When you train to be a nurse do you have to train in all branches of nursing?

or can you just train in the field you plan to specialise in. i would like to work on a neo-natal or post natal ward. how would i go about it?(i am not a nurse yet)

you have to choose a branch to specialise in, from:
Adult
Child
Mental Health
Learning Disabilities

So, my advice to you is to choose the Adult branch. There is a module of the course where you get to experience other branches, but its nothing major, just for experience really.
Then, once you have qualified as an RN (registered nurse) i reccommend you to get some experience in general nursing first. Then you can choose to specialise in the area you are interested in.

Good luck with it all....its hard to get in! Ive been trying for 2 years with no success!!

xxxx

I'm a nurse- nursing school will cover a broad array of fields including community, pediatrics, geriatrics, ICU, general med, rehab... but for me most of the real learning came after I graduated at my first job in an ICU, its awesome! to specialize in neonatal nursing you should make it clear to your professors and councilors thats your goal and make sure you get clinical rotations in that area.

As part of the degree that nurses do when they are training, they try out different wards/departments - before they might have decided they want to work in a certain department in advance, but when they get there not like it.

When you are qualified there may not be a vacancy in the Department who want to work in immediately, so you need to be able to do a different type of nursing in the mwan time.

A few years back I was a patient on the neurology ward, and a few weeks after I was discharged from there I had to go back onto a general ward for some further tests to be done, and one of the Neurology Nurses was on duty there for a couple of days.

I have nursed for 13 yrs in a hospital. The hospital where I work has a neonatal ICU unit and they hire into the unit fresh out of Nursing school. The staff in that area almost never quit their jobs in that department, so they dont have a lot of openings. When they do hire, they go thru intense training and go to classes for about a month before new nurses are allowed to take care of the little babies plus they have on the job training and orientation for a long period of time before they are allowed on their own. We almost never see the neonatal ICU nurses because they are in their own world over in that department. The nurses are very specialized.
They stay in their own department and come down for lunch or meetings on occasion to the cafeteria.
You just have to graduate from college and apply in their department.
I know when they have an onslaught of brand new babies, sometimes they call us-the floor nurses in to go over and rock the babies and feed the little ones in the feeder-grower area.
The med-surge nurses really arent that interested in the babies as strange as it sounds. We would rather stay in our own departments.

train with me babe we can play doctor