Could anyone whose gone from Rehab/LTC nursing (dealing with 20 to 30 patients) and moved to Med/Surg nursing (with 6+ patients) please give their opinion of which suited them better? I work on a subacute unit in rehabilitation and average 20 patients. On a typical day, I might have 2 IV therapy, 2 traches, 2 GT, and many on NEB treatments. Quite a few of the 20, only require their scheduled and PRN meds, but I still find this many patients so overwhelming. Most of them are on so many meds, charting has to be done on 75% of them, and then there's always the time consuming complications that come up. The nurses I work with say if I can handle this, I can handle Med/Surg at a hospital, but I think those patients are typically more acute (although we get some very acute patients in the unit I'm at). I'd love to hear your opinion, because I'm very interested in working at a hospital and am wondering how it will differ. Do you feel you're able to better care for 6+ acute patients than 20 sub-acute? Which did you feel was more stressful? Thank you so much
Nursing News