Working in a sexual health centre

Published Feb 8, 2010

6 Posts

I'm in my 3rd year of nursing school and I am trying to figure out what area I want to do my final consolidation in during 4th year. After having clinicals in several different areas in a hospital (geriatric assessment unit, orthopedic surgery, mental health and peds), I don't think acute care is the direction I want to go. Something I have always been interested in though is sexual health, particularly with teens. There is a sexual health centre in the town I live in that provides anonymous STI and pregnancy testing, STI treatment, emergency contraception, counselling on healthy sexuality, pap tests, etc. Nurses and physicians are employed there and I have heard from nursing students who are a year ahead of me that this place does accept consolidation students.

However, the consensus both from this forum and from my fellow nursing students seems to be that doing your consolidation in an area other than med-surg or acute care is not a good idea. I can see why since there won't be as many opportunities to solidify practical skills as there would be in acute care, but I also have heard that it is a lot harder to get a job in public health as a new grad and consolidation would be an opportunity for me to get my foot in the door. Also, if I were to apply to work at a sexual health centre or somewhere along those lines, would I not be an ideal candidate if I didn't have med-surg experience??

Any advice would be appreciated! I have searched the forums to see if there were any topics about sexual health nursing and haven't been able to find any. If there are any nurses on here who currently work in sexual health, I'd love to hear more about what it is like!