those who have worked in a variety of settings

I have worked in ICU, ER, education, infection control, house supervisor, home health, dialysis, PACU and GI (endo, colonoscopy,etc), and I keep coming back to ER. Why? I am not sure.

I think it has to do with the rapid turnover of patients, the variety, the wild and crazy stories, and the commradarie with my coworkers.

If I look back at my career and look at the areas I have worked, I might have a memory or two of each place, BUT of the ER, there are thousands. So, as I approach the waning years of my career (15 or so years left to work), I guess I will look for ways to stay in the ER.

i've worked ltc, hemodialysis, mental health, doctors' clinic, community group homes for the mentally retarded.

i enjoyed hemodialysis the most because of the challenges, fast-paced environment, and autonomy i experienced but the hours were very long and the work alone was just more stressful than anything i ever did so i left after 5 years.

I have worked ICU, ER, community clinic, home health, and now PICC team in the hospital. I liked each one the best at the time I was doing it. Nursing changes and you change personally as well. When I was younger, working in a large inner city teaching hospital in ICU made me feel like I was on the cutting edge. Loved the pace and the experience. Now, you couldn't pay me enough to work in that kind of fast paced environment. I loved home health and the type of work it was and the autonomy and how much my patients appreciated me. But the pay kept going down, the paperwork k ept going up, and I got tired of being on call all the time. So I moved on. If you are on a management track, or an advancement track you probably need to plan your future so can achieve your goals. Otherwise, do want you want, go for what interests you, because no matter what kind of nurse you want to be, you can get trained. And when you want to make a change, you can get retrained.