Student: Pediatrics or Med-Surg?

[McBridSR]

I'm a nursing student who will be finished with school after one more semester, but I'm having a hard time deciding what area of nursing I should go into. I've really loved my pediatrics rotations in school and I know that I really want to do that someday, but would it be smarter to do something more general like a medical-surgical floor at first? I'm wondering if it would be wiser to do that so that I can get a lot of experience practicing many of the skills I learned in nursing school and just expand my knowledge of the general aspects of nursing before I do something more specialized. I'm thinking that if I immediately go into pediatrics and someday down the road decide I want to do med-surg, I'll struggle with that transition because I wouldn't have practiced many of those things since nursing school. Do you guys have any thoughts?

[direw0lf, BSN]

I was always disinterested in orthopedics and bariatrics. When it was time for the ortho and GI lectures in medsurg I inwardly groaned. I applied for an internship and poof I landed on a mainly ortho and bariatric medsurg floor. And guess what happened? You guessed it. I LOVE it. I went into the internship telling myself to have a good attitude. I'd say "this isn't where I want to be, but I'll make the best of it and learn". By the end of the 2nd week though, I just loved the pt population. And it's a good floor for me to be on for learning my skills and using the equipment, and being more comfortable with IV meds and fluids. Based on my experience, I would definitely suggest that you try other areas especially medsurg. One of the hospital systems in my area has an orientation program for new nurses, that gives experience in every area like wound care and oncology. You might want to see if any hospitals in your area offers something like that. Best wishes.

[HalfBoiled, BSN, RN]

Apply for the peds position if possible. You WILL have training. Not sure what your location, but as a new grad, your priority will be to just have any acute RN job. Otherwise, no harm in working Med/Surg. You learn a how to time manage.