Is an LTAC Hospital good for a graduate nurse?
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This is a discussion on Is an LTAC Hospital good for a graduate nurse? in Long Term Acute Care (LTAC/LTACH), part of Nursing Specialties ... Hello, I am a recent graduate from a second degree program were I obtained my BSN :) I also...
by zia238 Aug 13, '10Hello,
I am a recent graduate from a second degree program were I obtained my BSN
I also have a BS in Business Administration as well. The market for new nurses is extremely tough in the Philadelphia area and I am interviewing with a LTAC facility next week. I am interested in working in Critical Care and thought that if I were offered this position I would learn a lot and be able to transfer to any ICU within some of the big hospitals down town.
Is an LTAC hospital a good place for a graduate nurse who wants to specialize in Critical Care? I didn't learn much about LTAC's in nursing school and wanted to ask experienced nurses what they thought about this....
I would appreciate any help/ suggestions/ feedback
Thanks!
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Aug 14, '10 by Nascar nurseYou may not get a good response in this forum. This is a long term care forum & usually we don't have anything in common with a long term ACUTE care facilities.
Sorry, good luck -
Aug 14, '10 by st4rl4dyI recently discovered the LTAC specialty, from what i understand it is much like a rehab or trauma floor at a hospital. Being Acute care i would think you'd come across acute patients who need to be in-patients longer. I feel it is not a great start for someone who wants to end up in critical care, but it is good enough place to practice a lot of your nursing skills. - Aug 14, '10 by zia238Thank you for your opinion, I appreciate it! I want to specialize in critical care and it's really difficult right now in the Philadelphia area for a new nurse to get into. I was hoping that I could spend a little over a year learning valuable skills that I could transfer into a hospital ICU floor.....
- Aug 14, '10 by Love-A-Nursei would say yes if the one you are interviewing for is like the one i worked.
we had a variety of patients and those patients were intubated, had trachs, drips [titrate] many different lines [hickman, picc, etc,] drew our own blood, keep our codes on our floor instead of a transfer to the hospital's based units among many things i have not named.
the disadvantage, 4 patients each on a "good" day and have had up to 7 when there was a call-in. the cn would help tremendously [depending on who the charge was].
wound nurse, therapy and resp was part of the team, too. - Aug 17, '10 by zia238Love-A-Nurse
Thank you for replying to my message, I really appreciate it. This LTAC does have a variety of patients who are intubated with trachs, they do have cardiac drips that need to be titrated (but they have a room that holds 4 patients together who are on these drips), Hickman, DobHoff, Piccs, etc. and we also draw our own blood too!
So the skills I would learn are amazing! However, it is a ratio of 7:1... each RN has 1 CNA... sometimes we can get 8 patients but the DON said she likes to keep it at 7:1... which scares me! I am afraid that the ratio is to high for patients who are so complex and don't want to risk my license or the care of one of my patients because I have too much on my plate..... Is a 7:1 ratio normal? - Aug 17, '10 by Love-A-Nursemy stars! the normal ratio is 7:1? okay, this is pitiful. we normally had 4:1 and this was risky. the times we had 7, it was not safe, period.
even a seasoned nurse would run. i did. yes, you will learn a lot, but...
how long is the orientation and how your preceptor responds to new orientees will be a couple of the deciding factors among others things.
let us know your decision. - Apr 8, '11 by aam83Wonderful place to start. You don't get extensive training though so you have to be honest about your skill set.
