New grad - Renal/Diabetes vs. Oncology?

[biltz]

I need some advice. Ihave the choice to choose between two new grad opportunities at the samehospital. One is in oncology and theother is in the renal/diabetic unit.

I have always imagined myself as working in renal with thegoal of eventually working with a transplant center. I have close personal ties with transplantand dialysis patients in my family and have had a passion for transplant nursingsince starting nursing school. I even preceptorin a rental unit and enjoyed it. Oncology has always been the farthest from my mind.

Through a strange set of circumstances I ended up with aninterview in the Oncology department and decided "what the heck it's anotheropportunity to practice interviewing skills". As I discussed the role of an oncology nurse with the manager I realizedthere were a lot of similarities between what appeals to me about working withrenal/transplant patients and what working with oncology patients entails. Both are more wholistic types of nursing - i.e.seeing repeat patients, following them through the long arc of their illnesses,lots of patient teaching, dealing with families, complex care, multi-systemcomorbidities, etc. By the end of theinterview I not only sold the interviewer on me, I sold myself.

Since then I've been talking to my BFF who was an onc nurseand loved it. The more I look in tooncology the more interested I am in to it but it is still all very new tome. I know a lot more about renal than Ido about onc. She tells me that renalpatients are much sicker and stay sicker (they are usually the most non-compliantpatients when they come in and stay that way when they go out - and that's whythey are frequent fliers) - vs. - onc patients who have been healthy and have anew diagnosis but fight to stay alive and do whatever they can to comply withthe regime. She hates working withrenal patients but loves working with onc patients. I'm wondering if it's just a bias or aperspective I've never encountered before.

What are any of your thoughts/input? Have any of you worked both units? What do you think gives one a better new gradexperience/basis of learning the profession? If one didn't stay in either renal or onc their whole nursing career,does one offer more opportunities to branch out and/or limit you in thefuture? Any input would be of greatvalue! Thanks!