Difference between Surgical Telemetry = Medical Telemetry?

[OhYeahIneedaMiracle]

Sorry if this post doesn't make sense, but I was asked by a recruiter today what telemetry unit I would like - medical telemetry or surgical telemetry. I didn't know so I blurted out surgical telemetry. She got excited and had an "oh really?" look and set me up with an interview... It left me wondering why she got excited and me thinking "what exactly did I choose?" I thought it was like other telemetry units, but I guess its different?

I couldn't find a thread that described the difference... Will any of you be kind enough to paint a picture of what the differences are? Thank you so much for looking and helping :)

[smithd5]

I work on a surgical telemetry floor. The floor is designed to be a step-down unit for open heart surgery patients. We have 36 beds, all monitored, but we also get any surgical patient (ortho, GI, bariatrics, thoracic, vascular, neuro) that needs cardiac monitoring.

The medical telemetry floor mostly has patients who are pre/post cardiac cath, EP study, pacemaker/AICD insertion, chest pain/MI, syncope, electrolyte inbalances, arrhythmias, GI bleeds and pretty much any other patient that has not had surgery that needs cardiac monitoring.

The surgical telemtery floor gets A LOT of overflow from the medical floor, so we have a good combination of medical and surgical patients on telemetry. Hope this helps!

[OhYeahIneedaMiracle]

smithd5- thank you so much for clearing that up for me! It sounds like a really interesting and fun unit to work in :)

[_RN_]

Smithd5 described it perfectly.

[beckster_01, BSN, RN]

I'm starting on a CV surgical stepdown unit in a few weeks. I'm starting to get a little nervous about the job since I have only ever worked on medical units/clinicals, and have loved having the variety of patients for several shifts (if not long term). I know that this is not how my new job is going to be, just hoping that I will like surgical patients as much as I liked medical..