is acute rehab considered med/surg?

kTIE · Jun 4, 2007

In the facility close to our hospital, a patient is basically med surg and all the patient's they accept have to be able to tolerage at least 3-4 hours of speech, occupational and physical therapy. They can have medical conditions that require medical care, but the rehab portion is meeting criteria to be in that facility, so it should be considered acute care. More rehab oriented though....not sure if it would be as challenging as a med surg floor in and of itself.

glasgow3 · Jun 4, 2007

hi,
I am considering taking a position on an acute rehab unit located in a hospital.
However, the reason I want to work in a hospital is because I want that "med/surg" experience (have 2 years community health experience but no hospital will hire me since i don't have acute care exp.)... is an acute rehab unit considered med/surg? or would 2 years of working on this floor still not count as acute care experience?
thanks for any replies!!

The answer to your question is no (it is not med/surg).

And although physically located in the same building, acute rehab is still post-acute care.

That said, your circumstance sounds like hospital insanity/nonsense. Med-Surg in my opinion is the real "meat" of nursing. It's the stuff you learned in nursing school after all. (yea yea I'm aware of the Med-Surg is a "specialty" word game some nursing organizations put out there.)

Med-Surg is extremely demanding in every way and the positions are typically very hard to fill; I can't understand why you would have trouble finding a hospital willing to give you a chance in acute care on a Med-Surg floor. They start new grads there, why not you?

TracyB,RN, RN · Jun 4, 2007

Hmmmppphhhh...

I guess it would depend on the facility. Our patients were so damn sick, you would wonder how in the hell they "qualified" to be on an acute rehab unit..

I would consider my old unit med/surg with quadruple the work due to all the rehab components thrown in for poops & grins. Maybe we just weren't busy enough suctioning, tele monitoring, plus doing all those damn max assist transfers with slide boards, etc, etc, etc, etc...

We had some of the sickest patients I have ever seen & I've seen LOTS of sickies.

glasgow3 · Jun 4, 2007

Hmmmppphhhh...
I guess it would depend on the facility. Our patients were so damn sick, you would wonder how in the hell they "qualified" to be on an acute rehab unit..
I would consider my old unit med/surg with quadruple the work due to all the rehab components thrown in for poops & grins. Maybe we just weren't busy enough suctioning, tele monitoring, plus doing all those damn max assist transfers with slide boards, etc, etc, etc, etc...
We had some of the sickest patients I have ever seen & I've seen LOTS of sickies.

Never said Rehab nursing didn't have challenges or value (I'm certified in rehab Nursing as well as critical care); But you discharge from acute care and admit to rehab, not merely transfer from unit to unit. You eval the patient for rehab prior to admission for appropriateness. Certain specialized rules regarding diagnosis mix and a separate reimbursement structure exists for rehab. Rehab is not Med-surg nor acute care.

celle507 · Jun 4, 2007

hi, thank you all for your replies. i didn't think acute rehab was really med/surg. i guess i was hoping it was considered acute enough so that if later on, i want to go and work on a med/surg floor or in a critical care unit or whatever, i wouldn't have to go in as a "new grad" again but as someone with acute care experience with the requisite 1-2 years experience.

it seems like i would have a harder time in the future marketing myself as someone with hospital experience (rather than rehab experience) than someone who worked on a med/surg floor.

i would rather just work on a med/surg floor but i placed my application to all the area hospitals and none gave me a call back except for this acute rehab unit.

kTIE · Jun 5, 2007

acute rehab is considered acute care. It is billed that way and insurances and Medicare both recognize it as acute care. Where do you get that acute rehab is equal to subacute or snf or tcu?????

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Jun 5, 2007

In our hospital, which has an acute rehab floor, med-surg is med-surg and rehab is rehab. They are not interchangeable, and if one is seeking med-surg experience, the rehab floor is not the recommendation.

The med-surg units are, after all, treating patients for acute conditions, and are either post or pre-surgical most of the time. They are being treated for current cardiac conditions, current respiratory conditions, on an ACUTE basis. These are not the patients who are ready for rehab, acute or otherwise. They need to be discharged from our med-surg units before they can go to either our rehab or someone else's.