CCU advice

Tweety, BSN, RN · Jul 19, 2008

I think it probably varies from place to place. Our CVICU just accepted a nurse transfered from med-tele floor with one year of experience. Hopefully they will receive thorough training.

Good luck. I'll move this post to the critical care forum where you might get better advice. :)

BBFRN, BSN, PhD · Jul 20, 2008

Scott, it may depend on your facility, and how well you do once you're working in the unit for a while. Your coworkers will have input as to how ready they feel you are to take fresh hearts, and someone will have to agree to take you on in training you to do it. You will also take classes to prepare you for it as well. The best thing you can do once you get your bearings as a nurse on the unit, is to help the ones who do take fresh hearts when their patients come up from surgery. Watch what they do closely, and only do what they direct you to do. Ask questions, and take note. Maybe you can start out by offering to help set up the room, etc.

While you're doing your fellowship, maybe you can also ask one of the surgeons if you can observe in the OR with them to get an idea of what happens before they come up to the unit as well. If you ask the right surgeon, they may agree to let you do this.

I think it's great that you are so interested in this area.

Galaknore · Jul 20, 2008

Thanks for moving the thread sorry about that. On Thursday I was able to see how the room was set up and a fresh patient arrive back to the unit. That is a great idea to try and get into the OR. I felt as if I was missing part of the process of the transfer.

Scott

nursecass · Jul 21, 2008

I think the above posts are correct that it depends on your unit. Ours requires that new grads have one year experience before cross-training, although it sounds like I may be the only one that will be doing it that quickly. (Most others on our unit waited 2-2.5 yrs.) I think it's just up to what you feel you can do and how comfortable you are with your knowledge base.

But really BBFRN nailed it on the head-get in with the fresh hearts, ask questions, help set up the rooms, ask surgeons questions, etc. From day one on my unit I've been interested and driven, so I make it a point to go into every fresh heart room and see what's going on, and help as much as I can. Our unit has a "second" for every heart, which is basically another nurse besides the primary that is in the room when the pt shows up, makes sure the pt gets hooked up to everything properly, zeros lines, draws initial labs, untangles the mess of cords/lines, etc and I have started doing that recently so that it is not so foreign to me once I cross train. But congrats on finding something you are interested in, and good luck!! :)

ski4life · Jul 22, 2008

I am not too familiar with what the critical care fellowship is- but I am assuming you have not worked as a RN yet? CT surg. units vary in how they like to train nurses, I first learned post-op open hearts just through "seconding", general ICU experience and exposure in the rooms, starting with just observation. There was no "formal" training, but after about a year in the unit you were "ready". I think some nurses are ready sooner than that, but if you aren't ready after a year you may never be...... I then relocated across country to a CT surg unit that did formal classroom training then expected you to be ready for basic CABG/valve care after about 2-3 months of classes and orientation, depending on your clinical background. Then things like all the external devices, transplants, and more complex surgeries were added on after some experience, with classes for each new thing. I personally liked the classroom approach better. As the others said, it varies from place to place-there is no set requirement. Good luck! :redbeathe