Why do instructors feel it is necessary to push new grads into a Med/Surg position?

Well, time spent in the trenches is never wasted. Time management skills are quickly honed. You learn the differences in your patient. Many a mere floor nurse has spotted the patient tanking before the doctor.

You'll also learn that many managers say things they can't follow through with. There are often experienced staff with developed skills looking to move to those units. My hospital put a mixed group of new grads and experienced floor nurses through an OR education programme. The new grads felt they were the perfect fit because they were used to the classroom setting. But they had a harder time on the course than the experienced med/surg nurses. The "old dogs" new what they were looking at with the patient.

I appreciate if anyone can help here; I'd like to know the answer to the followings:

1- Can some of the nurses who chose the med path after graduation share their experience?

2- To enter med school after practicing nursing for a year, is there a pre-med program at UBC Vancouver or should one enroll in chem, ochem, physics, etc., as an unclassified student. Can these prerequisits be taken while studying in an accelerated nursing program?

Thanks everyone for your comments.

The mentality of new RN's needing X amount of time working on med/surg floors is as old school/white hat nursing as it gets. Just another example of older outdated educators passing on outdated information to new nurses/students.

Yes llg is correct in that a good orientation/preceptorship is key to success but that goes for any specialty.

The fact that your instructors are refusing to let you precept in the area where you desire to be tells me enough. Don't let them steer your career upon graduation. You have to play their game for now but go where your heart and gut tells you after graduation. They are not experts in career management.

I work in a large university teaching hospital and my unit sees LPN/LVN, ADN, and BSN students from different schools on a regular basis for their critical care rotations. It makes no sense to me that a school does not have students rotating to a critical care area whether they choose to be ICU nurses or not.

We all had to do L&D rotations even though the vast majority of us will never be L&D nurses.

I've heard many med/surg nurses gripe that they don't want to train new grads to med/surg if they are only using their med/surg experience to springboard into another specialty after a year or two. It's a waste of their time and resources if you already know that you do not want to be a med/surg nurse.

I appreciate if anyone can help here; I'd like to know the answer to the followings:

1- Can some of the nurses who chose the med path after graduation share their experience?

2- To enter med school after practicing nursing for a year, is there a pre-med program at UBC Vancouver or should one enroll in chem, ochem, physics, etc., as an unclassified student. Can these prerequisits be taken while studying in an accelerated nursing program?

Thanks everyone for your comments.

These questions have nothing to do with the topic posted. Med/Surg nursing refers to medicine and surgical ward work by nurses.

Medical school is totally different. You need to talk to the advisors at UBC for this kind of advise.

I've heard many med/surg nurses gripe that they don't want to train new grads to med/surg if they are only using their med/surg experience to springboard into another specialty after a year or two. It's a waste of their time and resources if you already know that you do not want to be a med/surg nurse.

They, too, may one day find themselves as an ICU customer and be very grateful for the excellent foundation that their nurses might have received on a med/surg floor.

Or they might consider the value of having nurses who understand what it's like for the folks on the sending/receiving floors.

Or they may realize that we all owe something back to the system that has trained us up to the point that we are.

I despise the sort of attitude that you describe.

No it's not.

They, too, may one day find themselves as an ICU customer and be very grateful for the excellent foundation that their nurses might have received on a med/surg floor.

Or they might consider the value of having nurses who understand what it's like for the folks on the sending/receiving floors.

Or they may realize that we all owe something back to the system that has trained us up to the point that we are.

I despise the sort of attitude that you describe.

OK I think that to "despise" the attitude I've described is a little harsh for purposes of a healthy discussion.

My colleagues and I debate this issue from time to time but no one really gets that bent out of shape over it.

You are preaching to the choir in a sense that I am one of those nurses who went from med/surg to ICU. My colleagues who share your view on the subject say that this very fact works against me in that since I myself did not go straight to ICU upon graduation, I am my own invalidation of the theory that one can and should go straight to ICU if that is where they wanted to be in the first place. They also say to me "How can you tell new nurses and students that going to med/surg first isn't necessary when that's exactly what you did in your own career path?"

Those are excellent points but for me, I've seen enough examples of other nurses going straight to ICU and being successful that I don't think that new grads should all be sent to med/surg and discouraged from pursuing what they really want.

Yes I do see the value of prior med/surg experience as I was the only new ICU RN in my group to finish orientation early. They were still struggling with what I considered to be very basic nursing skills but they eventually caught up. They just needed more time because everything in nursing was new to them.