Need advice about med surg experience

[BobbieJo]

I am an LPN and I am just about to finish my RN is a few weeks. I work at a Rehab facility, mostly ortho. I have always wanted to work with newborns. I thought I would be delivering babies. Talking to other nurses, they say it is important to work a few years to get the med surg experience. I am almost 38 years old. Is it so important to get this experience when I believe I want to work in a certain area for the next 25 years? Is it a bad thing to specialize in one particular area. I would love some advice. Thanks. Bobbiejo

[BSNMomOf6]

My advice is just to follow your dream. If it's to work with newborns than work towards that.

[RescueNinja]

I'd go straight to Mat/Child...

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I get the same thing when people hear I am going into ICU right out of the gate. All the ICU nurses say to start right away working with them and it will all be ok. So go for it, give it a shot. Thats the beauty of nursing, you dont like where you are, go to a new unit.

[rbytsdy]

I don't think you can ever go wrong with med-surg experience. That will give you the opportunity to really build up your assessment skills in a variety of conditions, even if it's just for 6 months or a year.

However, at this point in your life, I have no doubt that you know exactly what you want to do. If you could get a job right in the nursery, I certainly wouldn't discourage you from taking it!! Where I am, the market is a bit soft so it's hard to start out in a specialty.

The only other thing I can think of is that starting out in a nursery would make it hard for you to float if you ever needed extra hours or there were cuts, etc.

[NYCRN16]

I would apply for the jobs you want, and if you cannot find something in L+D or maternity, then go to med/surg for a year or two until you gain some experience.

[BobbieJo]

Thank you everyone for your encouraging words. You are definately right that at my age, I actually know where my passion is. I have been told by others that it is hard to get into a specialty because the turn around is minimal. Very difficult to find an opening. I think I will keep my current job while applying for openings in labor and delivery and the nursery. If nothing turns up in the next six months, I can always start out in the med surg to obtain better assessment skills. Thank you all again. Sincerely, Bobbiejo

[RNTutor, BSN, RN]

Definitely go for it! I heard a lot of similar advice when I was in nursing school. I'm in my late twenties, and nursing was already a second life for me, so I was pretty confident that bedside nursing was not my passion! I went straight into the OR, and never regretted it.

[JBudd, MSN]

Apply where you want to work! Its a royal pain to orient someone to a unit and invest all that time in them, only to have them leave in 6 months. Not to mention, as an LPN you already have experience; it isn't as though you were a raw new grad.