The Student Room Group

Different Branches of Nursing

Hi,

I'm interested in going into Nursing but am a little conused about the different branches of Nursing. I'm interested in child's nursing but would I solely be limited to working with kids? If I changed my mind in the future and wanted to work in say Mental Health, would I have to re-train? I've heard there are more opportunities available to me by studying Adult Nursing.

Any advice?
Hey the 4 different branches are adult, mental health, child and learning difficulties. If you done childrens then yes you would most likely be limited to working with children. Some unis offer a conversion course of around 16-24 months where you would then be dual trained in two branches.
Just depends on what age you would prefer to work with and what you would like to do. In adult nursing you can still work with children in icu or neonatals but these jobs can be hard to come by and then you have all the different specialisms.
There are different branches as the above poster pointed out, but there is a lot of cross-over between branches as even children's nurses will need some knowledge of mental health for dealing with teenagers for example
Reply 3
Usually youd have to retrain as far as I know, especially if you wanted to go in to MH as youd be trained to work with addiction and in forensics and with elderly. There are child and adolescent psychiatric wards so MH nurses also train in that on placements but as above said, you may be trained in that also.

Im not 100% on which skills are taught to all pathways but Im pretty sure you would need to retrain, at least 2nd and 3rd year.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 4
Pathways = branches, sorry
You preferably need to decide which course most interests you.. And as angel_delight says you can quite easily do a conversion course which usually lasts around a year.

However Nottingham offer a course which is 4yrs combining two branches of nursing... If you cannot decide between child and mental health. xxx
Reply 6
Does anybody know whether you are able to work with both adults and children with Mental Health nursing degree?

And are there different branches to the degree or are you trained in everything eg. addictions, acute disorders etc?
Reply 7
Clinical placements cover all aspects (addiction, CAMHS, Acute, forensics, elderly etc) Id say you could work in CAMHS (child/adolescent MH) with the degree yeah
Reply 8
http://www.mentalnurse.org.uk/mental-nurse-role

Here ya go. Id get some experience working in both fields youre interested in before you decide as theyre quite different.

Quick Reply