Medical vs Surgical Cardiac Floor: which one?

[**All Heart RN**]

Which one do you prefer?

I begin a Cardiac RN Internship in about a month and will be spending about 3 wks on each cardiac floor (15 wks total). At some point in the program, I'll have to decide whether I'd like to work on a Medical or Surgical Cardiac floor before I'm assigned to my permanent unit (I'll be spending the last 4 wks of the Internship on my permanent unit).

Could someone breakdown the differences between the two types of floors as far as pt population and nursing considerations. Ofcourse I have a general idea of what patients (based on diagnosis) would be on each floor but I'd like to hear some specifics from nurses who have worked on Medical and/or Surgical Cardiac floors.

Thanks for your input!

[**All Heart RN**]

I see that there have almost been 100 views on this thread but no responses... If anyone is interested in this topic, I also posted this under the General Nursing Forum and received a few very helpful replies ; )

[emt2rn82]

Having worked both of them, In the Surgical Cardiac ICU, i found nursing kinda like a PACU, you have the patient for 24 hours, extubate them within 4-6 hours after surgery, watching for fluid deficit, maintaing tight blood pressure parameters, surgical wounds, monitoring chest tube drainage looking for an increase of drainage, maintaining a stable cardiac rhythm more often A-fib with a rapid vent response, and PVC's. early ambulation, very intense nursing during the first 12 hours, but normally settles after that unless the patient is sick, occasionally will have one with a balloon pump, or a VAD. In the medical cardiac ICU I find that we get the people from the cardiac cath lab, groin management, blood pressure with less tight controls. more medical management, more medications, CHF exacerbations, VT, V V fib s/p arrests, totally different relm, I have noticed that it depends on the nurse if they prefer Medical patients over surgical patients, For myself I have found that I prefer the medical population, because every person is treated with the same but different treatments and medications, while in the surgical side is more "cookie cutter" in nature, very protocol driven, if a happens then do A,B,C. Atleast in my institution. Hope I helped out alittle.