applying for NEURO RN position.

The types and prevalence of different dx's will vary among hospitals. I've worked in two SICUs that include neuro. The old one was a university hospital and did a lot of brain tumor surgeries. My current hospital is not the go-to place if you have cancer, but we're a level 1 trauma center (the first one is not), so we see very few brain tumors but a LOT of TBIs and cervical SCIs. We get a lot of strokes--both bleeds and post-tPA. Every once in a while we'll get someone in status epilepticus. For some reason even though our neuro ICU is the SICU, most of the anoxic brain injuries (CO poisoning, suicide attempts by hanging, etc.) go to our MICU...but if the hospital has a dedicated neuro ICU you might see those. That list isn't all-inclusive, but is the bulk of our neuro stuff.

Monitoring wise, we use a lot of EVDs; we use a smaller number of Licoxes, Bolts, and Caminos.

That said, I'm guessing it's pretty unlikely that you'll be grilled about diseases in the interview. I would anticipate being asked how you function under pressure because in neuro, things can go downhill FAST.

Hi,

I have been in neuro for 8 mnths now and have been to a few neuro interviews for 3 positions including neuro ICU (I got all of them:) so the main qns asked were behavioural qns. A few scenarios such as if a person who was 15/15 now begins to get agitated, confused what would you do and what do you expect is going on and what tests would doctor order. Know what are the components of neuro vitals, what c-spine precautions mean and what assessments are included including care such as logrolling. Also, SDH, SAH, Aneurysms, Brain tumor are common diagnoses on my unit so we do have people pre and post op so just anticipating what the needs would be pre and post. Pituitary tumor pts post surgery) are on special precautions such as strict ins/outs and vs/nvs q1hr including flat bedrest. Just familiarizing a few of these helped me when I went for my interviews. I hope this helps. Otherwise majority of the qns were focused on behavioural scenarios including conflict resolution (using examples).

I love neuro except that it can get heavy so self care is crucial.

​all the best :))