Nursing preceptor

It really depends what you're interested in! In my experience, our practicum/preceptorship didn't affect the ability to find a job after graduation unless you want something very specific. If you want to start in a specialty, it would be helpful to have been exposed to it. In my case, I wanted to start in med/surg so I wanted my practicum to be different and let me see a different side of nursing. I chose pre-op/PACU.

Both of those specialities are very specific. What I would first ask you is what is your vision for where you want to be. Once you know where you want to be that will help you figure out what you want to do. Because these are great opportunities for networking.

Now you might say I don't know what I want to do. If that is the case than my recommendation would probably be mother-baby as it hopefully will give you some skills that have wider applications after you graduate.

If I had the chose between these two, I'd go with the mother/baby option. In this area, anyone can apply to the surgical program after graduation and it doesn't matter where you precept. Typically, M/B or other specialties won't hire you unless you have previous experience in that specialty which it typically from precepting for a new grad.

I think if you precept in the OR, you are definitely limiting yourself to a possible OR job but if you precept in M/B, you can at least have options for other areas....labor and delivery, med-surg, or even NICU. That seems to be the rule around here anyway.

It really depends on what you are interested in. I hated my mother/baby rotation in nursing school and have never had any interest being in this area of nursing so I would have definitely went with the OR. Like others have said both are really specific and where I am from, both are specialty areas that new grads typically can only get into with previous experience from an internship or their capstone.