Critical Care nursing

Sour Lemon · May 11, 2018

What is the best way for a new nurse to get prepared for becoming a critical care nurse?
Also, what is the best way to study for the NCLEX, and how long did you study for?

Get experience. I think I would have started in med/surg or tele if I wanted to move forward to ICU. Some people start off in ICU and thrive, though.

I studied for NCLEX by going to nursing school for a few years and paying attention at least some of the time. Luckily, that was enough in my case.

Accolay · May 11, 2018

1. Are you being hired as a critical care nurse for your first job?

2. I read through NCLEX questions.

Rocknurse, MSN, APRN, NP · May 11, 2018

If you want to work critical care then you have a couple options. If you're in a BSN program and have a very high GPA, you might be able to get into an intern program as a new grad in some ICUs. Not all ICUs have these programs so look for large hospitals preferably attached to a teaching hospital. Secondly, if you can't get into one of those, try getting a job on a medical or surgical floor to get some experience, particularly if there's tele. That will put you in a good position to transfer. You'll need to get some inpatient experience to do that, so going to a long term care facility, or working in a clinic might not put you in the best position.

For the NCLEX, buy a couple of NCLEX books that have practice questions in them. Concentrate on 10 or 20 questions at a time. If you get any of the answers wrong, then go and look up those items and learn them. Keep doing that until you get to the end of the book. Once you've done that, then go right back to the beginning and start the book over again. I did over 6000 practice questions for my NCLEX and I passed first time. Doing multiple questions gets you to know what they're looking for and gives you a feel for the type of questions that will come up. You'll start to see emerging patterns. Good luck!