Neuro nursing OR general medicine nursing

HI! I need some input...I'm offered a position on a neurology (neurosurgical) unit and on a general medicine unit. I don't have much experience in both units. I've done clinical practices at ortho, cardiology, postpartum, public health and community nursing. I am a new graduate. I don't know which one to choose. I hope to work in postpartum (maternal-newborn) unit in the future. Please help!

Unless you have a love of Neurology, I'd go for te Med/Surg unit, you'll get better experience. After a year or two there, you'll feel comfortable and confident in your skills and can think about moving somewhere else.

Whether you go into L/D or elsewhere, you'll have your initial experience under your belt and can then go literally into any other type of nursing like ER, CCU, ICU, OR, Home Health, Travel, etc.

Some places will train you directly from school in a specialty, my advice though is do the Med/Surg, you'll get the best training and see the most assuming you are receptive to learning.

Andrew Lopez, RN
http://www.nursingdiscussions.com

I used to work an ortho/neuro unit for neuro you get the strokes, car wrecks (not sick enough for ICU either from the start or as stepdown from ICU)spinal cord injuries/surgeries, paras and quads. It was pretty good most of the time but fighting teenagers with head injuries from car wrecks wasn't fun and lots of rehab stuff involved.

I agreaa a general M/S will get you the most experience and if you hope to do postpartum M/S should give you more experience with belly surgeries so you get to do post op things same as you would do with post c-sections

My first job was on med/surg/tele and I never regretted the first few years that I spent there. Granted I had to run my butt off and had to ask a lot of questions.

It was a great foundation for the types of nursng I've done since.

Andrew Lopez, RN
http://www.nursinghumor.com