How did you know what you wanted to specialize in?

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As a nursing student people are always asking me what I want to specialize in. While I have a pretty good idea I would like to hear from you all with experience. How did you know what area of nursing you wanted to be in? When did it come to you and how long after graduating did you get into your field of choice?? Did you get right in? Is there an area that you wish you could get into??

I have had one professor tell me over and over again to do two years in med/surg then decide. I do know that I will go on for my Masters and become an NP but that is still a long ways off.

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Stay open minded- I thought I wanted to go into NICU. That wasn't available when I graduated. So I went into neuro- and loved it. I ended up doing a lot of things, all of which I enjoyed and learned from. If I would have gotten into NICU, I think I would have hated it immensely (as I later worked pediatrics, and had to float to NICU- not my bag at ALL). :) Try some things out if you can...I could not stand geriatrics in school, but loved working in LTC. I was lucky to graduate in 1985 when there were shortages in TX (still were 8 years ago), and could move around when I got tired of something.

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Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

You learn SO much in nursing school, and clincals expose you to many different specialties.

I worked as a Unit Clerk on a gyn/onc floor while I was in nursing school. When I was eligible to become a NAII, I then moved to that position while in nursing school-same floor. When I graduated, I became an RN on a gyn/onc unit in another hospital. I stayed for a year and a half before I decided to try PACU. Loved the PACU! I learned so much.

Surprisingly, I found myself TERRIFIED of the OR. So many rules, so many things to be cognizant about. So...I did the only natural thing that any fear-stricken person would do: I applied to an OR position!

OMG-I can't tell you how swiftly and deeply I fell in love with the OR. Since I have terrible OCD, I fit right in! I am also a total, complete and self admitted NERD. I love to learn. Education, learning and new experiences drive me more than any sort of monetary compensation. I became a sponge and soaked up every single piece of knowledge that I could gain from the nurses, techs, and docs that were patient enough to explain things to me.

You will find the specialty that you seek when you can't imagine doing anything other than working in that specialty. When you wake up EXCITED about going to work, when you find yourself researching the things that you experienced at work, when you feel that you want to learn more and more about a specific field of nursing, you know that you have found your niche.

I think that one of the most overwhelming, albeit beautiful propositions regarding our profession is that there is SO much to choose from. It's almost like going to Wal-Mart to buy toothpaste. There is a staggering array of brands, and specific types to choose from. You think that brand A is good because you have heard good things about it from others, but you also remember that brand B is recommended by another professional in the field of dentistry. Ah, but brand C is exactly what you want, because it serves the purpose of not only cleaning well, but also making your pearly whites WHITE.

I think your instructor was giving you good advice. S/he is suggesting that if you get a baseline sample of many specialties, you will naturally gravitate toward the things that inspire you most. For example, when I was working on the gyn/onc unit, my favorite pts were fresh post-ops. I gravitated toward the intraoperative aspect of nursing as a result.

My advice to you is simple: don't choose. Let the specialty choose YOU. With some experience, you will have your answer.

Good luck to you!

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I agree with your professor. I was really intimidated to work med/surg right out of school but now after 2 yrs I'm really glad I did it. I was kind of like canesdukegirl,- since I was scared I picked a REALLY busy high-acuity med-surg floor as my first job. I would recommend doing this because the more variance in diagnoses/patients you are exposed to, the more you can narrow down your career path while laying a solid foundation to your practice.

After about a year when I was more comfortable, I also started picking up OT float shifts on other floors to see how I liked other specialties. I'm still trying to figure out my niche, but I have r/o-ed some options (ie Neuro ACK!). The next thing I'm intimidated by is ICU, so I think that's my next stop :)

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If you can get into an intern program, do it. We got to spend a day or a week in almost every department in the hospital. I then decided for sure I didn't want OR or ER. But how can you know if you never set foot in there?

I did med-surg for the first 2 1/2 years because I wanted to get a lot of varied experience. I found I liked helping the younger people who are getting better and going home. Didn't like working with dying pts. I went to L&D and loved it. Most L&D pts are healthy, but my med-surg experience helps tremendously with those who aren't. We had a pt with an NG tube, and some nurses hadn't worked with them for 20 years as we don't see them much here.

Don't feel like you need a specialty during nursing school, and don't feel like once you pick one you have to stay there. A great thing about nursing is the variety of choices you have.

Good luck!

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

I got lucky and did a clinical on a unit where I loved the speciality, the patients and really fit in with the staff. Got hired before graduation and have been there ever since. :)

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I graduated overseas but would love to specialize...how do I go after that?

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Specializes in Home Care.

I recently fell into a position on a medical rehab unit. I really enjoy my job. We have a variety of patients including hip and knee surgeries, those with wound vacs and others on longterm IV antibiotic therapy. I also do casual on a longterm orthopedic rehab unit. Some of the patients miraculously survived terrible accidents and will go on to fully recover.

Eventually all of my patients heal, become mobile and go home. Its very rewarding.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

Most of my patients get well and get to go home too eventually. Of course with some of my patients, it may take 10~15 years before that happens. :D

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Specializes in Emergency Medicine.

It was easy...

The floor sucks

LTC sucks

OB/Gyn sucks

Dr. Office is boring

ICU is alright but you see patients for more than 1 day.

ER... Treat 'em and street 'em! Alright, that's for me.

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Specializes in Telemetry, ICU.

I always wanted to work in ICU, specifically Cardiac, not only because I need it for CRNA school in a couple years, but because of my vast family history. I wanted to know more about the heart because my family has had so many problems with it.

1) My father has transient chronic afib episodes

2) My parents had a child before me that passed away from Epstein's Anomaly

3) I was born with a VSD and a murmur. The VSD healed spontaneously when I was about three weeks old, and the murmur was last heard when I was 10-11 years old...

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Well, I'll chime in. I'm a lot older than you but let me be boring, as grand-pa's tend to be, and explain that I was a military Medic (think--EMT) in the early 60s. I became a 'para-jumper' (think Para-Medic but in a helicopter) in VietNam (there was a war there -- maybe you've heard of it?). This was in 1965 -- when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

The very first Coronary Care Unit had been established in 1963. That was the very first time that nurses were given the responsibility of reading cardiac rhythms. Before that, only MDs were thought to be able to interpret monitors.

Suddenly in '66, I was taught to put wires on some poor SOB's chest and to actually SEE HOW HIS HEART BEAT!! It was amazing. Today, 45 yrs later, I've never gotten over it. There's this line on the monitor. If you know the code, you can actually read the electrical activity of a heartbeat. Like an alphabet -- suddenly you're reading Don Quixote!! Only -- there's a human being on the end of the wire. He or She has family and feelings and a past and a future! And you are reading their heartbeat.

A never-ending amazement!!

Since then I've become an ICU nurse. I've "read" Cerebral Pressures and Right Pulmonary Artery Pressures and Electro-Encephalography and calculated cerebral oxygen uptakes and I never quit being so amazed that I -- just John -- could actually look inside the working of the human biology as a work-a-day, ho-hum, monitor-is-stable-I'm-going-to-lunch way.

It has always been as if I were to look into LIFE ITSELF.

When I was a student RN, I worked as an orderly. Probably "orderlies" don't exist anymore as a job description. I was the male CNA who could be counted on to turn the heaviest patients, give enemas-til-clear to male patients and similar 'Y-chromosone' related activity.

I got to see the whole spectrum of the hospital.

And what fascinated me then -- and fascinates me now more than 30 yrs later -- is seeing that heart rhythm. Knowing I'm seeing INSIDE somebody.

May you find something just as fascinating and amazing!

Good Luck to You

PapawJohn

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