Adequate preparation for ICU nursing?

[Happi2BRN]

I have been a nurse for 4 years, the first two in telemetry and the past 2 in med/surg.

I work in a small hospital and they are considering implementation of a 2-bed ICU.

There is an offer of 40 hours of classroom study followed by 4 weeks of clinical training. My question is with my experience and the training completed, does it sound like enough preparation for competent ICU care of patients? I'm interested in this but want to be sure I can provide care for the patients.

Thanks for any input.

[crabbyrn]

this is a LOT better orientation to CCU nursing than some places offer. You should be fine.

continue to study and learn outside of orientation. Hopefully, there will be another RN scheduled with you that has CCU experience that you can use as resource.

[dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN]

As long as you're working with another RN who does have ICU experience, you should be great.

[Good Morning, Gil]

Agree with the above poster. You don't really need any prior nursing experience to be a good ICU nurse, though it can't hurt; it just takes experience in the ICU to become competent, etc, as in any other change of specialty.

So long as you're working with at least 1 other experienced nurse, you should be fine, but I did note the 2 bed ICU. The typical ratio is 2 patients per nurse, so will there be anybody on the unit for you? I think it would be dangerous to even have just 1 nurse, even experienced in ICU, on an ICU floor alone because sometimes things go bad with both your patients at the same time.

Best of luck to you!