Medical-Surgical Nursing: A Specialty, Not a Stepping Stone (Podcast)

There’s a common misconception that new nurses begin their careers in medical-surgical units before moving on to a specialty area after a couple years. However, medical-surgical nursing is a specialty – and a rewarding one.

“I’ve been a nurse for 24 years, and I’ve been in med-surg all 24 of those years,” says Catherine Skowronsky, MSN, APRN, ACNS-BC, CMSRN, Clinical Nurse Specialist at Cleveland Clinic Fairview Hospital. “That is my career, and it’s not because I couldn’t do anything else – it’s not by default. It is by choice and my love for the specialty.”

In this episode of Cleveland Clinic’s Nurse Essentials podcast, Skowronsky is joined by Julie Seelie, BSN, RN, CMSRN, SCRN, a clinical nurse on a medical-surgical unit at Fairview Hospital, to discuss the specialty. They delve into:

• Why medical-surgical nursing is an important, unique specialty
• How leaders can support med-surg nurses who manage a complex patient population
• The importance of networking and joining professional organizations such as the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses
• Advice for nurses to recharge after difficult shifts

Click the podcast player above to listen to the episode now, or read on for a short, edited excerpt. Check out more Nurse Essentials episodes at my.clevelandclinic.org/podcasts/nurse-essentials or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast excerpt

Podcast host Carol Pehotsky, DNP, RN, NEA-BC: Why should nurses honestly consider medical-surgical nursing as a specialty and not as a stepping stone?

Skowronsky: Well, I think it was actually one of the Consult QD articles from Cleveland Clinic that referred to medical-surgical nursing as the backbone of nursing. I just thought that was great because it runs through all of nursing. And the skills cross whatever other specialties you may find yourself in throughout your career. … So, by all means, give medical-surgical nursing that chance and you'll be amazed at what you find.

Pehotsky: Julie, now I'll turn to you. Why med-surg nursing?

Seelie: It really is a sampler of all these different disease processes and types of patients. So, if you want to figure out what you like, what you don't like, what you're super passionate about, then med-surg is a great place for that.

And for as long as it's been around, it is by no means a perfect system. … But instead of looking at it in a negative way, there's so much room for improvement. So, people who are innovative, [med-surg] is a place where you can think, "I have this recurring problem every shift." You're not the only one who's experiencing that. What's the solution? And that's where networking comes along as well. Even if it's just improving a process, figuring out who are the stakeholders there. Who can I reach out to get this accomplished? But also coming up with product development and stuff like that. I know we've had quite a few nurses within Cleveland Clinic do that and were very successful.

Med-surg is definitely a place that could use a lot of innovation and energetic people, so it's definitely a good place to start out for new nurses. You get a lot of experience, and you learn a lot very quickly. But you learn a lot about yourself, and I think you grow a lot as a person as well.