Hi everyone! I'm new to the site and am hooked! Haha but I have a question I would like some help with.
First of all I'm really not liking my med-surg clinicals. It's hard because all my friends absolutely love it and I don't know how I'm gonna make it through. But to get the most out of the experience, can you tell me what the major skills you learn on med-surg (I know probably quite a few) that I will need to know most for OB
And also, I've heard from about a million people that I am not going to like OB nursing. I have always wanted to be an OB nurse (not sure exactly which department yet) but I'm feeling discouraged. Everyone says they started out wanting to do OB and ended up hating it and everyone who thought they wouldn't like it loved it. Help please
Specializes in Maternal Child, Home Health, Med/Surg.
I wanted to throw another opinion out there. Throughout all of nursing school I absolutely despised my med-surg rotation, but once I got into mother baby it was completely different. Labor and delivery as well as pp. In my last semester, I busted my butt to get a job where I wanted to be, and even made a huge move for it. I'm not a postpartum nurse in a hospital as a new grad, and am going to be transferring to labor and delivery hopefully sooner than later. So don't let go of your hopes.
Sure a lot of our core foundations, like vital signs, injections, basic IV stuff, foley catheters, etc. But a lot more of it is specialized that we do on our daily. Don't be let down, don't give up!! You've got this!
Of my 16 other classmates who thought they’d love OB... 1 did, 1 was meh, and the rest hated it.
I love birth in general, and in L&D I love working with fewer patients at a time, that everything can change in any moment, collaboration with doctors, the autonomy I get, the variety in skills (Triage, OR, recovery, antepartum...and sometimes heading over to ED or med surg floors to help with the obstetric issues of someone admitted mostly for something else).
I never had a particularly rosy view of L&D, though, so I was ready (mostly) for demises, drug addiction, 12 year olds delivering, hemorrhages, shoulder dystocias, precips, etc. When people think of L&D or MBU as places where it’s always happy or it’s lots of cuddling babies, they’re likely to be disillusioned. (Though on Mother Baby there *is* a fair amount of baby cuddling, in my experience, and less unpredictability stress, though more strsss from having lots of patients and lots of tasks).
Of my 16 other classmates who thought they’d love OB... 1 did, 1 was meh, and the rest hated it.
I love birth in general, and in L&D I love working with fewer patients at a time, that everything can change in any moment, collaboration with doctors, the autonomy I get, the variety in skills (Triage, OR, recovery, antepartum...and sometimes heading over to ED or med surg floors to help with the obstetric issues of someone admitted mostly for something else).
I never had a particularly rosy view of L&D, though, so I was ready (mostly) for demises, drug addiction, 12 year olds delivering, hemorrhages, shoulder dystocias, precips, etc. When people think of L&D or MBU as places where it’s always happy or it’s lots of cuddling babies, they’re likely to be disillusioned. (Though on Mother Baby there *is* a fair amount of baby cuddling, in my experience, and less unpredictability stress, though more strsss from having lots of patients and lots of tasks).
I’m currently in my OB rotation as well and I also loved it! My first 12 hour clinical just flew by and I can’t wait to go back next week. Clinical is by no means reflective of how it would be if you are the nurse but I still enjoyed it immensely. I didn’t attend a birth but there was penicillin to give, vitals to take, fetal EFMs to monitor (I learned a lot there especially if you did it for 12 hours with an experienced nurse). We counted contractions, looked for accelerations, check the timing and durations, charted baseline changes etc. We also provided therapeutic support to the patient because she wasn’t progressing and wasn’t feeling her contractions. There is always so much to do. The only thing I need to remember to do for next shift is to bring more snacks because we were eating on the run most of the time!
My personal favorite is postpartum and I hope that I get to go onto that floor and help with the newborn checks and most importantly the discharge education and teaching to the patient. I’m unfortunately on nights so discharge teaching will probably not be possible but I want to see if I can swing staying longer into day shift one of these days to see if I can do that.
I always knew that I would love my OB rotation and I am glad to see it is meeting my expectations.
It is similar in my program, there are a number of people who are ambivalent about their maternity rotation and were really not looking forward to it and there is another portion of the class that was really looking forward to it and really enjoyed it. But that would be true for almost all programs since students will naturally gravitate to their areas of interest.
Idiosyncratic, BSN, RN
712 Posts
I wanted to throw another opinion out there. Throughout all of nursing school I absolutely despised my med-surg rotation, but once I got into mother baby it was completely different. Labor and delivery as well as pp. In my last semester, I busted my butt to get a job where I wanted to be, and even made a huge move for it. I'm not a postpartum nurse in a hospital as a new grad, and am going to be transferring to labor and delivery hopefully sooner than later. So don't let go of your hopes.
Sure a lot of our core foundations, like vital signs, injections, basic IV stuff, foley catheters, etc. But a lot more of it is specialized that we do on our daily. Don't be let down, don't give up!! You've got this!