AF Nurse Looking For Crit Care Bases

[jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA]

I'm an Air Force active duty med surg nurse applying for the critical care fellowship. Can someone who has gone through it give me some more info regarding what goes on for an entire year at this thing? Also, I would like to know the locations of the large ICUs with CCATT missions; I'm looking at CCATT down the road.

The nursing KX only tells you what bases have critical care slots. It doesn't tell you how large the facility is or what sort of operations occur there.

I was tentatively looking at Walter Reed, Landstuhl, and Langley as my top choices. I figured Travis, SAMMC, and Wright Patterson probably CCATT too. Other suggestions?

[midinphx, BSN]

I'm active AF icu. I was at Sammc and have just pcs'd to RAF Lakenheath. You are right to ask about icu facilities. At Sammc there are multiple ICUs. You don't get to chose which you work at. I got sent to the peds icu, grumbling. Lol. So now I'm at a base that has a coveted 5 icu slots. We have a 3 "bed special care unit". Roflmao. I'm doing something in nursing that I have never ever done before. Medsurg nursing. There are 2 inpt units at the hospital. L&D and our little MSU (multiservice unit) of which our SCU is a part. I don't know if I'll touch a real icu pt here. It was an ego trip I have to deal with that I'm not a real icu practicing nurse right now.

You do want to go to larger facility as a new icu nurse to solidify your skills. Langley is basically a step down. Landstuhl won't take you as a new icu nurse and you have to be CCATT before even getting chosen to go there, so put on your list just don't hold your breath. Sammc is combined with army and still has adjustment issues but I think it is settling down with good leadership, but as new icu, you would do really good there. I believe it is the only level 1 trauma hospital for AF nursing.

Hope that hat helps some.

[Yammar]

The ICUs that come to mind are Sammc (Army-yuck), Travis(drama-drama-drama), Wright-Pat, Eglin, Nellis, Kessler, Elmendorf, there may be one more stateside but no better than a step-down. Truth is most of the ICUs in the AF are not the same as you would be exposed to on the civilian side and they way they do things is so not the way it would be done on the civilian side.

I don't see a real benefit of taking a larger over a smaller hospital as a first assignment as I have worked with both and the skill set is indistinguishable. You will be as good as you decide to be wherever they place you (bloom where you are planted). I have worked with excellent nurses from the wee tiny Eglin and horrible nurses from Travis. In Sammc you may see more types of patients but you deal with the Army and all the political garbage that takes place that you may not deal with at a smaller facility. Also, at Sammc you tend to deploy with every bucket (so it seems). It would also be easier for you to get a CCATT spot at a smaller base because you are competing with fewer people.

[midinphx, BSN]

Yammar - in the interest of building joint service, can we not not say "army- yuck". I'm sure you didn't mean it in a derogatory manner toward our fellow nurses.

Having just left ICU at SAMMC, I can say I was happy to leave, but there are things rom there that I already miss. I never felt any negative working sided by side with army.

[Yammar]

I deployed with some amazing Army nurses!! I was referring to the scads of middle managers that SAMMC has an endless supply of - it gets in the way of getting anything done. I have many friends there that love the work and the nurses they work with but hate the bureaucracy that comes with the facility.

[midinphx, BSN]

Bureaucracy mess seems like it's everywhere! It's true that SAMMC is its own animal. I thought going to an all AF base would be different. Well, it's different, but can't say it's better.