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Hi Abby, Just seeing your post and wanted to take a moment to reply. I started my nursing practice as an Associate of Science degree (30+ years ago) prepared RN and went to work in ICU. I always wanted to continue my education, but back then online nursing programs were  not an option, and raising a family, coupled with full time work schedule did not allow time for me to travel the long distance to attend classes. I worked ICU  because while I was in RN school I worked part time as a nurse aide to get some experience in nursing work. During that time I noticed the med-surg nurses were overloaded with pts and not very happy. However, in ICU the nurses had smaller pt load, albeit more critically ill, and overall seemed less stressed. Therefore, I accepted an ICU position on the night shift. It was wonderful experience, however when I began falling asleep on my drive home I realized this was not a good fit, and since no alternate shifts were available I took time off. In the meantime. a former classmate convinced me to interview for an RN position at a local community mental health inpatient  facility. At the time I had no interest in psyche, but something was calling me and against my desire, I went for the interview and thought for sure I wouldn’t get the job, but I did! Looking back I feel it was God’s plan because it certainly wasn’t mine! Since then I returned to school and advanced to a Psyche NP (Vanderbilt) and later a DNP. It was all worth it. I learned that sometimes what we want for ourselves is not what God intends and it’s best to heed His call!  I have a passion for caring for people with mental health needs and thanks to God I am able to help. Best of luck in your studies!

Good morning, Abby. I just saw this post, sorry it’s a late response. I wanted to respond to the question about how psych compares to other specialties. I’m a new NP, and I worked the bulk of my nursing career in med-surg, primarily cardiac medicine. I loved cardiac medicine, but during the course of my time on that unit the patient population really shifted from the shorter stay admissions for rule out MI, medication adjustments for arrhythmias, and interventional cardiology to longer stay, chronic CHF with all the medical comorbidities. I liked the short stay patients who had more opportunities for intervention success and education. I struggled with patients who had likely terminal disease- especially when that was the whole unit. 

How I got into psych was that I found myself working often with patients with substance use issues. Many nurses I worked with weren’t that interested in these patients but I liked it, lots of opportunities for education and support. This is how I ended up transitioning into psychiatric nursing, primarily in detox. I found that I liked this enough to go back to school for an advanced degree. Nothing prior was enough to get me back into school.
I do like psych a lot, I’m currently training as an inpatient psychiatry NP. I still have an opportunity to see substance patients, but also patients who have acute mood disorders. Because I’m inpatient, I still see medical issues and need to consider them, and having that background in medical nursing is helpful (but if you don’t have it you’ll be fine). 

Let me know if you have other questions and best of luck to you!