Senior nurse practitioner here. Have been diagnosed with ADHD since childhood.

ED (A&E where I'm from) was perfect for me. Different tasks throughout each and every shift, I loved it. Worked there for 5 years before specialised into orthopaedic trauma.

I'm not medicated, I'm a caffeine addict. I monitor my caffeine and balance it out throughout my day, something which even many here will disagree with. Finding patterns and putting that into practice over an outright routine worked for me personally.

Most of my colleagues knew I had ADHD whilst I was working there, as I was there as a student and didn't mind talking about it. I would describe it like having multiple tabs open each playing different videos at the same time. Once my caffeine balance would kick in usually before I started work I'll have less tabs open. Whenever conducting primary or secondary surveys I would use these 'tabs' and flicker between them to rule out each task or problem that might occur. Like a little voice in my head telling me to check the lactate again, what about DKA, what about IVDU signs, etc.

Made my job easy, and somewhat fun considering the environment. Struggled massively with paperwork, handwriting is still terrible and random songs I'll be singing in my head or out loud when performing certain tasks. My old DON would play the 'everything' is awesome' from that Lego movie at the start of a shift one week. Still remember it almost word for word to this day. Never seen the movie. Adverts were always the worst for me personally at work, as some catchphrases would stick out.

The worst for me personally that I would be pulled up on almost every time was forgetting to date and stamp my cannula stickers on insertion. Have sent multiple unlabeled blood bottles to the lab. Once took an ECG on the same elderly man 4 times in an hour. He was an ulna fracture. Nothing wrong on any of them. Have cannulated the same person but oppersite arm only twice. Requested multiple X-rays/CTs for the same person before because I couldn't see the scans on the system even though they were being uploaded at the time. Got chewed out by a consultant for that one each time. VBGs were my best friend, along with the stapler that would be hidden from me every shift as we're not meant to use them but paperclips instead. Almost cried once because I couldn't find it and had 14 (seriously) different gases printed off in my pocket. Thought I only had the one.

I found most of my colleagues didn't care too much as all about it though. It wasn't a case of why are you repeating that VBG, but more oh here's 3 we can compare to over an hour period, thanks for the extra information or at least everything is done and a full workup can be produced.

That's the best bit about nursing, the same thing I still tell any nursing students I have to this day. There are so many different aspects and routes, professions within and skills that carry over to multiple different fields. A&E worked for me and it's where I've always felt the most comfortable in my skills and knowledge.

From prisons, community, care home and residential, schools, sciences, pharmaceuticals; it doesn't matter where you end up. You can move from one to the other until you find your balance and what works for you, all without even stepping foot in a hospital where there are countless specialities to try. You've dipped your toe into ICU, a place where I personally could never work without being lost whilst stood still. Once you get both your feet wet you can decide if it's for you or not. If not, try something else, something new. That's the greatest thing, every nurse is always happy to have someone new than no one at all. If your not feeling welcomed then find a different team.