the importance of med/surg

[polo67chic]

I am about to begin my last semester of nursing school and I am currently contemplating what area that I want to work in. I am really interested in trauma nursing and travel nursing. I have spoken to different people and about whether or not it is necessary for graduate nurses have med/surg experience before working in any critical area. I was just curious to know what other think about the suggestion. Also can anyone offer me any opinons and or suggestions about how I can prepare myself for travel nursing.

[suzanne4, RN]

For travel nursing, pick an area that you wish to work in, not what is available at the time. You need to really like what you are doing, and only you can make the decision as to what your interests are. Travel nursing is not an area to work in but only a way of facilitating the work that you do. It is not somehting that you can train for.

Whether you go into any specialty area, they are all going to involve some type of med-surg nursing. That is the foundation for what ever you will be doing, such as trauma, ER, ICU. There are skills that you learn in Med/Surg that wil always be with you.

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

Well, you have to be an RN for at least a year, preferably more, before you travel anyways. So you have time to try some things out and find an area you really like to get experience in before you start traveling. Maybe a year of med-surg might be a good idea for you - if you want to do something like ICU after that, you'll at least get an idea for what type of patient interests you most. Is it trauma patients, oncology, surgical cases, cardiac stuff, neurological disorders, etc. Med-surg is a good way to dabble in all kinds of stuff and I'm sure something will spark your interest.

Good luck!

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

You are going to get more responses if you post in the General Nursing Discussion Forum. Most travel nursing agencies won't hire you unless you have at least one year of experience in some area of hospital nursing. Travel nursing is basically glorified float nurse.

No, you don't necessarily need med/surg experience before working in critical care, but you definitely need to be in a great orientation program where you are in critical care training for at least 6 months as a new grad.