What do you love most about your floor/specialty?

Nurses General Nursing

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I am in my last semester of school and was wondering what you love most about the area of nursing you work in? If you can't stand where are you working then where do you want to work?

Thanks!

Laura

Specializes in GI.

GI, not the most glamorous place, but the hours are great (Monday thru Friday between 630 am until 5 pm-ish depending on the shift you work.) No holidays or weekends. Patients are generally healthy yet you can utilize some nursing skills such as IV starts etc. Free lunches from the reps that push their wares on our docs. There are cons such as it can get repetitive and there is call.

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I have worked ICU for 7 years and a float pool for 3 years. The last 10 years I have been a dedicated PICC line nurse and I can say this is my favorite part of my nursing adventure. Why? It's a mini-challenge everytime you insert a line and when a patient tells you that your technique was very minimal in pain, it makes me feel good that experience was a good one for the patient.

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Specializes in Radiation Oncology.

Oncology! Specifically, outpatient radiation oncology. One other RN and me managing about 65 daily radiation patients with two full-time radiation oncologists. In addition to that, new patient consults, education, follow-ups, and special radiation procedures. I thought I might lose some of my skills working outpatient but we do IV starts for hydration, port-a-cath accessing daily, trach suctioning if needed before treatment, and conscious sedation for our GYN internal radiation treatments. I take my ACLS in May so I can actually do those along with the bone marrow biopsies we sedate in office.

Most of all, love love love my co-workers and doctors. 99% of us have been with one of the radiation oncologists for 8 years or more. My co-workers and I have worked together for so long we really do feel like a big family and our patients see that and they love it. Due to most radiation treatments requiring at least 6-8 weeks of treatment we really get to know our patients. I will admit it is so nice to meet a nervous patient for consult, help aleviate their fears, answer their questions, and then see them all the way through their treatment and even for the years after when they come for follow up visits. Of course as ya'll might guess, this can lead to super happy moments but also super tragic and sad moments. Wouldn't change it for the world!

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Specializes in Pediatrics (neuro).

I work in pediatrics and absolutely love it. Caring for not only the child but the family is both challenging and rewarding, and an integral part of what we do. I feel very fortunate to work where I do; we have an amazing team and I'm really proud to be a part of it.

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Work everywhere now that I'm a "floater" in two hospitals but the two that are dear to my heart:

Liver/Kidney/Pancreas transplant: anything this specialized and I get excited bc you really get to know your stuff. There is SO much patient education to be done! Liver patients can really teeter on the fence of life and death sometimes so that kept me on my toes. Also, all the cutting-edge meds we got to try to first made me feel like I was on the edge of awesome.

Cardio-thoracic surgical IMC: I love the heart, it just makes so much darn sense! It's like the *opposite* of neuro for me. Problem valve? Replace it. Chronic afib? Burn a little pathway for the SA node to find the AV again. Left ventricular failure? Left ventricular pump. Lung nodule? Wedge resection. I mean, thank god I'm not the surgeon. I didn't say *that* was easy...

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Specializes in Obstetrics.

I love my unit... the people that I work with, for the most part, are like my second family. We all love being with each other and make work fun. I work in OB and love my patients. They don't forget this part of their lives. OB is a lot of teaching and I really enjoy that aspect of it. Plus, who doesn't love babies? I absolutely love going to work.

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Another vote for psych!

You should have seen the pt we had yesterday... whoa!

No details other than I was constantly formulating an defense/rescue/escape plan throughout the shift.:nailbiting:

Fortunately, things remained cool.

Not a whole lot of fun at the time, but definitely interesting.

Never ever boring!

I can relate to a night like that! Fortunately, those patients are not as common as one would think.

Most of the time, I have time to sit and chat with some VERY interesting characters. The other night I sat and talked to this girl for at least an hour after all my work was caught up. I actually thought to myself, "I can't believe I get paid for this."

This morning I heard a news story about a man who was found by police walking around in nothing but his tennis shoes. He told them some story about having to hide by the river when he accidentally fell in so he took his clothes off for them to dry, blah blah blah. I thought to myself, "I'll probably get to hear a first hand account of this story next time I go to work." LOL. I have no idea if he went to the hospital or not, but things like that are pretty typical to hear!!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Rehab.

I work in a LTAC.

My favorite thing is that I get to know the patients over the weeks or months that they are in my care. I see them come from needing ICU-level care with tubes in every orifice, and gradually learning how to eat, regain continence, and learn to walk. It's very difficult work but I do love the patient population for these reasons.

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While I hate 99% of what nursing entails (customers always right mentality) that 1% is what makes me love nursing. My last job was skilled nursing in a LTC facility and the one I had an interview for yestersday is also for skilled care. Its for post op/rehab residents that aren't quite ready to go home yet. So what do I love? My residents. They drive me nuts lol, AND they make me laugh and smile. I love seeing them progress.

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I can relate to a night like that! Fortunately, those patients are not as common as one would think.

Most of the time, I have time to sit and chat with some VERY interesting characters. The other night I sat and talked to this girl for at least an hour after all my work was caught up. I actually thought to myself, "I can't believe I get paid for this."

This morning I heard a news story about a man who was found by police walking around in nothing but his tennis shoes. He told them some story about having to hide by the river when he accidentally fell in so he took his clothes off for them to dry, blah blah blah. I thought to myself, "I'll probably get to hear a first hand account of this story next time I go to work." LOL. I have no idea if he went to the hospital or not, but things like that are pretty typical to hear!!

Yes, those times are actually quite rare.

This man was unbelievably HUGE, unpredictable, definitely antisocial, knew how intimidating he was and was a great big bully.

He had already come to us in restraints.

Oy!

As for what I hear in the local news... yep... I often say, "Oh crap... I bet that guy'll be there when I get to work tomorrow."

lol

Like we said, it's never boring.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

What I love most about my floor/specialty is that in 2 years I won't be on the floor anymore. In all honesty I work oncology and it has provided me with seeing the large need in hospice/palliative care. In 2 years when I graduate as an FNP I hope to find employment in that area.

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well right now I work in research and honestly it fell short of what I thought it would be, but I still work in the ER and I can say that although it was crazy ED will probably be the best area of nursing I work in. I love the fast pace and the large amount of knowledge you learn so quickly, blood, trauma's and ADRENALINE!. I also loved that I used every last one of my nursing skills and more, all that money paid on nursing school surely didn't go to waste. Most of all I loved that the ER nurses, docs, ED techs, ED clerks and even staff who came through the ED (PA's, internal med docs, RT's etc...) always loved being around the ED staff because we were always an energetic fast paced bunch and the relationship you have with your ED docs is second to none. Lastly I loved being independent and actually having my opinion valued regarding a patient's care instead of being ignored.

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