To love and to loathe

[bas22]

I had an interesting conversation the other night with my coworkers regarding specialties and our personal love or disdain for each one. From our conversation it seems, whether it be ICU, tele, OB, peds, neuro etc, we each tend to naturally gravitate towards a specific specialty- why do you think that is? On the same token we each seem to have a specialty we loathe with a mad passion- again, why do you think that is? Do our innermost workings subliminally guide our focus within the medical world or is it heavily based on our own past experiences? Does each specialty tend to command a certain personality type and/or characteristic? Without such attributes would one successfully acclimate and thrive there?

With that being said, my question to you is: what specialty are you naturally drawn to? Which do you avoid like the plague and why? Did you ever enter a specialty expecting to love it only to find you actually hate it? Did you unexpectedly find your passion in an area you once shunned?

For me-

Love: pediatrics and unexpectedly L&D.

There is something about those little kiddos that brings me unspeakable amounts of joy and satisfaction. I feel I'm a better nurse when I am caring for peds patients. I love when I can turn my work into little games and challenges for them. My love for pediatrics is shaped more so by my personality than any such past experience.

Loathe: Cardiac

I hate, hate, hate cardiac. It has never interested me and the thought of ever working on a tele floor makes me want to cry. My disdain for cardiac is of unkown etiology at this time :)

[RNperdiem, RN]

I like a world with structure. In the ICU, I know I will have 2 patients. Report comes first then 0800 assessment, first turns, rounds etc. The day has a rhythm. While unexpected events often occur, there is an underlying structure to my day. I am a person who lives by routine at home, and I like some routine at work.

In departments like ED, there is less predictability. A person who is able to "go with the flow", tolerated the unexpected and shuffle priorities quickly does well there. A patients coming in can be any age, any condition, often does not know what is wrong. The patient loads can vary throughout the course of the day.