopefully not the latter). But to that same end you don't get the follow through on those awesome patients who touch your heart and you most of the time don't know their outcome.

I also love that at any time that really really sick one will pull up at the back door with no prior notice and we go running. It really gets one's adrenaline running!!! Plus taking care of all populations of the community from birth to death.

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Specializes in ..

I'm a student at the moment, too, but I'm working as a NA in pediatric hospice. We get kids with terminal, life-limiting illnesses that will, in essence, kill them before they reach adulthood. & as well as end of life, we provide respite and pain management care so the kids and their families become very much a part of the facility 'family' over the years (during and after their child's life.) Our facility is a stand alone eight-bedder with two self-contained units for families, plus an end-of-life suite with an attached room for the parents. We accommodate parents and siblings as well as the patient and provide family centered care.

We see everything from oncology, transplant kids, severe CMV related disabilities to chromosomal and mitochondrial disorders like trisonomy 18 and CHARGE association. It's stuff you don't commonly come across in regular pedi wards.

We provide full nursing care for most of our kids. A lot of them come to us with a gastrostomy button or an NG (generally the oncology kids come with NGs and the longer term kids come with a button), occasionally some will come with a port, a lot take CPAP or BiPAP at night - there's no loss of skills, certainly.

It's a very loving environment that's about enriching short lives for the kids and their families.

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Specializes in Critical care.

I'll second PACU! They wake up and they go. Push some Dilaudid, Labetalol, Zofran and call report. Most people think all we do is sit around and chart VS but it can be quite similar in pace to the ED. There are interesting cases and people crash so it keeps you on your toes. ICU burned me out after 7 years and PACU is a nice fit for that knowledge base without all the things that burned me out.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Transplant, Education.

Sub-Acute Rehab: Love seeing my patients get better and go home! I have the same group of patients from admission through their discharge (which is typically 2 weeks to one month, with the exception of my SCI patient who has been with us for four months, and will be with us until September) and the relationships I form with them are really awesome. I have seen all kinds of diagnoses/meds/treatments...in just a short 10 months--can't imagine what else I'll see as time goes on!

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