capstone in CCU

Hello,

I did my preceptorship in a CCU (which, I believe, is the same idea as a capstone). Loved it! That's how I fell in love with critical care.

Three things I found it important to study up on...

1. Arrhythmias. You will have plenty of opportunities to look at EKGs. I was not able to ID them all the time and I was told by my preceptor that that is something that only comes with experience. However, it helped me to get an overview of them so that I had an idea of what is going on once I was told that this patient is in atrial fibrillation, Wenckebach, SVT etc.

2. ACLS protocol. You may get the opportunity to participate in codes. My preceptor had me as a recorder on a few. Knowing a bit about ACLS helped me anticipate what will come next.

3. Cardiac drugs like vasopressors and antiarrhythmics. Know their intended and unintended effects on preload, afterload/SVR and inotropic, chronotropic and dromotropic effects.

Did your nursing program go into detail about atrial lines, CVP, pulmonary artery caths and such? If so, great! Study up on those too. Have a cheat sheet of normal values handy. Think of the heart as a great big freeway system and reason through increases and decreases in the values these invasive lines obtain.

Good luck! :)

thank you...some of that stuff my program didnt go over if my memory serves me right so i will be sure to study up on it. If there is anything else you can think of please let me know...and my capstone is the same thing as the preceptorship lol!