Anyone else start in tele?

Good for you. I had a 6 month preceptorship and it was great. Could of used a year but I was fine at 6 months..my hospital paid for my accn, bls,acls and phlebotomy and ekg class. and a arrythmia class...so nice
I love my patients and the nurses i work with are the best. 3-12 hour nights in a row are the best..this is from a med tech who worked 5 8 hr nights for years...enjoy and print out the reply from spatialized,,,good info

I graduated in May and have been working on a telemetry unit since July 08. Originally I wanted to work on med-surg because that's the area I was most familiar with. But there was nothing available that would fit my life at the time, so I went for the tele position. At first I was scared...we have to watch our own monitors (what I wouldn't give for a monitor tech!!!) and I was so intimidated by that. But after doing it for a while I actually came to appreciate the monitors for the simple fact that they alert you immediately to changes. Yes, there are a lot of false alarms but as long as you always check your patient, you can't go wrong. We also carry beepers that alarm with certain rhythm changes and my god they can be SO annoying but there have been times where they have been helpful. They are just more annoying than helpful and you have to make sure you don't become immune to the beeping and buzzing and just silence it without looking. I've seen people do that and that's not a habit I want to get into.

Good luck!

Please let us know how you are doing. You sound really excited and up for the challenge. Don't let things like tests, checklists, etc. intimidate you! Just remember, you are new at this, but you know more than you think you do from your school experience. I had to take dosage tests, get skills checked off, and show overall competency to get off orientation, but went through it all fine. The other nurses were great at helping, and I started with several other new grads. We got each other through the rough spots.
Tom had great advice, to jump in, observe or help when you can, and if you are not assigned to spend time in the cath lab, OR, or tele monitoring, ask to do it. My day spent in tele with the monitors was invaluable to my experience. The monitors were great; they quizzed me on rhythms by printing out strips that showed everything, and now I can spot the bad ones, and have a good relationship with the monitors, so I can call them with questions.
Also, if your hospital offers in-service training, or there is a seminar related to your specialty, go! You will learn so much from them.
Amy

Congrats on passing the NCLEX!
I am glad to hear you are into cardiac nursing. As I have said before, I got into it when I graduated and have never looked back. It's so challenging, but so rewarding at the same time. There are good days and bad days, good patients and difficult patients, and the unexpected that gives you that daily "never a dull moment" feeling!
You are right from your last post that learning the meds comes with time...I am always amazed at my colleagues who can pull up from memory if this drug is an ACE inhibitor or a Beta blocker and the side effects, etc. Even 2 years into it, I still look drugs up just to be sure about what I am giving and why and what to look for, especially if it's a drug I don't give very often. It does come with time and repetitive usage like you said.
Don't ever worry about jumping in and asking questions and never feel like you are in the way...That's how you learn. You should consider timing...for example, if you are in the middle of a code, you may want to hold your questions until after the code is over and then ask (extreme, I know, but you do need to wait for the right moment to ask). I have been lucky in that most of the nurses and doctors I work with regularly are great in that they will answer my questions and like to teach.
Keep us posted.
Amy

I started on tele went to Public Health and am going back to tele. Its crazy busy, most of the times just crazy but its that environment that I missed sitting in an office working 8a-5p. I guess I wasn't ready for a desk job yet.