Support for new nurses and International Nurses

The answer to that will depend on what type of unit you're going to work on. My unit has an individualized orientation based on previous ICU experience. If you have none, you get anywhere from 8 to 16 weeks. If you're an experienced ICU nurse who just needs to learn the details of how our unit functions, you will have less. Mine totaled 4 weeks, including one week in the classroom and a handful of preceptored shifts; a Kiwi nurse we hired who had some experience had 11 weeks. The inpatient wards might have someone preceptored for 8 weeks if they have limited experience. So much depends on details.

You may feel like you need a lot. When I started as a new grad I only got about 5-6 weeks start to finish and did not feel ready...but was told you learn best when on your own...and looking back that is true as long as there are others around you can ask questions of and thankfully definitely was the case on our floor!!!!

Nah, we're still paper based for EVERYTHING! It's very cumbersome, in our unit the nurse does everything including the filing of lab reports and such. We're supposed to be going to Picis in the fall, but we have had zero education on it, not even a glimpse of it. Apparently there's a mock-up on the one computer in our unit that is all but inaccessible for the most part, but there is no time in the shift to even look up the stuff we should (takes SO long!) so who is going to spend time playing with a charting package? And when we do go computerized, we're still going to be charting on paper for several months while the doctors get used to it. I can't wait.

I described how it is in the PICU at my hospital; my experience at another one where I'd taken a casual peds position wasn't nearly so good. I had four shifts, of which there were patients on the ward for only two. And I was orienting on the same day as someone who was going to be regular staff, so all the practical things I could have learned were given to her to do. Since I would be the only RN on the ward when I worked, I didn't feel that was nearly enough and never actually picked up any shifts there.