Not every student who earns their Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and passes the NCLEX licensure exam follows the same path into the nursing profession.
The common wisdom has been that new nurses should spend a year in medical-surgical (Med-Surg) nursing before deciding on a specialty. Med-Surg experience can be invaluable for many specialties, but it may not be needed by everyone.
There are many ways to choose a specialty. There are online quizzes about interests and personality traits that may help, but for most nurses it often comes down to three things: your intuition, your passion, and your intellect.
Intuition
Start with a simple question: “Why did you want to become a nurse?” Dig deeper than the standard response “I want to help people,” and you may find an answer that reveals a lot about your personal experiences and the influences that shaped you at a basic level. Maybe you had a personal experience with a nurse providing care for you after an injury or illness. Maybe you witnessed the exceptional care that a loved one received from a nurse. Maybe those personal experiences are pushing you towards a different type of nursing altogether. That’s okay. Understanding all those motivations can be a great place to begin narrowing down your choice of specialties.
Next, consider the clinical rotations you completed while in school. Undoubtedly there were rotations you liked and some you didn’t like. Why? What was it about the patients and the care you were asked to provide that made you like or not like a particular rotation? Did a certain rotation excite or challenge you more – in a good way – than others?
Finally, did the routine of care in a particular specialty fit with the way that you like to work? Consider the pace, the environment, or whether you worked alone or as part of an interdisciplinary team. All of these factors can determine if this is a specialty for you.
Passion
Sometimes passion can be difficult to define. Begin with what excites you and more important why does it excite you? Do you prefer a fast-paced environment where you learn a lot as you go, or do you prefer following an established routine or plan? Different personalities will answer those questions differently. There are personality tests (Meyers Briggs is one such test, but there are others, too) that can give you insights into your personality. Compare those results to what your intuition tells you. Is there any overlap between Intuition and Passion? If there is, that may be an area to seriously consider.
Intellect
Professional growth and job satisfaction often comes from being challenged intellectually. Work that is mundane and tasks that are boring can lead to career burnout rather quickly.
There are lots of things to consider when determining if a specialty is mentally stimulating for you. Consider the evaluations, assessments, and treatments that you are asked to make as part of the job. Do they make you want to learn more about this specialty? Could you see yourself becoming an expert in nursing care for this specialty?
A Final Point
It is important to understand that there is no “best” specialty. The best specialty for you may not be best for someone else. Nurses are different. Specialties are different, A specialty that suits you best is one that you could work for a full shift, five days in a row, and then return the next day excited at the new challenges that you will face. While that may sound too good to be true, there are plenty of jobs where people aren’t excited and begin counting down the hours until the weekend as soon as they arrive on Monday morning. Nursing should never be one of those jobs.
You can make an impact with a nursing degree from Carlow University, whether it’s your first degree, a second degree, or a graduate degree. To learn more, please visit us on the web at https://www.carlow.edu/academic-programs/nursing-degrees/ or give Admissions a call at (412) 578-6059.