Making a big choice

[sugarandspite]

For my final year of nursing school, I have to choose the two areas I want to work in most.... Unfortunately, I have THREE! Emergency, Psych, and Med Surg.

I have had one semester of med surg experience but NONE of emerg or psych, so really I would like a chance to see if either of these things are for me! However, I do understand the importance of med surg as part of my nursing education, I learned soooo much during my semester on a med surg floor.

So what should I do?? Choose emergency and psych, what I would love to do, or go with the less passionate but more grounded choice of medsurg and/or psych and emerg.

I just have no idea what I would be better suited for, and I would really like some sort of idea before I leave nursing school!!!!

xoxoxox

[flaerman]

Hi there,

I am an ER nurse and have been an RN for 20 years. Back when I got out of school it was almost impossible to get a job in specialties like ER. Even though med/surg is not truly considered a specialty there is much more to learn working it than you may have learned during your first year. I did do M/S for several yrs during my career and learned a whole lot about time management/organizational skills, different disease processes and helped developed great people skills as well. Pysch I did not like and knew it would never be a full-time job for me, although you will pysch throughout your entire career regardless of what you do. Now ER is great, I have done this now for the last 7 yrs and can't imagine wanting to do anything else. Not everyone is cut out for the ER though. Depending on where you work it can be very fast-paced, stressful at times, challenging always, and you have to have a good base of knowledge and critical thinking skills as well as being able to "think on your feet and outside of the box at times". We do hire new grads in our dept but prefer that they have some experience either in an ER setting (as a tech) or as a paramedic. If you get a good preceptor your ER experience as a student can be great, we work as a team(or die as a team) and like having students with us(I am always looking for new experinces when we have students doing clinical with us). You have to really think about what it is you really want to do in Nursing, Psych is OK but if after you do it a while and want to change directions it can be tough as you will lose a lot of base nursing skills. So good luck with your last year and future career in the world of Nursing..... Welcome aboard :balloons:

flaerman