new job dilemma - need advice "desperately"

[yanga82]

i'm a recent grad - saying recent because i graduated a year ago but have been traveling around and just starting to look for a job.

my future goal is either in diabetes educator or anaesthesia nursing..

however, either jobs require long years of experiences and hardcore specialization. i need stepping stones!!

here's my dilemma

i'm offered a couple jobs now.

one's in inpatient cardiac unit and the other in inpatient nephrology unit..

however, from my experiences as a student nurse, i realized that i really don't like medical units!!! i really loved maternal-child and diabetes clinic!! before i was offered these jobs, i thought i would even consider emerg just to fast track myself in getting emersed in nursing world. learn many different things in short time possible. however, never thought of inpatient bedside nursing!

however, considering all the perks the hospital's offering and from what i heard from my friends - that i can move to a different unit internally- i might consider taking one of those jobs. but then the thing is.... WHICH UNIT????

my only experience in medical floor was general medicine. not really specialized. so i'm not sure which one's more suitable for me. i'm nor really familiar with either one.

i've been told cardiac's got more beds, 42 to 30, busier, fast turn-over.

nephrology's smaller quieter less turn-over of patients.

i like the 'busier' part of cardiac, however, i'm just slightly worried about my back. i'm diagnosed of disc herniation from one of my trips, and just concerned busier might mean more strenous work on my back?? but then, long-term staying patients might mean needs more direct and physical nursing care (i.e. positioning, toilette assist???)? which job do you think is harder on the back??? the manager who interviewed me mentioned that nephrology might be better since i had experience in diabetes clinic and that's where i wanna head in the future. however, i really can't stand all quiet work... i'd rather be busy and feel the time flies while i work...

so thank you for reading my long long complaints... any suggestions and kind advices ladies and gentlemen??

[NJNursing, ASN, RN]

I hated med-surg when I was in school. I SWORE to myself I'd never work in med-surg. I'm actually doing ortho-neuro now but we get a lot of med-surg overflow and i'm actually very thankful that I've done it. I've been able to lean a lot of things about a lot of disease processes, a lot about delegating, prioritizing, medications, treatments, etc...... The fast pace might be good for some, but after a while it causes burn-out. You'll realize that your body (especially with a herniated disc) won't tolerate moving at 80mph for 12 hours 3 days a week. That's why there's high turn over.

Renal might be better for you. At least it's a start somewhere. It's easier to lateral into an internal position than to start fresh outright.

[MIA-RN1, RN]

maybe you should shadow on each unit and see which one you like better.

[fmwf]

I agree that renal may be the way to go. Diabetes is the/a leading cause of subsequent kidney failure. You will be learning lots about diabetes on a renal unit. Transplant is even better.

fmwf