Specialty Decisions

[RN2010LW]

I'm not a nurse yet but this has been bothering me for a while now. How do you decide what area of work you want to go into. I am so intereste in so many diffrent fields of nursing that I can't decide. First I wanted to work in OB/peds. Then I was told that every nurse should work 1 year of Med/Surg which does make sence. Then I would also like to work in ER or ICU for the more intense work. How do you decide?? Can I do more than one, can you work a couple days a week in one and a few in the other? I know all hospitals are probably diffrent but any general advice? I'm sure once I do my clinicals I will have more of an Idea of what I want to do but I really don't think that I want to be stuck to just one......Ugh!

[mom2michael, MSN, RN, NP]

The beauty and appeal of nursing is the fact that it is so diverse and has so many different areas to choose from.

For now I would focus on school and clinicals. As you advance thru school you will probably get an idea of the things that are of interest to you and your clinicals are a time to scope out all the different areas.

There are oodles of threads on this topic in particular so if you want some more great advice, try a search.

Good luck!!!!

[nursegreen]

For now I would just focus on school and enjoy or not enjoy the different clinical experiences. In school you will be exposed to the different med surg areas, peds, ob, psych, ltc, surgery/recovery, cath lab, endoscopy, and ICU. I work for a large teaching facility that offers internship programs for new grads in ICU and acute care. For example, our acute care intership is a rotational program that rotates the new grad through different areas giving them so many weeks in that particular area. You can take a postition in any area when you have found something you like. If you decide it's not for you, usually after 6 months you can transfer to another area in the facility. This is something you can inquire about when the time comes to look for a position. There are so many options to choose from in the nursing field. Good luck!!!