What Should I Specialize In?

[rme999]

Hi all,

I'm an older guy (mid-50s) in my last semester of nursing school, getting an ADN after already having got a BS, JD, and MBA years ago. This is my second career, after early retirement. I am divorced, my kids are grown, and I am free to travel. I'm looking for some nursing career advice.

The things I have loved most about nursing school have been a psych clinical rotation where I got to know and connect with some of the clients and their families pretty well over several weeks, med/surg rotations where I got to know the clients and their families, and latest of all, a rotation thru day surgery at a smaller hospital where I have followed clients thru pre-admit, pre-op, and recovery/admission/discharge, and have also gotten to view many of their surgeries.

My dilemma is that although I am absolutely LOVING the day surgery, including interacting with the surgeons and OR nurses, the clients and their families, and even the sight of blood (I think of surgeons as sort of glorified carpenters, using hammers, saws, nails, drills, and soldering irons to fix people, build new structures, repair leaks, etc), there is no real patient care continuity besides the acute care until discharge or admit. I get to interact with the patient and family thru preop and recovery, but have no way of following up to see longer-term outcomes. In psych and ortho rehab and med/surg, I got to follow care and recovery and interact with the patients and their families over a longer period of time, but without the hands on immediacy of preop, PACU and the actual surgical procedures.

Is there a specialty out there that will give me the best of both worlds? Getting to know the patients/families and their psychosocial issues over the longer term, but also getting to be hands on in the OR, ER and/or PACU?

Anyone else dealt with this issue in a satisfying way? Am I missing some obvious solution?

Thanks!