med-surg vs. er?

[janetrette]

i am stress out. a different kind of stress from nursing school.

i am torn btw working two hospital offering me two different positions.

one is the ER position at a city hospital and the other is a med-surg unit on a private hospital.

ER offers me 3months of training and MED-SURG is about 7weeks.

i have no experience, only went to the ER for one day during my school rotation but loved it. i understand that new graduate should start out in the med-surg.

any opinion?

[FocusRN]

Well I am not even a nursing student yet, but here is my 2 cents. I was thinking about something in this area yesterday. I was watching one of those shows on discovery health; "Trauma in the ER", I think. I alaways thought that when I first went to work for a hospital, that my job would either be in ER or Med-Surg. Yesterday I made a final decision. It will be Med-Surg. I can't take the nitty gritty of the ER. I know I will see more than my share of nasty things in Med-Surg, but that sounds more appealing, than someone with 8 bullets in his body, or someone who go ran over with a car. So that is what I am doing, but you said that you liked ER the one day that you did rotate on it, maybe you should ask the hospital if you could showdow a nurse on the unit for a week maybe, and if you still love it go for it.

[webmansx, ASN, RN]

dream nurse 2 b has a great idea of shadowing a nurse for a day or 2.

i am kind of in the same position. been a rehab nurse for 3 years and looking for a change. med surg is fast paced, lots of variety if it’s not a specialized medsurg floor and all your basic nursing skills will be put to the test. it’s very interesting if you into the medical aspect of nursing.

er, i don't have much experience in this but from the little exposure i have, it can be very dangerous especially if you work in a big city hospital. all the gang members’ gunshot wound, homeless, drug users, car crash victim types...one needle stick or one crazy person running through the door and you could be toast! you have to deal with a lot of psychiatric type people, assault and rape victims and long statements from the police. in a smaller er, you may see the common cold, uti, std, basically people without insurance with minor ailments.

heck, answering this post helped me decided if i want to do er or medsurg myself :)

[waggykeeper]

By now you have probably made the decision, what way did you go?

I always wanted to be an ER nurse, did my preceptorship in ED and realized that it's not as I have imagined it. I still enjoyed my rotation there, but I think for starters (I'm a new grad) I would go to Med-Surg. Starting first job as an RN is already stressful and going to ED is making the stress x10.