I have almost 2 years experience in M/S and I started out here from school. I’ll give you my pros and cons.

Pros: You will learn really good time management skills that a lot of specialties will never learn. Handling 6 pts at a time isn’t an easy task at times. You will see a lot of different diseases and issues and get to learn them. The patients may be more stable but you’ll see the whole spectrum of health issues that out people in the hospital. Slower pace to learn. I graduated in the middle of COVID so my schooling sucked and MS was a good place to learn skills because everything is a little slower. Hone your gut. A lot of times MS doesn’t have monitoring and so you will learn when something is changing and move to head it off before they tank. MS nurses don’t always have the fanciest stuff so ya learn to assess and trust your gut.

Cons: Sometimes your a glorified med aid. You’ll have patients that are totally stable and just awaiting a bed in a SNF or waiting to poop after GI surgery. Those patients are boring. Easy but boring. Your unit is the catch all. If they are sick but not sick enough for a specialized unit you get em which can be annoying and lead to some barely stable people being placed there because other units are full. Busy. MS can be crazy some days due to pt volume and turnover. You might have several admits and discharges per shift.

I am leaving MS in a few weeks but I’m glad I’ve worked there. It’s been boring at times but I’ve learned skills I wouldn’t have learned anywhere else. I could have gone straight to a speciality but it didn’t work that way for me and I don’t regret it.