I currently converted from a mental health technician to an RN and I am taking training shifts. I work a rehab hospital that receives patients that other rehabs don't take. A lot of patient's are dual diagnosis so they have a mental health issue and have abused drugs and/or alcohol. I have and will continue to work on several different floors so I get a mix of different experiences. I enjoy working there but I will never hang IV's, give foley caths, or do any trach suctioning. It's technically a med administration with a lot of other tasks.
I talk to every RN there that I can. Some RN's got a job there and kept working, some are PRN and work in a variety of settings, others had a med surg background before entering this field. A lot of people say I should do a year of med surg. I feel that on hand this could open up doors I didn't know about, but on the other it could just be a year (or less) of craziness and then I go straight back in to rehab or mental health work. Money isn't much of an object but I would be taking a pay cut if I got an entry level hospital nursing position.
Has anyone been in my situation? What did you do and why?
If you feel like you want to try med-surg, do it. It’s a tough specialty and you get great at time management and prioritizing. You learn what tasks and patients are a time trap and how to deal with that. There are pros and cons to each specialty. I worked on a telemetry/ CV Step-Down for 8 months before I went to ICU. Telemetry ran me ragged. No matter how fast I worked I just could not provide the type of care I wanted to to my patients. I learned a million things there but I’ve always wanted to be in ICU and once I got to ICU I just felt like that’s where I loved to be and the type of care I wanted to provide. Whether it be titrating pressors on a crashing patient, or being able to take 20 minutes to give my patient some “spa time” and bathe them and do oral care well, I am happy in ICU.
All that being said, if you want to learn skills go to med-surg. You may or may not like it and may or may not return to psych and/or rehab. You won’t know until you try!
I just want to say thank you for referring to med-surg as a specialty. It seems like so many people think of it as nothing more than a stepping stone to somewhere else, or a dumping ground for people who can't hack it another areas.
When I was in nursing school, my clinicals on a med-surg floor made me think I would never want to do it. But then I ended up not only in med-surg, but in the float pool, which is kind of like med-surg on steroids. I have learned so much, and to my surprise, I love it.
Time management has never been my strong point in my general life. I always thought med-surg would mean putting myself in a position that plays to my weakness rather than my strengths. But I've developed really good prioritization and time management skills, in addition to nursing skills. One of my patients told me that when he was to be discharged, he asked a tech if it was possible he'd really get out by 1. The tech asked who his nurse was, the patient said it was me, and the tech replied, "oh, if Turtles is your nurse, you'll probably be fine." Blew me away to learn I have a reputation for getting things done at work, because my husband would probably disagree.
I mean, there are days that are crazy, stressful, and run me ragged. There are days I feel the frustration of not being able to give my patients the time and care I think they deserve. But there are also the days I catch something, and my interventions make a difference. There are days I successfully advocate for a patients. There are days I establish fantastic rapport with my patients and their families.
All that said, OP, if you want to try something else, med-surg will give you exposure to a lot of different disease processes, interventions, and patient/family situations. Your psych background will come in very handy. But, as others have said, if you have no interest in a more medical setting, embrace the job that makes you happy right now. Med-surg is a specialty, and there's a learning curve. Only you can decide if it's worth it to put in the time and work that goes into it.
Do want you want not what you feel you "have" to do. If you like psych. stay with it, and build your progression around becoming a charge nurse/management or possibly becoming a PMHNP (or travel psych nurse). I found med/surg very stressful and challenging and as a disorganized ADHD/Asperger's type person I don't think I was much better after doing it a year than I was before. Personally, I don't believe in doing things that are stressful/painful unless they are vital to my ability to live or succeed (ie school, work in general, dieting, or exercise). It is the rare person who doesn't find Med/Surg stressful and the opportunity to "screw up and lose your license" while present everywhere in nursing may be especially high in Med/Surg. If I was going to do Med/Surg it would be in California where ratios are set at 4 to one for patients on telemetry and you get a lunch, and you get overtime after eight hours.
turtlesRcool
718 Posts
I just want to say thank you for referring to med-surg as a specialty. It seems like so many people think of it as nothing more than a stepping stone to somewhere else, or a dumping ground for people who can't hack it another areas.
When I was in nursing school, my clinicals on a med-surg floor made me think I would never want to do it. But then I ended up not only in med-surg, but in the float pool, which is kind of like med-surg on steroids. I have learned so much, and to my surprise, I love it.
Time management has never been my strong point in my general life. I always thought med-surg would mean putting myself in a position that plays to my weakness rather than my strengths. But I've developed really good prioritization and time management skills, in addition to nursing skills. One of my patients told me that when he was to be discharged, he asked a tech if it was possible he'd really get out by 1. The tech asked who his nurse was, the patient said it was me, and the tech replied, "oh, if Turtles is your nurse, you'll probably be fine." Blew me away to learn I have a reputation for getting things done at work, because my husband would probably disagree.
I mean, there are days that are crazy, stressful, and run me ragged. There are days I feel the frustration of not being able to give my patients the time and care I think they deserve. But there are also the days I catch something, and my interventions make a difference. There are days I successfully advocate for a patients. There are days I establish fantastic rapport with my patients and their families.
All that said, OP, if you want to try something else, med-surg will give you exposure to a lot of different disease processes, interventions, and patient/family situations. Your psych background will come in very handy. But, as others have said, if you have no interest in a more medical setting, embrace the job that makes you happy right now. Med-surg is a specialty, and there's a learning curve. Only you can decide if it's worth it to put in the time and work that goes into it.