Help! Specialize... or Med Surg???

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I am a nursing student and graduate in May this year! I decided to get into nursing because I have such an interest in Labor and Delivery (The hospital I live close to does hire new nurses). Now that I have been in the program, I hear so many people tell me not to specialize early because you "wont have that medical-surgical experience that you should start with". What is your input on this and what did you do or what would you suggest to me as a new nurse? I do have an interest in the medical-surgical nursing as well and would love to hear your input on this! Thank you!

Hijacking thread (just a little) to ask a quick question. I know I want to end up in education. Right now I'm a New Grad ER RN but I'm looking to leave my ER. If I want to be a well-rounded teacher, should I look more towards med/surg? I've applied at places offering ICU placements because I do have critical care experience and want to learn more critical care to increase my skills. Which would help me more if I eventually want to teach?

I'm still a nursing student but I'm not sure it matters. Our nursing instructors all have varying specialty experience . Some LTC, some had alot of managing, some l&d, one has only ER, etc.

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I don't really care to start in Med Surg unless I have to. I almost consider Med Surg to be its own specialty in sense.

It is its own specialty.

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Thanks so much! I agree it may be only a one time opportunity!

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I love your thinking it's so true I see lots of positions open all the time on med-surg this is probably something I could go back to if I decide!

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Hey hey now..

MedSurg IS a specialty!

Sorry I didn't mean to make med-surg sound like it's not a specialized area of care. I just meant that Med-Surg is a great area to start to lead up to other floors such as ICU, ER, Surgical, etc. It seems more of a well rounded area and I consider L&D to be more of a different area of care that may make it harder to go back to med-surg if I ever needed to :)

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Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
Sorry I didn't mean to make med-surg sound like it's not a specialized area of care. I just meant that Med-Surg is a great area to start to lead up to other floors such as ICU, ER, Surgical, etc. It seems more of a well rounded area and I consider L&D to be more of a different area of care that may make it harder to go back to med-surg if I ever needed to :)

You're fine. I was ​teasing. :)

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Specializes in Medical Surgical and step down units.

I am a med surge nurse, but I have done many kinds of nursing, SICU, IICU, Dialysis, prison nursing, Hospital nursing on a cardiac unit and personally, I believe we hone our skills better on a med surge floor. Time management, prioritizing, assessments and scheduling tasks seem to come together on a Medical Surgical floor. I think good nursing on the Medical Surgical floor, sometimes prevents a patient's from having to be transferred to a higher level of care. On the counterside of that, if the charge nurse is a trained med-surge nurse, she can sometimes stop patients, who require a higher level of care, from coming to the floor when they shouldn't be there. I am an older nurse and i try to assist new nurses to the Med Surge unit in any way that I can to develop skills, time management and prioritizing patient care with them. No one needs to feel like they are an island when it comes to Nursing! All nurses should be as concerned about a new Nurses development and assist in any way they can. The New Nurse must be amenable to that teaching and instruction. No one wants to make a new nurse feel "stupid" or under educated..we are there to help you develop into the best nurse you can be. Set your own standards high, then continue to elevate your own standards!

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I started my nursing school career thinking I would do nothing but L&D after graduation. I work in a small critical access hospital and after graduation I immediately started in Med-Surg. I have to say I love it! I enjoy taking care of so many different people with all kinds of diseases and surgeries. I have learned a lot. Because we are a small rural facility I will eventually be cross trained to do L&D and some ER also. So I will end up getting to do OB.

However, I do not want to do OB until I have a solid year of Med-Surg under my belt.

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