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Discussion

Ortho or CDU??

I graduated nursing school going on 4 months ago without ANY clue as to what specialty I wanted to start in. So, I was fortunate to land a job with the title "Clinical Rotation Track", which is were I can spend 2 weeks on each unit of the hospital I work at; and at the end of the 12 weeks, or if I get on a floor I REALLY like before the 12 weeks, I'll get to choose which floor I want to stay on. I'm halfway through the 12 weeks and I have decided that I like both the Clinical Decisions Unit (CDU) and the Ortho unit. My question is: If I was to choose the ortho unit, would I be as marketable as I would be if I chose the CDU after about a year and a half working in ortho??? (meaning, after about 1 1/2 years of ortho, will I be able to get a job anywhere other than orthopedics???)

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    I don't see why you wouldn't, on ortho you usually don't get just surgery patients, even though that would be the bulk. The CDU you will get a variety of ailments but in my experience that is a pretty busy and fast paced unit. You should get good experience either way

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    Sure you will be marketable. Ortho is just a variation of med-surg. A lot, if not most, of your patients will have other health issues besides their orthopedic problems. You will get experience with managing diabetes, dementia, respiratory distress etc. Where I work, the orthopedic floor is where a lot of our trauma patients are admitted.

    The only thing I would consider before going to the orthopedics floor is this - how much CNA help do you have? Most of these patients are not mobile on their own and a nurse needs good CNA help to survive the day.

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    I don't know why people seem to think ortho is an area that could keep a nurse from branching into other areas. There have been a couple of posts like this recently.

    While ortho can be somewhat predictable, there will still be any other number of problems arise. I have had pts with typical postop complications like infection, pneumonia, PE/DVT, bowel obstruction & have had other pts have an MI, stroke, severe hypoglycemic episodes, aspiration, & DTs. Anything can happen.

    I went from ortho to PACU. Others I worked with went to OB, ER, outpt clinics, hospice, home care, IR, ICU, OR....pretty much anywhere.

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