Cardiac telemetry vs medical telemetry?

[kathleenorrick]

Hi!

I'm a soon to be December graduate getting ready to apply to jobs, and a couple of the listings on the hospital I'm applying state openings for a Cardiac Telemetry and a Medical Telemetry unit...what's the difference?

I worked at this same hospital over the summer as an extern, in the big cardiac building that is part of the big hospital campus, and that building has two tele floors. So maybe the cardiac tele is one of those, and the med surg floor where they are on cardiac monitoring? Or is this just a regular med surg floor??

If anyone has any experience with these, or opinions on whether either of these would be appropriate for a new grad, let me know!!

I'm also interested in applying to Oncology if there are any new grad residencies in that area, so if anyone has any experience with that or opinions on a new grad starting off with that, that'd be really helpful.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! :)

Kathleen

[MunoRN, RN]

Generally the difference is that "medical telemetry" is for the purpose of ruling out an arrhythmia while cardiac telemetry refers to active management of arrhythmias or more specific EKG analysis that just what rhythm the patient is in.

[bd2rn]

Cardiac Tele is for pts who are admitted with more purely cardiac problems, and Medical Tele is pts with medical problems who also need cardiac monitoring.

[bd2rn]

Also, I always advocate for new grads to start on Med-Surg for at LEAST a couple of years. Nothing beats that experience. Nothing. And you will take those skills you honed and that knowledge you gained with you.