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nursing placements

I'm currently studying adult nursing and I'm wondering how medical placements differ from surgical?

Medical wards treat medical conditions, surgical wards care for surgical patients.

Medicine includes stuff like diabetes, renal medicine, respiratory, cardiology and so on.

The clue is in the name with surgery.

Reply 2

kgraham

Ok, you don't have to sound so condescending. I was actually referring to how they differ duty wise.

Reply 3

moonkatt

I wasn't being condescending, I was giving you a general answer to what was a pretty general and vague question, if you want a specific answer then be more specific in your question and people will be able to answer you. Communication is 55% non verbal, so people often misinterpret the tone of comments when this is missing and assume condescension or aggression when neither is meant.

The routine on surgical wards differs quite a bit from medical wards, they tend to be a lot more organised and not as chaotic as medical wards. The acuity of patients and variety of procedures and so on will differ depending on the surgical speciality. For example you will encounter quite a few more "poorly" patients in an area such as thoracic surgery than you would on a day surgery unit. If you're on an inpatient surgical ward at a hospital that has a separate admissions lounge then you will accept admission straight from theatre post op, this can make afternoons quite busy, especially once you have a full bay of post op patients on 15 minute obs. You will probably be expected to take part in dressing changes, monitor surgical drains, take lots of observations, discharge planning and possibly will get the opportunity to go to theatre to observe a procedure.

On medical wards while the ward itself may have a routine, the patients illness can be a lot more unpredictable, you client group may be a lot more elderly and working in this environment can be a lot more chaotic especially in the acute medicine end of things. Again, you will probably do lots of obs, see things specific to patients conditions, such as blood glucose management in diabetic patients or haemodialysis in end stage renal failure patients, see lots of different teams liaising to deliver care for complex patients.

Common to both specialities will be the usual fundamental nursing skills, washing, toileting, feeding, monitoring fluid balance, checking and maintaining skin integrity and so on. I'm guessing you're a first year student with no experience of healthcare, if so it's likely you will be put with the healthcare assistants for your first few shifts to learn the ropes of this sort of care. They are really useful to learn from and a good group of people to get in with for when you need an extra pair of hands. These explanations aren't exhaustive, it would take a lot longer to explain the finer differences as both specialities are vast with little differences between each sub speciality.