Preceptorship

Do not let your disappointment ruin this opportunity. Perfect your assessment skills and knowledge of meds and interactions with patients/families. All this is helpful in ANY nursing melieu. As for future job, employers know you do not have experience. If you apply within a facility where you did a clinical rotation be sure your preceptor can honestly report that you were friendly, even tempered, patient-centered and eager to learn. That goes a lot farther than any clinical experience.

I don't know of any facility that is hiring new grads into NICU - MedSurg exposure has a much better chance of paying off for you.

Our NICU accepts new grads although I don't think they're hiring right now. This year I think 3 new grads were hired. I agree with the above posters though that MedSurg experience would be great. It also might open more doors for you.

I promise you that all units talk to each other when it comes to students they think are employment material..... Trust me.... Be employment material, if that makes sense....

Don't be disappointed. For my program, to even be considered for a specialty instead of med/surg for preceptorship, you have to hold an 85% average in the program up to that point. Then you can select your top three specialties. The school will try to get you a spot in one of those specialties, but if the facilities don't have any room or don't want a student nurse, then you get sent to med/surg. Med/surg knowledge can go with you into any specialty and is a good place to start since if you get a hospital job at all, it will most likely be in med/surg anyway.

Don't be disappointed... Med/Surg can be a very good place for you to really learn. I wanted ED and MICU... and after thinking about it, I feel like I got the better of the choices when I got Neurocare. That's basically a Med/Surg/Tele floor that also specializes in strokes and seizure care. I ended up taking care of people from about age 19 to about age 96, and not just one or two patients, but 4-5 patients. I did feel a little stifled by some of the restrictions that were placed on students that didn't allow us to really get a good feel for the floors, but on the whole, I found that I really enjoyed where I was. If I was put on that floor or a comparable floor and had to stay there a couple years, I'd be generally OK with that because then I could really start learning the basics of being an RN. Eventually I want to step away from that and really go where my talents lie.

My preceptorship was relatively short... but I learned more in that short time than I'd really had a chance to in the previous clinical experiences. One of the things I really enjoyed was showing up a little early, finding out my assignment and doing a little research about them and then heading off to get report and no more care plans for school. Another thing that was interesting just prior to starting my preceptorship was we'd had a long-term patient on the floor that I probably ended up having 4-5 times over the course of the semester. It was really interesting seeing that patient's needs change (and care as well) over that time.

During the preceptorship itself I rarely had a patient more than 2 consecutive days and sometimes we'd have a couple admits and discharges and this wasn't something that we'd gotten to experience much because our patients were already there for us and we were to try to avoid patients that were being discharged. I got a good look at how much stuff goes into doing an admit and a discharge and learning how to do both in the computer for the first few times.

It's an awesome experience... As much as I would have enjoyed doing ICU or ED, I think I really had a better experience where I chose to be.

Thanks for the replies. Yeah the NICU at the hospital where I work and precept hires new grads quite a bit. That being said, I do realize that precepting on a Med-Surg floor will help hone my assessment skills and nursing knowledge. I am excited that I will have the opportunity to take on a full patient load (4-5 patients) and practice the hard nursing tasks.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I did not realize that Med-Surg experience is transferable to the NICU, now that you all mentioned it. It is also good prep for the nclex.

I will do my best to wow my preceptor and learn what I can from her.

Update:

I just had my first day on the floor last week. I have to say, that I think this floor will be a wonderful learning experience! In those eight hours alone, I passed PO meds, gave insulin and heparin shots, spiked IVs (got an attempt to start a new one), perform wound care, assess an admitted, post-OP patient and draw blood from a central line. All in the span of eight hours. I can't wait to get back on the floor and start with "my" own patient!