Cath Lab nurses!! Intro plz!

Marchantia · Aug 11, 2007

Well first of all thanks for keeping this thread active.

Gosh compared to you guys i still feel like a toddler. My nursing experience is barely 4 years of which 2 and a half of those have been in the cathlab. Well in terms of the capacity that we handle i would say that we are a small facility, but we see it all. You name it and we do it, coronary diagnostic and intervention procedures, EP and ablation studies, PPM, ICD's loop recorder insertions, PTMC, and of course congenital heart defect closures ( e.g. ASD, VSD, PDA). We get patients as old as a day old to somtimes an 80 year old.

keep on posting and keep this thread active

jrmom · Jan 7, 2008

Hi there

nursing 20 yrs

CCU/ICU background, now work cath lab for 5 yrs. I love it, great job, BUT highly stressful and competitive with high turnover rate, always vacancies.

we have 2 labs

17-20 angiograms a day

4-6 angioplasties a day

do cardioversions, implantable defibrillators, EPS, permanent pacemaker implatations (in the OR, but use our nurses)

WHEW, lots of OT and on call

rnurse2b · Feb 3, 2008

Hello everyone!

I'm so excited to see the CathLab portion added. I recently started in the cath lab after thinking about it for a couple of years and now I wish I hadn't waited. I absolutely love it!

Yes, the nurses I work with are type A personalities, we have a good mix of men also. We do pretty much the same as the previous posters, we have 3 cath labs in our unit.

Hope to see more from the cath lab

angel110600 · Feb 18, 2008

Hi I am a cath lab RN with a specialty in electrophysiology! I love it, love it. I came straight from the floor to EP first. I actually had to study A LOT! I live in Iowa. We are in the top 1% for drug coated stent placement. We have surgical back up but hardly use it! We have 8 cath labs with two lab having bi-plane technology.

We perform angiograms, right heart caths, stent placements, angioplasty, rotoblader, thrombolectomy, PTA's, vena cava filters, IABP instertion and change outs,ICD's, pacemakers, bi-V pacemakers and ICD, EP studies, lead extractions, a-fib ablations, cyro-ablations, laser technologies, and tilt table testing.

There are 23 cardiologists and 4 electrophysiologists. 17 are interventional cardiologists. The practice is very very busy! We also serve the greater eastern Iowa and northestern part of Illiniois cath labs that do not perform interventions. Usually these are diagnostic caths and if it is a difficult intervention, they patients are flown up to our facility.

Our facility is a level II trauma center. We perform about 30-40 procedures a day. In addition, 4-5 EP procedures. Our cath lab has over 40 staff with a mix of RTR and RN's. We have a seond shift (3p-11:30p) and a call team who comes in at 3pm and works until the cases are done. If the call team works past 2am, they do not have to return to work the next day.

We also have one EP staff member on call every night until 7am. We have 5 dedicated EP staff. Each takes one call night a week and then rotate the weekends every 5th weekend. The two other staff members for the EP team comes from the cath lab call team.

In the cath lab, 4 people are on a call team. Everyone has one call night a week and rotates every 6th weekend. Unless you have senority and there are enough staff members to cover the weeknights, you only have to take call every 6th weekend. Our hospital policy is that no one should work 16 hours striaght so we make sure our call teams are well rested. They are not required to come in until 3pm and if they work past 2am, they are not required to come in the next day.

As for time off, we can have two full weeks of vaction every year that is gaurenteed! We are only allowed to have 3 people off at one time. Even if we do not have PTO stored up we are still granted two weeks. Our staff is very good about helping each other out when we have personal issues or need to get to a family functions. We have 5 paid holidays, and three sick days a year.

We are not a teaching hospital, so we work very closely with our docs. We have an awesome physician/nurse relationship! Although, we have these things, we are still tired and want to hire more people, but as you say it's all policitcal!

angel110600 · Feb 18, 2008

HA HA HA! I do that a lot! COUGH COUGH COUGH!

angel110600 · Feb 18, 2008

I definitely remember the Bad ole days, dutchgirl. When we first started
angioplasty, you could count on v-fib showing up more than once in a case.
Complications were part of everyday life. Stents are wonderful, but it took
a while to get them perfected, that't for sure. And then, it took forever to
stop groin bleeding. You could barely chart when you got done because your hands were so stiff.
Things are better for everyone, staff and patients.
Life is good!
Now, we concentrate on door to balloon time.
How's everyone doing with that? Our average, off hours is 67 minutes. Keep up the good work everyone!
Cath lab nurses are awesome!

Our average is 30mins! Our fastest is 17 min! It's crazy!

jobyjoz · May 23, 2008

Hi everyone!!

I have been a cath lab nurse for 10 years. I love every minute of it. I am predominantly non clinical now. But I love the clinical side the best. On call, even at 2 am, gives me an adrenaline rush. I find acute work very rewarding. It is very nice to know that I am not a loner.

:up:

Indus · Nov 15, 2009

Hi Everyone!

Nice to meet you all!

I've been a RN for 38 years, Cath Lab/EP lab 99% of the last 18 years! I'm in my 3rd lab since '91.

Lab I'm in now has less responsibility for the RN's and more for the techs...long story. I'm physically feeling that the call and long hours are too much for me, but still love what I'm doing! It all comes down to being able to care for the patient and do some teaching!

Rose

pghfoxfan · Nov 19, 2009

I have been a nurse for over 27 years. My last 7 have been in an EP lab. I just transferred to another hospital and am primarily for EP but am also helping in Cath lab holding. I am hoping to learn how to circulate and chart for caths.

harley007 · Dec 13, 2009

It is so nice to find a CCL thread as I totally love working in my lab. especially the opportunity to give 100% of my attention and care to just one patient. Sure I will admit I love to have my skills challenged when a patient starts to circle the drain. It still amazes me how we all pull together and even with just the on-call team of three staff we stabilize the patient and except for anesthesia, we have yet to call for extra help with a "code blue" We have a designated pre & post holding unit and a separate self contained EP lab. The patient is transfer from holding unit directly to the table by one of our specially trained CNA transporters. We do 20+ cases a day ... everything from diagnostic, angioplasty, IABP, temp. pacers, pressure wire, IVUS, etc., etc. Staff is expected to do the triple threat of circulating, scrubbing and recording. We are lucky to have an amazing state of the art system that records the case, prints, and collects all the ACC data. Call is from 6p to 6a but staff tries to say if we are drowning in cases at the end of the day. It sure helps to keep more than one lab running with 5 add on cases backed up. Last week was my worst call ever! I took on two extra call nights due to a sick call and was up all night and then worked the next day for those two days and then did the same for my own scheduled night ... naturally it was also my weekend on-call. I still love this position more than I can say and they will have to kick me out the front door dragging my walker behind to get me to leave. Glad to meet you all!

JillRRN · Dec 13, 2009

Ok, I am starting to freak out here... I just got hired into an outpatient cath lab , no call, no weekends, awesome right? The problem is I have NEVER worked in a cath lab or ICU in my life! Now I have worked tele and am an extremely fast learner with an excellent talent for picking things up VERY quickly, BUT I still am afraid I am in over my head...advice PLEASE...What should I be studying most? Waveforms, drugs? I start next week! Any help to get me throught the first day without looking like a complete idiot!! Thanks:eek:

harley007 · Dec 14, 2009

Best advice? Just hang in there until you are comfortable. You work tele so I am sure you are all set with recognizing what a dangerous EKG tracing is and I assume an S-T elevation. Review you basic heart anatomy so you know all of the coronary arteries. Most tasks are learned through repetition such as scrubbing and setting up the table and recording the case. Conscious sedation is usually administer by the circulating RN so that a good area to review. The cardiologists usually want what they want NOW so learn the equipment and where it is kept. An easy way to do that is to always assist with stocking the room you are working in and or help put away the equipment deliveries in your main supply room. Most of all, remember that everyone on the staff started off just like you and had to learn everything from scratch so they may be talented but they're not super heros .... although some may think they are:) In a diagnostic lab it takes a good six months to feel confident and in a interventional lab it takes about a year. If you have any other questions just e-mail me I would love to help. Best of luck!