Your Specialty & Why

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Hi all,

Im a pre-nursing student and just wondering how long you have been at your current specialty & why? Is there something about your personality that meshes with it? Life-altering experience? Accident? Is it where you thought you would be when you began nursing school? And what specialty, if so, would you like to work next and why?

Specializes in Med Surg, Perinatal, Endoscopy, IVF Lab.

I have done Med/Surg Float and now Perinatal Float. I have also floated to Endo and IVF lab. I have yet to find something I'm passionate about. People from Med/Surg always ask me if I like the kids stuff "so much better"? I really don't. I like it just as much as anything else. I'm not married to it forever, but I am married to it for now. My per diem schedule is hard to replace. I strongly suspect my calling is with Geriatrics and I am also a GRN... but I'm not sure what that looks like for me yet. All I can think of is Nursing Home and how LTC people complain about LTC. I don't know.... It'll happen when the time comes.

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Specializes in Addictions/Mental Health, Telemetry.

For the record, I do not like pediatrics. As a matter of fact, I promised my peds rotation clinical instructor that I would never nurse a child if he would just pass me so I could graduate from nursing school! I don't hate kids. I just happen to have no affinity toward them; never had them, and never intend to. This does not make me a monster. I can show all the compassion of the best of nurses without having birthed a babe. For me, I have been a psych nurse for the majority of my time in nursing. I worked in mental health prior to becoming a nurse, so this makes sense. I did a few years in telemetry and ICU, but psych has always been my first love. The mind/brain has always facinated me.

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Specializes in pediatrics; PICU; NICU.

LisalaRN99,

I had to laugh when you wrote about the promise you made your Peds instructor. I did the same thing with my Psych instructor! You're right that not liking Peds doesn't make you a monster. It just means that's not what interests you. I've worked Peds & NICU for over 36 years & have never wanted to work with adults in any capacity.

I think Peds is one of those areas that you either love or you hate but there's no in between. Kind of like night shift: either you love it or you hate it.

Thank heaven there are lots of areas for us all to specialize in. Life would be pretty boring if we all did the same thing.

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I've been in ICU for 2 years and have come to realize I want something with less acuity and more therapeutic. I'm leaning toward palliative care because comforting is what I do best.

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Specializes in Emergency Department; Neonatal ICU.

ED. I love the pace and the variety of the patient population. I love that I only have to put up with a difficult patient for just that shift (generally) and that while I may have to see them next week (when they are back again), I don't have to see them tomorrow.

Regarding psych clinical, I recall being on the acute adult unit as a green student and talking with a patient. He was a pretty young guy and was personable and justso normal. I kept wondering why he was there. Then, the conversation took a huge left turn and I thought "Ah, THAT'S why you are here." It was eye-opening.

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Specializes in School nursing.

1.5 years in school nursing. And I love it. I did not like my peds rotation in nursing school; my instructor, however, told me I should reconsider as she thought I had a way with the older kids. I did work in a ward with very sick children, which most likely shifted my experience.

I landed a substitute school nurse gig right after nursing school and haven't left yet. The pay is less, but I can make it work and it is worth it for the schedule (no holidays, weekends, school breaks, and summer vacation!), I love getting to know the kids and I get to spend a lot of time teaching, including a sex ed unit this upcoming winter. Preventive care has always been my passion, though, and here I do feel like I make a difference.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

I've been in critical care trauma for a year and a half. I'd worked in a SICU before but not one in a trauma center (I think the hospital got level 2 designation a few years ago, but I worked there before that. We'd get the occasional C 1-2 fracture, but that was about it). I want to work with these people someday--

so I decided to work in a level 1 trauma center that also has a burn unit; I'm not a burn expert by any means, but I float there sometimes when my own unit is overstaffed so am learning! :)
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Specializes in pediatrics; PICU; NICU.
ED. I love the pace and the variety of the patient population. I love that I only have to put up with a difficult patient for just that shift (generally) and that while I may have to see them next week (when they are back again), I don't have to see them tomorrow.

Regarding psych clinical, I recall being on the acute adult unit as a green student and talking with a patient. He was a pretty young guy and was personable and justso normal. I kept wondering why he was there. Then, the conversation took a huge left turn and I thought "Ah, THAT'S why you are here." It was eye-opening.

We did our psych clinicals at a really bad state hospital. My "very personable" patient offered to cook dinner for me one day. What was on the menu, you ask? Rat & cockroach stew! She was dead serious!

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

Oh, and to answer your question if it was where I thought I'd be in nursing school....NO. I had no idea I'd ever darken the door of an ICU, except maybe to transfer my floor patient there. I had very little confidence in nursing school. It wasn't until I was out and working the floor for a year or so, I started getting good reviews from my managers (vs. in nursing school where I ended up with good grades, but along the way my performance was continually picked apart). Plus I got experience w/ patients who were declining fairly quickly and I was able to keep my cool, and sit with them 1:1 monitoring and doing what I needed to until the MD made the decision to transfer them; at the time, we didn't have Rapid Responses in my hospital. Unless it was an actual code blue, the floor nurse managed the pt until the ICU nurse took over. But anyway, with some experience I really started to gain confidence that "Yeah, I can do this!" Also at the time I had decided I wanted to be a CRNA. I don't now, I love being at the bedside. But that was my goal then, and one of the first things I learned researching it was that I'd need ICU experience. So when the hospital where I was a newish grad on the neuro/ENT floor posted a position for the SICU, I applied. To my surprise I got an interview a few days later, and was offered the job right at my interview! I spent some years out of the ICU, but it had gotten into my blood. :)

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Specializes in Home Health, Case Management, OR.

Home health and geriatrics. I love our older population!

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Specializes in Community Health/School Nursing.

I am a school nurse...4 yrs. Why? Because I like to create miracles with tongue depressors and cotton balls. My patients are my biggest fans though small in size. I can wear no makeup and look like orifice and they still think I look like a hero. They remember my name when I have forgotten theirs. My patient satisfaction is through the roof and I have hand made cards to prove it. A bag of ice can cure anything. Last, I get weekends, holidays, spring break, fall break, winter break, snow days and summer break off and still get paid.

Take that 'Merica!

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Specializes in public health.

Public Health because of its variety, schedule, and allows me to see the big picture.

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