Cath Lab Residency

Kind of. 

To get straight to it: another nurse & I were "guinea pigs" for this kind of program, and got sucked into it, by an attempt of our hospitals Cath Lab, to create a cath lab RN residency program.

Expectation was: in 4 months, to learn how to be a Cath Lab Nurse and ALSO learn to be a Cath Lab Tech (aka scrubbing). Neither one of us succeeded. Large hospital, level 1 trauma, we get the sickest of the sick. approx: 1,000 beds. 11 labs: majority cath lab, a couple EP, a couple IR, one designated to peds cases. (that doesn't include the ancillary labs that were here and there throughout the hospital. IDK how many labs in total exist there even though I worked there for 5 years) 

TBH my initial thoughts were: 

"I am glad you think I am smart and all of that... however I aint THAT smart. I know that I am biting off more than I can chew (and I wish I left sooner... to this day feel blessed I didn't hurt anyone)."

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"How is it an expectation to learn how to learn both the Cath Lab RN roles and Cath Lab Tech roles in just four months, with no prior Cath Lab experience? Isn't that actually a little insulting to your Cath Lab Techs? On average they went to school for 1-3 years + they get orientation... and yet I am to learn the Tech side of things in just 2 months? WHAT?!"

You don't know what you don't know. 

RN piece went just fine. Circulating and Documenting went just fine. The last two months were dedicated to trying to teach a nurse how to be a cath lab scrub tech, which is unreasonable and unsafe, esp in a hospital like this one. We received patients from neighbor hospitals when those patients got too sick for those hospitals to handle them. We got (bad) STEMIs - Impella assisted PCIs. Cards Shock patients. Complete HB patients requiring immediate TVP placement. COVID patients, uncertain etiology: but had cardiac symptoms. Tandem heart patients. Heart transplant patients. Patients with LVADs. 

I bit off more than I could chew. I hate to share this: it just depends on the facility. I am doing something different now. Still in procedure world. Still feel blessed that my patients, while under my care - safe & sound. 

I have a total of 7 years experience - most of that being cardiac intensive care unit nursing (3/4 years). In the mix I also have that "residency" experience where I was expected to learn to scrub (nvm that it was in the height of the pandemic, expectations stayed the same). Also have done (surgical) PACU. Pre-post-intra Op Interventional Radiology ex. Plus pre-post exp. for Cath/IR/EP cases. Little bit of peds exp.

Credentials: RN, BSN, CCRN, BLS, ACLS, PALS + CIS training (Cardiovascular Interventional Specialist - aka fancy term for saying that I did some tech training and makes the hospital look good, not about me at all). 

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Depends on the facility. I just accepted a position in cath lab but we serve a very specific population. It's laid back. We get STEMIs occasionally but not like the big hospitals across the street. They are well staffed though so they basically told me they have the time to really take their time with me. All my previous experience was cardiac stepdown (around 6 years).