I'm considering a career in nursing?

So I'm considering a career in nursing I'm just not sure about a few things? A) I heard that nurses have to give the deceased patients sponge baths, is this true? B) I'm not sure what field to go into? Any suggestions? C) Is it better to work at a hospital or private practice?
Thank you for your help!

Giving the dead a sponge bath is not a usual job requirement.
Most of the time you call the morgue or under taker to pick up the body.

However, if you just finished a rather bloody or messy code, you do clean up the body some before you let the family see it.
That is nursing care for the family, not the deceased patient.

If you just get your Associates degree, you will be pretty much limited to office, clinic, hospital nursing.

Get a bachelors degree and the field really opens up for you. Such as nurse practitioner in peds, primary care, orthopedics, geriatrics, GYN, public health, etc. You can become a nurse midwife or nurse anesthetist. You can do school nursing, infection control, etc. You can join the Army, Navy, Air Force or US Public Health Service as an officer. You can go into nursing education or research...

Before you worry about specialization, get into the field and find out what you like. Some nurses love Psych as they just "talk" all the time and really do not deal with physical aspects of patient care. On the opposite extreme are Anesthestists who spend 99% of their time dealing with the physical aspects and do not need to "talk" all that much. Some nurses love kids and go into Peds or school nursing. No one can really help you with this decision as it has to be based upon your likes.

Are you sure a career in nursing is for you? There are ways of finding out if you like this field. Apart from observing what nurses do you can also interview them. You can also take an aptitude test.
Here are some sites you can checkout.

http://www.edu411.org/program_subject/He...

U. S. Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook
http://www.bls.gov/oco/

Peace and blessings!

Nursing is a very rewarding career but yes, sometimes you do have to give deceased patients sponge baths. I didn't really know what I wanted to so enrolled in a nursing degree at uni as recommended by my parents. At the time, I didn't think I'd last but as I studied more, I found so many openings for different career paths including medical, surgical, paediatric, child health, midwifery, oncology, renal, High Dependancy, etc... I started out on the medical wards of a hospital and then after 12 months, applied for a research position and was successful. Now I'm working in Clinical trials and love every moment of it. I guess it's knowing that I'm doing something to help someone else and maybe make their life a bit better. It doesn't take long to progress up the salary scale either. I have only been out of my course for 3.5 years. Give it a go.

in some instances, nurses are ask to give sponge bath to the dead body. for me, community health nursing is okay and very
fulfilling. it is your own choice where you want to be, in a hospital or just have a private practice.