[DebnamN]

Hi I,M AM ICU NURSE AND HAVE TO AGREE WITH OTHER FOLKS THAT TO WORK ON ICU,YOU HAVE TO BE MEGA ORGANISED, HAVE A GOOD MEMORY AND BE THOROUGH WITH PATIENTS,UNCONCIOUS PATIENTS CAN,T TELL YOU THEY NEED MOVING, OR HAVE THRUSH IN THEIR MOUTH ECT ECT.mOST NURSE,S I HAVE COME ACROSS ARE FRIENDLY BUT GENERALLY BUISY,HOURLY OBS ON ICU A NIGHTMARE,AND DEALING WITH DISTRESSED RELATIVES VERY STRESSFUL.

[augigi]

I think everyone has answered your concerns adequately regarding "ICU personality" and I'd have to agree that even though I'm a complete slob at home, I am anal retentively neat and clean at work, because sh1t happens when you're not.

However, having a unit conducive to new grads is a different matter. This sounds like a unit culture in your workplace. Many places have the same problem. Then again, many have structured orientation programs for new grads, with learning opportunities and multiple preceptors willing to teach and learn from grads. Are there other new grads in your unit? Maybe you can offer to organise a support group type of arrangement. Or talk to your preceptor about his/her expectations. Most ICU nurses are actually thrilled to share their knowledge, if you catch them at the right time.

[sunshineCCRN]

I am completely anal at work, whether it's about washing hands or labeling/untangling IVs or having clean, disinfected counters.

However, I do NOT understand why some nurses live to terrorize other nurses when the issue does not affect patient safety or quality of care. I hate messes just as much as the next person, but that's my problem and my standard for myself; I have no authority to make the last nurse feel awful, especially if they're new. I don't know any other profession where it is acceptable for coworkers to get in each others' business to the same extent as nursing does.

Just my opinion.

[Bethy-lynn]

I'm so OCD that my students laugh at me. The tease me about not being able to function unless I have all of my lines labeled (and, yes color-coded...Red labels on Xigris and Bicarcb, green on ns, yellow on other drugs that may be compatable with some things, but not with others like Neo, Levo, Versed,....). I even got some butt pats for being the only one who could get the ng, art, tlc, periph, vent, and dialysis lines sorted, orgtanized, and COMPLETELY untangled in a rotoprone. When I walk into my room in the morning, I end up spending the first twenty minutes getting things sorted. Granted, I don't get upset with others because they don't have it the way I want, unless it's a pt safety issue...That's just where we have to draw thew line. I guess you could say that I am one with my OCD, and its Good For Me.

[AJACKSON1048]

ICU nurses can be nice. I am an ICU nurse, but I believe its hard and not a place for new grads.. Please not misunderstand.. I was a new nurse once too. The ICU is a dangerous place and its true we dont have time to teach a new nurse.. the residents alone keep us on our toes.. we have to keep them from killing someone!! Please go to medsurg and get yourself together and learn more advanced skills before you jump in with both feet. You will be more welcomed.. When you come in without the proper education and EXPERIENCE we have to pick up the slack and some are pretty bitter about doing their job and yours....

[WestWingFan]

Wow-- I have mild OCD (though I'm told for me it's so mild that it's obsessive compulsive personality, and not a disorder)-- anyway I was afraid it would make me a bad nurse-- I'm very glad to hear that it can be a good thing hehehe!

[fins]

Two separate issues:
1) Obsessive cleanliness.
Here is a TYPICAL patient in my ICU. A-line, ventric (sometimes two), Swann-Ganz through a cordis, intubated. Maybe with a second arterial line in the femoral artery for his catheterization. Getting NSS with 20mEq K maintenance fluids, boluses to keep his PAWP up, usually a pressor. Propofol. Maybe an insulin gtt. Foley, of course. NG tube, tube feeds. Don't forget the cardiac leads, the pulse ox, and all the wires connecting to the pressure transducers.
Now, if his neuro status changes, I have to pack ALL of that up, and take him down for a head CT, stat. (Or even better, when the docs do rounds at 6:00 in the morning, the senior resident will order one then.) Then I have to come back up, and untangle all the lines that the ICU gnomes snuck in and knitted together in the ten minutes down in CT. Is it any wonder I'm compulsive about neatness. (Not to mention that my old preceptor would drive in on his day off just to kick my a$$ if I left a messy room.) Believe me, I'm as lazy as the next guy (as long as the next guy is extremely lazy.) Being compulsively neat just saves effort in the not-so-long term.

2) Nit-picking the other shift. It's a good thing. And not to be mean - just the opposite. When I first oriented in a stepdown unit, all I got to my face was "you're doing fine." I was FOUR MONTHS off orientation (that involved a different preceptor every day some weeks, we had so many GN's at one time) before I found out that people had concerns with what I was doing. They never told ME. They told each other, and they told the CNS. It wasn't until I sought out the CNS for feedback that I was told any of this. Hello? If you had told me something was wrong, I would have FIXED it! But when you told me I was doing fine, I guess I (surprise!) thought I was doing fine.
The ICU I'm in now is famous in the hospital for being hard on orientees. But I was MUCH happier being ripped as an orientee, fixing it, and knowing I was ready when I came off orientation, than I was when everybody was lyingly polite to my face. I had some problems on orientation (who doesn't). My preceptor was straight-up with me about it. I worked on that area, and fixed it. I only make the same mistake twice if nobody tells me it was a mistake the first time.
If you want people always to be nice to you, go somewhere that making a mistake isn't going to get somebody killed.

[cardiacRN2006]

Originally Posted by AJACKSON1048

ICU nurses can be nice. I am an ICU nurse, but I believe its hard and not a place for new grads.. Please not misunderstand.. I was a new nurse once too. The ICU is a dangerous place and its true we dont have time to teach a new nurse..

Huh....my hospital had time to train a new nurse. It's called a preceptor! The whole thing is called a preceptor program! Would you believe that these things exist? I was offered 6 months of orientation, but I pulled myself off 2 months early. I'm doing just fine, and so are all the other new grads that I graduated with (and they are at other hospitals).



Back to the topic, I've always been OCD myself! When I have to do a precedure with conscious sedation, or swan insertion, I don't want to have a big ol mess in the room. I need at leats a 2x2 area to chart! Plus, we have housekeepers that come around regularly and I don't want to be messy and have them clean up and then look at me like I'm lazy! It's just better prepared have a clean room when the poop hits the fan.

[RYNOBLASTER30]

Originally Posted by EDValerieRN

To work in an ICU, with really sick people, you have to be a stickler. If they were a bunch of easygoing nonchalant nurses, many of their patients would die. They're like that because they don't have the time for BS.

They aren't friendly because they are busy. Work is not a place for socialization, and I don't think it should be expected. Just take care of your patients and don't worry about anyone else.

I, for one, appreciate nurses that are "OCD and anal retentive" because their patients get good care, and it's nice to follow them because everything is done. And this is coming from the most laid-back, friendly ED nurse in the world.

Please, I work as a ICU nurse, and we don't need these anal retentive, psychotic nurses. They are the ones who don't leave the patients alone so that they can get much needed rest if that is at all possible. To be honest, they bother patients. Having someone on propofol who is wide awake, because they are afraid that they won't be able to assess them neurologically. Constantly petting, talking to, changing linens for no apparent reason. Come on, give me a break.

[RYNOBLASTER30]

Leave the cleaning to the housekeeper, and the stocking to the stockers. You should be taking care of your patient, not doing every one elses job.