What field of nursing would you NEVER consider working?

Nurses General Nursing

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I thought this might be interesting to find out. Please include a reason, be it a bad clinical experience as a student, fear, lack of excitement, too chaotic, etc.

For me it would have to be the NICU. Don't get me wrong, I love babies. My problem would come the first time I saw an addict come to see her baby. I would lose my professionalism instantly. So I'm thinking it best to stay away from such a situation.

NO Med -surg; hated doing clinicals in school in med surg.

NO L&D- just no desire

Am starting in OR as a grad, but thinking about diabetes educator later in life as a career choice or a transplant coordinator :)

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I'm sure this may change once I start clinicals, but as of now....

I can't do LTC or any geriatric stuff because I have a strange "fear of the elderly." I think it ties in closely to my unresloved issues with my grandmothers untimely death. I realize I'll need to treat the elderly in any area of nursing, with a few exceptions, but if I didn't have a few "young" patients I couldn't handle it. **I am getting a bit better since working as a med recept. in a psych clinic because a good bit of our pts are elderly.**

Other than the LTC setting I'm open to anything. I'll try anything once!!! :D

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Jnette: ha ha ha ha hahhhaa

"those wet gurgly breaths !! Me too !!

I catch myself actually taking a deep breath and coughing... !! ha ha

AND, I too, want to say ... COUGH !!!!! Pleez cough !!!

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Specializes in Hemodialysis, Home Health.
Originally posted by passing thru

Jnette: ha ha ha ha hahhhaa

I catch myself actually taking a deep breath and coughing... !! ha ha !!

Yep... me too. (and then thinking "why am I coughing" ?) :stone

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Originally posted by Agnus

It sounds like you (original poster) might be a student? I felt the same way about drug addic moms.

No, I've been a nurs for about 1.5 yrs. While the babies of drug/alcohol using "mothers" (and I use the term loosely) do often have some sort of struggle, some are fortunate and escape any of the complications. But still if "mom" were to come in, I would have to take a break while she was there.

As for all of the other responses...wow! Thank you everyone for posting. I understand everyone's points (except for the anit-psych folks ;-) for not wanting to work in a certain area. Great responses. Just goes with what I always say to the OB, L&D, pedi, M/S, oncology, telemetry, ER, etc nurses: Thank God you love your field, because I certainly wouldn't want to do it.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Geriatrics.

1. Neurology in every form and fashion: I find these types of patients very difficult to deal with

2. Ob/Gyn or any type of women's health

3. Burn Unit: too emotionally overwhelming

4. Hospice: My personality is not suited for this area of nursing, and I would probably not be very comforting to anyone.

5. Psych: I don't have the patience

6. OR: too much standing, boring

7. Telephone advice: I did this for six months and I hated it with a passion

8. Corrections: Too much game playing by the staff plus too many psychiatric issues among the patient population

9: LTC: has never appealed to me for some reason

10. Home Health/Case Management: It can be very overwhelming, you get very attached to the patients plus it is extremely hot in the summer.

Basically I enjoy Medical/Surgical/Orthopedic patients very much, I just hate the current hospital environment. I am currently doing occupational health which is not very inspiring but I have enough physical energy/peace of mind at the end of the day to take care of my family, myself and complete my master's degree.

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I could never do pediatric burns as someone else mentioned. I have done minor burns with the little ones and it is so sad. You can't get through for them to understand that you are trying to help them.:rolleyes:

I also don't want to be away from patient care. I could never do management where I never dealt directly with the public. I love teaching and hope to do that until I die. Once a nurse, always a nurse!!!:confused: :chuckle

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Peds, burn unit, ltc, psych ~ thats it in a nutshell :)

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I'm amazed at how many people don't want to work psych. I don't think my previous post really articulated my point. I enjoyed most of my patients. The biggest problems were because of a mismatch between the institution's setup and resources and the needs of a small percentage of pts (motivated by cost-cutting), that I felt placed me at risk, legally, and which gave me "agita".

What I would like to emphasize is that we are all working with psych pts, whether we know it or not. And, I mean that in a very broad sense. Many med-surg pts have diagnosed psych issues. An even larger group haven't been diagnosed, but probably could be. How many patients and families do we see that are not truly, clinically,anxious and depressed, due to serious illness? And what about us, and the rest of the staff? I am just saying this to encourage people not be as scared of psych. Not that your concerns are not legitamite. For example, we often may have a broader spectrum, psychologically, of pts in a typical med-surg assignment, so that the effective psychological acuity level is lower overall. On a bad shift in med-surg, however, that may not be true. I just wanted to encourage people to consider this from a different angle, just as a previous poster encouraged me to reconsider my fear of burn patients.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

#1 Psych, too much BS for me

#2 Med/Surg floor, poor nurses are so overworked there

#3 Peds, I can't deal with the families and especially if a kid is abused

#4 Homehealth, I have trouble with directions and am afraid I would never find my patients.

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Specializes in Oncology, Cardiology, ER, L/D.
Originally posted by BadBird

#4 Homehealth, I have trouble with directions and am afraid I would never find my patients. [/b]

That would definitely be me, they would have to send a home health nurse after me because I would have a nervous breakdown on the side of the road from being soooo lost!:p :imbar

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I had such a wonderful experience in mother/baby and peds as an LPN student but when I did my RN (at a much larger facility) I saw so many children of drug addicted parents and I saw many of those same parents allowed to come in and hold those poor babies- this infuriated me and I actually had to leave the area to avoid making a comment! I am not good at holding my tongue when I see something so wrong....I decided at that point that i wouldn't be a good peds or ob nurse much to my dismay because i love children and I really thought it was my calling!

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