By: NurseGuides.com
As a new grad, the best thing you could do for yourself to form yourself a well-rounded foundation of practice is to work in a hospital in a medical / surgical setting. This will give you the most well variety of experiences, patient diversity, illnesses to manage, treatments, medications, etc. Once you have about 6 months to a year of experience here then you can move on to just about any other specialty.
The “best” jobs in nursing are subjective to who is answering. I love my job as a labor & delivery nurse. I cannot imagine working in any other area. But it definitely isn’t for everyone! That’s the great thing about nursing - there is so much variety that you will find your niche.
Hopefully you aren’t equating “best” job to the highest paying job. Just going after money isn’t going to bring you a job you love. Also, nurses pay is not dependent upon what area you work in, for example, OR nurses don’t make more money than ER nurses or L&D nurses. Pay in a hospital is usually straight across the board for all new nurses, and salary differences are based on years of experience more than anything else. Also, hospitals usually pay better than clinics or nursing homes.
What works for one does not work for the other. Being a new grad, whatever you’ve learned in school can easily be applied in the setting. Experience is the key. In the med-surg unit, you can hone your skills and organize your time. Once you’ve got everything in place, then you’re ready to move on to a specialty area where you can focus on one thing. The problem with jumping into a more critical area is that, skills are not too developed yet. You might be overwhelmed and in the long run be thought of as “slow,” “unorganized,” and in the end be booted out after your probationary period. I have seen this situation a million times. Like I said,”What works for one does not mean it’ll work for the other.” A gradual transition is the better way. I actually started in a sub-acute facility where I worked for about 5 years. I transitioned to a med-surg progressive care unit specializing in urology where I worked for another 5 years. Went to the open heart unit after and loving it. It was easy transition and less stressful. You don’t have to work as long as I had before transitioning but, let it just be an example. The good thing about being in ICU/CVICU is that, when you decide to do traveling assignments, you can be more marketable. You can do practically almost everything. Kinda cool huh? Well, whatever you decide, good luck!
