How to decide your nursing school specialty and how I decided mine!

Going into nursing school, my goal was always to become a mental health nurse. I’m in the military and one thing my shipmates struggled with was mental health. 

When I did get into nursing school, we did a lot of medical rotations and I realized I didn’t like the psych unit as much. Due to the teaching styles of some of my professors, my interest in mental health nursing declined. It wasn’t really for me at the time. 

One of the days while still in nursing school, I was placed in the Emergency Department. I loved everything that happened there, as weird as it may sound. I had my first experience of actually impacting someone’s life that day. A patient coded and we were trying to resuscitate the patient. At one point, the doctor in charge signaled me as a student to relieve the person doing chest compressions. 

I remember just doing chest compressions, pressing down on this patient’s chest and for a minute I blanked out… Shortly after, we got a pulse and that moment changed my life forever. It was a defining moment for me. 

I knew this was where I wanted to specialize. Having that hands-on experience literally changed my life. Interest and specialty does change. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t know what to do yet or if you find your interests are changing. 

Go through all the clinical rotations your school has to offer and experience them all. At the end of your nursing program, you should have some insight into where you want to specialize. 

However, if you don’t, pray to God, seek clarity, pick one, and start working. The good thing about nursing is that you can switch units at any time. 

If you’ve chosen a specialty, how did you choose yours?