Neuro vs. Cardiac

[Lovelymo79]

Hi all! I'm a 2nd semester freshan in nursing school and absolutely loving it!

I first started nursing school interested in neuro. When I took A&P, I fell in love with the brain. My dad also has Parkinson's and my grandmother suffered a stroke so that stoked my interest even more. However, I work part-time on a cardiac floor as a nursing assistant and just finished up my unit on cardiac in school and I think I'm beginning an affair on my neuro love..with this new guy named cardiac!

I'm here to rediscover that love of neuro..tell me why do you love neuro. Have you ever thought of switching to cardiac? If the brain and the heart got into a fight, would the brain totally whoop the heart's butt? Ok..that last question was a joke..but you get my drift.

Also..one other thing I've been wondering..why are neuro floors sometimes combined with ortho? I see neuro/ortho a lot..and I've been wondering about that.

Thanks guys!

[Lovelymo79]

Alright...I guess cardiac wins!

[StepbyStep]

I work as a neuro nurse but get a lot of experience in med surg things too. But ortho and neuro are combined because surgery on the back can affect neurological functions (spinal cord connection to brain etc) plus like with any surgeries the risk of clotting and developing neuro symptoms can occur. However, at where I work neuro and ortho floors are not the same floor, I could see this being a combined floor at smaller hospitals maybe

[mh356, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I work on a neurology/neurosurgery stepdown unit. I love the variety. You definitely will get experience with cardiac; we have a lot of stroke patients on heart meds. They usually have some kind of prior history of HTN or stroke, etc. Sometimes you will get a pt with a hx of afib that throws a clot during some routine surgery and has had a massive stroke. Its always interesting on a neuro floor!

[Lovelymo79]

Thanks so much guys! This should be interesting. I applied for nurse externships over the summer and put down both cardiac and neuro as places I'm interested in. We shall see where I end up!