No emergency options! Alternate Preceptorship???

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Good Evening! I am in the first semester of my nursing program and already we are being asked to select our preceptorship locations. I would like to work in either an ED or Trauma department and am considering pediatric ED or trauma as well. Unfortunately, my school is not allowing us to select ED, trauma, or ICU units for our preceptorship. I am lost and a bit frustrated. Does anyone have suggestions as to another unit choice that may be helpful considering my goal in emergency nursing?

Thank you!

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I cannot offer you any help but it is not typical to precept in the ED. Does it happen? Yes. But your chances are slim to none. You typically have to know people at the hospital and even then you'd have to get the school to approve. Most EDs prefer a year of experience even when you are a licensed RN. My advice? Network. The more people you talk to the better. And the more people like you the more willing they will be to help you out. You never know what nurse may have close ties with the clinical manager of the ED.

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Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.

It's your first semester, you need to focus on the basics not on specialty areas. In my program we didn't have ICU options till our fourth and final semester, and no ER options at all. Now this didn't impact me at all after graduation as I started as a new grad in the Trauma ICU and now currently work ER. So for right now work on the basics like med-surg because they are the foundation of nursing and if you don't do well there you won't be able to build on it to go to the specialty areas you want.

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Oh sorry ... was absolutley unclear there. The preceptorship we are selecting is for our final semester (yes they are making us select this now).

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And thank you both!

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Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.
Oh sorry ... was absolutley unclear there. The preceptorship we are selecting is for our final semester (yes they are making us select this now).

That seems ridiculous since you haven't seen anything yet! Good luck in choosing and remember it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with where you'll work as a new grad.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Think about telemetry or step down/PCU.

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Specializes in Emergency.
Think about telemetry or step down/PCU.

Agree with esme, go for cardiac floor or any type of stepdown.

As for precepting in the er, we have 2 nursing students every summer for their externship. They invariably are techs in the hospital who we already know and expect to hire into the er as new grads.

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Specializes in Emergency.

Quite surprising that you are asked to select something for forth semester while still in first semester. Of course my program didn't offer anything for us to select from, you go where your told! lol So, I guess your still better off than we were. I might suggest keeping an open mind on where you will want to end up though. I know many a nurse who thought they wanted one thing, and ended up loving something totally different.... Good luck in school!

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