One of the best things about the nursing profession is the ability to choose from such a wide variety of different specialties. Nurses can work in many different environments, from working at home to working on a medical helicopter, and everything in between.
Related: Careers in Nursing: Academia, Leadership, and Practice
If you are feeling stuck in your career, you might consider making a change. Specialties to consider include:
- Intensive care
- Emergency services
- Wound care
- Pediatrics
- Neonatology
- Operating room
- ECMO specialist
- Orthopedics
- Infectious disease
- Informatics
- Research
- Education
- Clinic
- Flight nursing
- Infusion
- Home Health
- Long term care
- Dialysis
- Women’s Health
- End-of-life Care
- Behavioral and Mental health
- SANE nursing
- Forensic Nursing
Whether you are just starting out or considering a change, there are a few things you should consider when choosing a nursing specialty.
Choosing a nursing specialty: Find your interests
The first things to consider are your skills and interests. If you are interested in wound healing, a burn unit, wound care, or long-term care might be a good option. Nurses who are interested in women’s health might love working in a clinic, postpartum, or labor and delivery unit.
According to Gettysburg College, the average person will spend over 90,000 hours of their life at work. With those many hours spent in the workplace, it is worth making a few sacrifices to do something you are passionate about.
Related: Nursing Leadership Course Bundle
Pace of the unit
In addition to choosing a nursing specialty that you are interested in, consider the type of working environment that you would enjoy. For example, working in a hospital means you will most likely spend most of the day on your feet, busy taking care of patients and moving from room to room. In contrast, if you work in home health, you may find that you have time to focus individual attention on each of your patients.
Some choices have a good mix of busy and slow times, such as Neonatal Intensive Care, where nurses may have calm days where their patients are stable and simply need close monitoring, and other days are busy and chaotic.
Skill set
While they all have some similarities, different nursing jobs require different skill sets. Emergency department nurses have to be adaptable, great time managers, and good at things like IV insertion. Pediatric nurses need excellent bedside manners. Operating room nurses should be detail oriented. Intensive care nurses need to be calm during crisis. Hospice nurses must be empathetic and great with families.
While many nursing skills can be taught, a nurse who has always struggled with IV insertion may not want to look for a job in an infusion clinic. Nurses who don’t work well with children should stay away from pediatrics. Nurses who struggle with empathetic communication or de-escalation won’t do well in behavioral health.
Think about your strengths and weaknesses as a nurse. When choosing a nursing specialty, try to find a job that is a good fit for you.
Physical demands
Nursing is often a physically demanding job. A study published in Human Resources for Health explains that emergency department and intensive care nurses take the greatest number of steps per shift of all full-time nurses.
Intensive care units also tend to have patients who require complete assistance with all hygiene and care activities and may perform CPR, another physically demanding task, more frequently than nurses working in other areas.
On the other hand, nurses who work in research or who work from home may spend more of their day sitting at a desk and reviewing paperwork.
Traumas and triggers
Unfortunately, people who work in healthcare are exposed to illness, death, trauma, and devastation. While most nurses experience more good outcomes than bad outcomes, it is important to consider whether you will be able to cope with the type of heartache you will see at work.
Everyone copes with and has a different level of tolerance for certain tragedies. Before you take on a new job, think hard about the challenges you will face and how well you think you will deal with them. It is not a sign of weakness if certain situations bother you more than others. While you may think it is better to face your fears, consider whether or not you are likely to experience burnout or compassion fatigue working with a particular patient population.
Schedule
Schedule plays a huge role in levels of job satisfaction and burnout. Many working parents find that the night shift works better for their schedule, while others would do anything to stay on a regular sleep-wake cycle.
Outpatient centers, clinics, wound care, and infusion centers often allow nurses to maintain regular working hours. On the other hand, hospital jobs and long-term care have night, holiday, and weekend requirements.
Think about your lifestyle, family, and schedule preferences before choosing a nursing specialty. Keep in mind that rotating schedules and working the night shift can be detrimental to your health, especially if you are already predisposed to heart disease, diabetes, or hypertension.
Pay
According to the BLS, the average annual salary for a nurse in the United States is $86,070 per year. This salary varies greatly based on location, experience, and specialty.
Some of the highest paying specialties for nurses include; ECMO specialist at $97,525 per year, neonatal nurse at $102,000 per year, or flight nurse at $96,330 per year. Typically, the highest-paying nursing specialties require years of experience, special certifications, and extra hours of training.
The lower-paying specialties include:
- Long-term care at $63,470 per year
- Acute care at $73,382 per year
Advancement opportunities
The last thing you will want to consider when choosing a nursing specialty is what kind of advancement opportunities will be available to you. Often, nurses find themselves wanting to transition away from the bedside towards the end of their careers. After gaining some experience, you may hope to transition into leadership, education, or pursue an advanced degree.
Nurses who hope to become Certified Nurse Anesthetists will need experience in intensive care, preferably in a cardiothoracic ICU. Nurses who want to become Nurse Practitioners often need experience working in acute care.
Changing directions
If you find yourself looking for a change in your career, consider exploring a specialty that you had not considered before. Nurses who are experiencing burnout may benefit from learning a new specialty, transitioning to a unit with a slower pace, or caring for a different patient population.
