ECT PACU to PACU in hospital

Recovering ECT patients is going to be very different than working in a PACU in a hospital setting. Things you will see include: etts, nurse driven extubation, ventilators, a-lines, swan-ganz, periph nerve block catheters, continuous bladder irrigations, epidural and intrathecal medications.

Typical drugs you'll see: Phenylephrine, dopamine, nitroglycerine, nipride, Albumin, Hespan, metoprolol, labetalol, hydralazine, morphine, fentanyl, demerol, dilaudid, lasix, albuterol, racemic epi, narcan, neostigmine, robinul, succinylcholine, rocuronium, propofol, remifentanyl, versed, etc.

Inpatient pacu usually involves nurses extubating patients and pulling LMAs (depending on facility), ventilators, frequent hypotension and hypertension that require drips, transfusion of blood products, etc.

Inpatient PACUs are often like short-stay ICUs!

meandragonbrett's description of an acute care, major surgery, major trauma, hospital's PACU is very accurate.

However I don't want the description to completely scare you or any other nurse away from PACU.

There are intermediate level of care hospitals that don't schedule or do major surgeries. If these intermediate level hospitals have doctors on duty, emergency rooms, and OR staff, they may receive and stabilize critically ill patients. Then those patients would be transferred to a higher level of care facility.

I don't know what type of care patients require s/p ECT, so I really can't answer your question. If you are thinking of applying just go for it. All they can do is say no thanks.

Your PACU ECT recovery experience sounds more intense than my five years in an acute care (smaller) hospital PACU and my current ambulatory surgery PACU job.

Did you apply? How did it go?