Critical Care this Fall

[regglynn]

Well, my short 2 1/2 week of a break is almost over. This fall we go into Critical Care.

During this break I did not think of school much. I know this fall I'll be busy and took this time to bo to the beach, first with a friend and then again with my son and husband. When I was at home I slept in, stayed up late, enjoyed some drinks, and just had a great time.

:beercuphe

On Monday, school starts. I'm getting a little nervous. Can I get some advice from students who have gone through Critical Care??? How did you study, extra books you have purchased, or just any kinds of advice you found helpful.

I already have the Critical Care made Easy. I am thinkning about the Mosby Critical Care reference to take with me to clinicals. Has anyone used the mosby book and found it helpful or not.

Thanks for any response......

[Imafloat, BSN, RN]

Critical care seemed like advanced patho with a clinical. I think the hardest part of Critical Care was figuring out how PA cathethers worked and all the differences in ventilators and settings. The rest of it was what we did in patho, but more intense and with a focus on treatment.

[AuntieRN]

I also studied from the NCLEX review books and when it came time for learning how to read the EKG/TELE monitor strips I had a website that helped...I believe it was http://www.skillstat.com/Flash/ECGSim531.html

This is an interactive site and it seemed to help me immensely.

Here is another site I used as well: http://students.med.nyu.edu/erclub/ekgexp10.html

Hope this helps. We also used a book by SOLE. It was called something like Critical Care. It was really easy to read and understand (sorry can not find it at the moment to give you the exact title)

My biggest advice would be to stay on top of your reading and if you do not get something ask questions right away. Do not wait. If your class is anything like mine was it went fast and there was a lot of indepth material about the heart and stuff. Good luck!! and enjoy.

[Imafloat, BSN, RN]

I forgot about the EKG strips. There are many good EKG books, just remember to take them one step at a time, I had a system. I wasn't the best EKG student, I got them right about 85% of the time, which was fine with me. We had to do a lot of IV drip rates too.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

here's a post i made to a thread in july for someone looking for help with an icu rotation https://allnurses.com/forums/1727027-post3.html

https://allnurses.com/forums/1715533-post11.html

there are a lot of good links there

i did a search of threads that i had posted to where critical care information or help was asked for. i posted them here for you to link to and read. there are a lot of very helpful links and reading that will help you with your critical care subject this fall, so don't lose these links. one of the nicest websites i've seen (and it is posted in these threads is nurse bob's micu/icu survival guide at http://rnbob.tripod.com/ . for fun, here is a site you can share with your friends sometime. it is about triage and trauma http://www.trauma.org/resus/moulage/moulage.html - from trauma.org this is a fun interactive site of patient scenarios where you get to test your trauma treatment skills! your adventure begins with this: "a call breaks the quiet of the early morning trauma room. the on scene paramedics inform you that they are with a 26 year old male who was the restrained driver (no airbag) of a saloon car that had an argument (at 50mph / 80kph) with a telegraph pole and lost. the driver has been trapped in the car for around 30 minutes but is now free and has an open leg wound that is bleeding copiously and he is somewhat aggressive (glasgow coma score 14 - e4v4m6. they will be with you in ten minutes." from thereon you are presented with choices of actions to take. as i deliberatly chose the wrong actions i laughed and laughed at the responses that came up on the screen. talk about learning priorities . . .

you critical care experience will cover a lot of subjects and i've tried to include things that get you most of that information. if you find you still need help in certain areas post a question on the forums here. also, check out the sticky's in the various icu forums on allnurses (here is a link to a list of them https://allnurses.com/forums/f5/) as there are links to some information there that you might find helpful as well. good luck with your classes this fall!

https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/searching-critical-care-nursing-book-162233.html

https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/what-can-i-do-prepare-my-transition-sn-rn-cardiothoracic-ward-158912.html

https://allnurses.com/forums/f205/abnormal-abgs-intubation-158394.html

https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/critical-care-help-157686.html

https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/hemodynamics-157083.html

https://allnurses.com/forums/f205/help-central-venous-lines-152777.html