Published
Hi everyone...sorry for the strange question in advance (though I've definitely seen some strange ones reading through the archives lately!)
Anyway, I'm finishing up my last pre-req right now and am about to apply to 2nd degree accelerated BSN programs.
I've been reading this board and giving my career choice a lot of thought lately.
First, I absolutely love the idea of working in the ICU. Focusing on one or two patients with high acuity at a time and knowing absolutely everything about them.
Performing intricate procedures, monitoring, titrations, etc, being able to access my pts quickly/see them from the nurses' station, etc.
I'm very detail oriented and hate doing a lot of unrelated things all at once, so ICU is very appealing to me.
I have soooo much respect for Med/Surg nurses, but I know that I would never survive in that environment long-term. I feel like I would hate it. Being pulled in a million directions, taking care of between 5-8 patients at once...I would get so distracted. Mad props to y'all!
Anyway, now that I've prattled on, I do have one question for you ICU'ers out there.
Would you say that the majority of your patients are unconscious or only semi-conscious for the majority of their stay before they get transferred out?
I don't mean to say this in the wrong way but, if so, do you find that you kind of appreciate that fact?
Obviously, I would absolutely want my patients to get better asap, but I feel like it might be nice to be able to just go about your work, not having to worry about getting sucked into conversation or being embarrassed by performing intimate care, etc.
Just being able to focus on providing amazing clinical care without interruption.
I understand that a lot of the times, the pt's family/friends are there, so you are still constantly updating/teaching, etc, but on nights, that wouldn't be an issue.
I love interacting with people most of the times and I know that as a professional, I will need to get over the "embarrassment" of performing intimate care (I'm male, so I guess I just have a bit of anxiety about the female patients), but it seems like it might be kind of nice. Obviously, when they would start to wake up/get better, you would have that interaction, which I think would be nice, as well. Kind of a nice mix of both.
Conversely, do some of you find that you don't like it b/c you can't get any response from the pt and they aren't able to communicate what is wrong? Also, I would imagine providing personal care is much more difficult, since they can't assist in moving themselves around, etc.
I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts!
Thanks in advance!