From SICU to BICU and I'm so bored!

Specialties Burn

Published

Specializes in ICU.

0Because of many reasons I moved to an entirely new city and took up a new job.

I have over 4 years of surgical trauma ICU experience in a large level 1 facility that was a very fast paced ICU with really sick busy patients. We did everything from trauma to open hearts to transplants to burns to PICU. (It was a really unique unit that I absolutely loved!!) but I had to make a move to a new city.

I applied to many jobs, but chose another level 1 trauma center (because I thought it would be the most exciting busiest ICU) and ended up in the adult Burn ICU and pediatric trauma ICU. I have very little burn experience (even tho my last job did burns they were not very common).

Well I chose wrong. I am so incredibly bored!! I thought it being the only level 1 in the area I'd get to see a lot of interesting pediatric traumas and a lot of really interesting burns. But that just isn't the case. (Occasionally the peds traumas are very intense and interesting but also really sad so I don't get to excited about those and they aren't that common which is a good thing!)

the majority of my patients are burns and they are boring. I want to go back to my open bellys on 14 drips and crrt and balloon pump and cracking open chests at the bedside. I've only been at the new job 6 months and I feel like I have completely lost all my critical care skills. Most burns are walking and talking and just need pain meds. I feel like I am wasting away in here!

Its just frustrating but I don't want to quit when I've only been here 6 months. My coworkers are great, the pay is good, and the unit is well ran so it does have that going for it.

Im also in school full time for a dual FNP/AGACNP, which I don't graduate for 2 more years, but I'm not sure it's worth it to switch jobs... especially since at some point I will need to cut back my hours. And even if I switched jobs I have no idea which other hospital or ICU would be more like what I'm looking for...

Basically I just wanted to whine because I'm bored and I don't like burns and I miss how intense my old unit was and I'm just disappointed. I love bedside nursing and ICU nursing and I really wanted to love my new job (since it was going to be my last before I transition into an NP role) and I just don't.

Not really sure where to go from here...

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Specializes in Med-Tele; ED; ICU.

Sounds like the burn unit that you're in is pretty tame.

In the burn unit at my hospital, "walking and talking and just need pain meds" isn't the average case.

For sure, though, burns are a highly specialized unit and you don't often get those kinds of patients that you describe, mostly because somebody with that kind of co-morbidity rarely survives any kind of serious burns. They do get a fair amount of polytrauma associated with the burns.

It sounds like you're in the wrong place for your interest and would do well to move on.

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.
Most burns are walking and talking and just need pain meds. I feel like I am wasting away in here!

Doesn't sound like a real BICU. Ours has the sickest patients in the hospital! I agree that you should probably move on if you don't feel challenged.

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Specializes in Student Nurse of Anesthesiology.

Are you on the step-down side of the burn unit? I never got bored when I worked on the ICU side of the burn unit. 

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